Script to find a specific USB drive and copy a file?

I need help writing a script to find a specific USB flash drive and copy a file. I know the path to the file except for the drive letter. The USB flash drive could be any of 3 - call them USB_Drive1, USB_Drive2, and USB_Drive3. The actual copy is no problem, but I have no idea how to find the drive letter.

The script has to run on both Windows 10 and very old (by definition) Windows 7. I assume the the Win7 systems have PowerShell 3.0 but I don't know for sure.

Are there any sample scripts I can look at to help me along? I'm completely PS-illiterate so I'm likely to as lots more questions if the examples are in PS.

I'm running Win 10 20H2, build 19042.1110, but that's not very meaningful information since the script has to run on Win7.

I looked at it but I don't see how it helps. I need something in a script, not something with a GUI. Did I miss something? Is there a command line invocation?

I think I'd better start over trying to explain what I need. The example above does me no good because "$DestinationDir = 'c:\<WhereEver>'" is exactly what I don't have. "\<WhereEver>", yes'; "c:", no.

There is a USB flash memory drive named USB_Drive1, USB_Drive2, or USB_Drive3 probably plugged in a USB port. I have no idea what its assigned drive letter is, but I need to copy the file \WhereEver from it. If it makes things easier I'm willing to assume the drive is plugged in somewhere.

I got it the first time around. But now you're saying you don't have a destination -- where you plan on copying the file to!

Unless your drive-letterless path exists on more than one drive, the volume labels are superfluous except narrow the search if you have 20 or so drives connected at once.

The code I posted gets the drive letters for every attached removable drvie, combines each with the path stored in $RootLessPath and tests to see which, if any, is valid. Valid names are passed on the the ForEach Copy-Item scriptblock. But again, you have to have an idea of where you want to copy the files to -- and that is generally referred to as a destination.

So if three uSB drives were connected, with drive letters K, L, and M, all three possible paths:

• K:\Music\04 Track 04 2.m4a
• L:\Music\04 Track 04 2.m4a
• M:\Music\04 Track 04 2.m4a

are created with Join-Path and then tested to see if htey refer to an actual file. Valid paths are passed on to Copy-Item.

If you want to narrow the search to specific volume labels, put them in a string array:

Code:

$USBLabels = @'
USB_Drive1
USB_Drive2
USB_Drive3
'@ -split "`n"

and use htat array to filter the drives returned:

Code:

([System.IO.DriveInfo]::GetDrives() | Where DriveType -eq 'Removable' | Where VolumeLabel -in $USBLabels ).Name |
  Where { Test-Path ( $FoundPath = Join-Path $_ $RootLessPath ) } |
ForEach-Object
{
    Copy-Item $FoundPath $DestinationDir
}

Ah. I misinterpreted "destination" because I haven't been concerned with destination of the copy. I obviously didn't look at the scripts. The destination will be on the drive containing the script - yest another USB flash drive. If this were a .bat file, destination would (I think) be %~dp0%<WhatEver>%.

I'll have to tweak the code (while trying to learn PS). There should be only one of the 3 USB drives found so I won't need an array; I'll just pick the first one whose label contains the sought string.

What is Windows disk management showing?

pokeefe0001 said:

Ah. I misinterpreted "destination" because I haven't been concerned with destination of the copy. I obviously didn't look at the scripts. The destination will be on the drive containing the script - yest another USB flash drive. If this were a .bat file, destination would (I think) be %~dp0%<WhatEver>%.

I'll have to tweak the code (while trying to learn PS). There should be only one of the 3 USB drives found so I won't need an array; I'll just pick the first one whose label contains the sought string.

Take another look -- the array isn't for collecting results, it holds the three valid VolumeLabels you want to limit your search to. So instead of testing against three separate values:

Code:

If ( $MyUSBlabel -eq  $Label1 ) -or ( $MyUSBlabel -eq $Label2 ) -or ( $MyUSBlabel -eq $Label3 )

You put the reference values in an array and test against the whole collection at once:

Code:

$ValidLabels = ( 'Label1', 'Label2', 'Label3' )

If ( $MyUSBlabel -in $ValidLabels )

          # # or ##

If ( $ValidLabels -contains $MyUSBlabel )

It's faster & makes your code more readable.