Robocopy novice needs help!

I guess, selecting the JPEGS holding down the Right click button and dragging it to F:\Test folder and choosing Move here and letting go would be too difficult?

It would be a lot simpler to use the GUI free it writes it all for you RoboCop RoboCopy download | SourceForge.net

You all have brought up a significant issue regarding my project.

I have to get my terminology correct. A Folder goes into a File, correct? So on a Disk Drive there may be many Files with many Folders within them. Within those Folders would be Photos, etc., etc.
Example: C:\My-Stuff\Photos\jpg’s, C:\Folder\File\photos
I hadn’t gotten that far into it, to consider duplicate names and having them being over written. My plan was very basic, reflecting my Unit Record Data Processing experience. Consider the Test Folder having all the photos from a Drive written to it. Then the Test Folder renamed to something like:
Photos are from Drive Serial #: WXR1E848JPP0
Photos are from Drive Serial #: S2YPNB0H746288
Photos are from Drive Serial #: You-Get-The-Idea
This way I would be documenting the Drives I recovered photos from. The Drive that would have these Folders on it would have perhaps 100 uniquely named Folders on it. Each of these Folders however would, as you suggested, could have photos in them with duplicate names. I do not know how to handle that situation.
I do however, own a piece of Software that searches for Duplicate Photos and can do it via several methods. I know it can search by name, size, date, Byte-by-Byte Comparison and “SHA256 Checksum + File Size”. The last one sounds complicated so I’d guess I’d use it to scan the Drive with all the Photo Folders on it. If it works as advertised, I’d wind up with Originals and Duplicates with a choice of what to delete. Sounds simple and I hope it is.
My challenge is getting the jpg photos off the +-100 Drives onto a single Drive ready to be processed. I have an up-to-date Windows-7 System with the Duplicate Photo Software on it. The Windows System is on the Hard Drive with the C: Volume and the F: Volume of an internal Disk of an HP AIO PC. I will use an external USB Device that allows me to insert 2.5 or 3.5 inch Disks in it to process the Drives. I hope this clarifies what I am attempting to do. I do appreciate your assistance.

This is what I have used to copy so far but it copies the folders and I have to go one by one to get the jpg's out.

xcopy /v/s/e/d c:\*.jpg f:\test\

Mike,

No -
Folders contain files.
A file is something like one of your photos, a file called something like ThisPhoto.jpg
A folder is merely somewhere to put a group of files - just like a cardboard folder might contain printouts of a group of photos.


By the way, there is no reason to expect all the photos to be .jpg files. Some might be .png, .jpeg, .bmp, .mix [if you're unlucky] & a range of other image formats.


Are you certain that computer number one does not contain two photos with the same filename buried somewhere within its folders?
Such accidental duplicate filenames are quite common. You might have, for example,
D:\OldPhotos\TheKeys\Sunset.jpg
D:\Local area\Sunset.jpg
The problem being that, if you copy both to C:\Test that the second one to get RoboCopied there will overwrite the first. RoboCopy has no way of knowing that the first shows your Nan standing against a beautiful sunset with you in her arms or that the second is just a boring landscape downloaded from the tourist board website.


I noticed that you did not refer to where, on each source hard drive, the pictures might be. Anything you can do to narrow down their source locations [folder paths] will be well worthwhile.


"Each of these Folders however would, as you suggested, could have photos in them with duplicate names. I do not know how to handle that situation."
Even with a different 'C:\Test' folder used for the target of each source hard drive, my suggestion remains to copy them along with their folder structure, make a backup of the whole lot and only then start trying to reduce the number of duplicates.
Using a tool to search for duplicates will not find those that have different dates but happen to be the same thing. Only your visual inspection can make that decision.
You will come to regard the reorganisation of your photo collection & the removal of duplicates [real duplicates only] as the hard part of your task.
Once your needs have been confirmed, the act of doing the copying will be the easy part of the job.


"This is what I have used to copy so far but it copies the folders and I have to go one by one to get the jpg's out.
xcopy /v/s/e/d c:\*.jpg f:\test"
I suggest you continue to do what you have been doing using, as you've already explained, folders F:\Test-HDD-001, F:\Test-HDD-002, etc [or F:\Test-HDD-WXR1E848JPP0, etc] and with that XCopy command to put everything into subfolders within them.
Once you've got the whole lot on a single drive [and have made a backup] then you have a reliable starting-point for the job.
- Once you have removed duplicates then moving them all into a single folder would be easy [but I do not think it's what you will want to do, you'd lose any structure in the collection].
- You will not need to "go in one by one" to get the files out of the folders.
And I applaud your use of XCopy rather than moving files. If copying goes wrong midway, you can start it again. If moving goes wring you cannot know what you might have lost.
But you should use multiple XCopy commands to cover each possible picture format not just .jpg.


I urge you to focus on getting the copying to a single drive done [for which you can ask for help but your XCopy command tells me you don't need any help]
and then
make a backup of the F:\ drive
and then
use whatever tools you want to help you remove some of the duplicates but do not let then run without your checks & your decision-making
and then
decide what folder structure you want that will help you find your way around your photo collection [for which you can come back and seek further guidance].


All the best,
Denis