Backing up / avoiding duplicates

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

So I've got some tinkering to do with the old laptop and I'm currently in the process of backing it up. The last back up was a few months ago so there's not that much in the way of new tunes or files.

The problem is that usually I just drag and drop the folders like for like e.g. drag mymusic1 from the laptop and drop it on the mymusic1 folder in the HDD, click the options so it ignores all of the duplicate files and only puts on the new files.

This time that's not happened for some reason. Any reason why?

I'm thinking I've maybe recreated the mymusic1 folder with recent updates within the old mymusic1 folder but it's never happened like that before.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

Never mind I've sent it one folder too deep and my external drive directory now looks like:


>F:
>>Mymusic
>>>60s
>>>70s
>>> cheese
(and so on)
>>>Mymusic *updated version*
>>>motown



Is there an easy way to move it up so it's in F: without having to copy them all again? Would extracting it work? I don't really want to start messing around until I know what I'm doing.

If I can move it up into the main part of F: I'd end up with 2 mymusic folders (the old and the new one) and Id just need to delete the old one.

Bloody technology.

[DazzyD]

I'm guessing you mean you've gone a "branch" too far on your drive directory "tree" when you've copied the files across. This would change the complete file path and is the reason why you didn't get the "this folder already exists - what do you want to do?" warning.

The good news is that by moving the folder to it's correct location would not actually entail physically rewriting all the files to a different location on your hard drive. All that would happen is that the drive's file structure would be updated to reflect where in the drive's filing system the folder will appear. The actual files would still be on the same drive sectors as they were to start with. This means that it is much quicker to move folders around drives than it is to physically write them to the drive.

So, all you need to do is open Explorer, drag and drop the folder to it's correct location and wait until the drive's filing system is updated. Simples.

If you have inadvertantly copied to an incorrect drive then you would need to copy all the files again so that they are physically written to their correct location.

Hope this helps.

EDIT

Just read your posts again to make sure I've got it right.

I think I have. You just need to drag the folder from it's current location to the root level of F: Drive. Explorer will then ask you if you want to merge the two folders and you can click yes and follow your usual procedure.

Phew!!

[ukpartydj]

If both your backup and playout have WiFi then I'd suggest using SyncToy (google it).
All you need to do is set up the folders and click sync and anything new on either computer is updated on the other.

Works really well for all my business files as I have them backed up on 3 HDD's (just to be safe).