Anyone familair with robocopy?

Hi again :P

thanks for being so awesome and helping me with this. Unfortunately it didnt work. I extracted the batch file to my U/backups folder and ran it and the cmd window just opened and closed. Figured perhaps it needed to be ran as admin but the result was the same >.<

EDIT to be clear (i barely know what im looking at) but just to make sure.... The U/backups folder has plenty of stuff i need to NOT be deleted in it. Only the hierarchies >going forward has to go.

Ha! we have a win!

I had to put it into the hierarchy folder instead of the backup folder. then i was able to delete the hierarchies folder manually.

Thaaaank you. Would have NEVER happened on my own <3

after re reading your post it appears that it woul dhave in fact eradicated my backups folder and i would have died a little inside. Not sure if having all kinds of stuff in there is what saved me, or some fluke.. but regardless moving it down 1 folder gave me a win :)

so just to be clear, so i dont get myself in trouble again.... two questions.

1) this will work without the aforementioned issue? robocopy U:\ U:\Backups\Hierarchies\U\ /e /xf * /a-:sh /xo /xd "System Volume Information" "U:\Backup\Hierarchies"

2) I shouldnt have to omit anything from other drives unless I was making the backup on the same/parent drive correct? afterwards I can revert to something like robocopy T:\ U:\Backups\Hierarchies\T\ /e /xf * /a-:sh /xo /xd "System Volume Information" ?

3) (bonus question) I assume I can just create a batch and they'll run in succession simply by listing one after the other yes?

The idea is to make a batch referencing all my hard disks (apart from system disk obvsly) and have them create a folder with their drive letter on my flash drive inside the backups/hierarchies folder. After I have them there I'll also toss em in the cloud. As you can imagine I have a bad memory and a lotta years tailoring a lotta data in a very organized fashion courtesy of some excellent OCD.

God forbid I lost anything at least I wouldnt have to remember the whats and wheres, I could grab entire directory trees and "re-fill"

I may move on/graduate to backing up in a legimate way with robocopy similar to what bree does at some point, but at the moment until I buy some 4tb drives, space is at a premium and the relevent big stuff is backed up manually here or there.

For now I simply want the directory structures copied without the files, and the ability to re run it and have it add anything I may have added in the future. (not sure if theres a way to make it remove anything i remove either ala batch? Similar to the way a sync'd folder would work?)

it did. I'm finally all set and working. Thus far.

Thank you VERY VERY much for all your time, help, and patience.

TY to everyone else as well. This community rocks!