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Replace data drive

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What is the best approach to replacing a drive (D: in my case) that I use for all my data:documents, images, video, Dropbox with another drive?

I have already installed and partitioned the new drive. Since all the programs point to the current D: drive, I will presumably have to change the new drive To D: while changing the old drive to some other letter. So, is it okay to copy all the files from new to old drive and then quickly switch the drive letter designations?

Thanks,
Jeff

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Jeff, welcome to these public User Forums.

As you have already installed and setup the partitions on your new data drive, then you should be able to just use normal Windows copy commands to replicate the data from the old D: data drive to the new one.

This is where Robocopy may be useful if you don't mind using a command line tool.

Robocopy is built in to the Windows OS and is able to copy and mirror the contents of files, folders or the entire drive to another location.

robocopy d:\ f:\ /mir 

will copy everything from the d: drive to the f: drive mirroring the folder structure & contents.

See webpage: Robocopy and a Few Examples - for more examples of usage, plus if you scroll down there is a list of all the options & switches you can use.

robocopy d:\ f:\ /mir /v /np /log:C:\temp\robocopy.log

the above will do as before plus keep the output of the command verbose and write it to a log file to allow it to be checked later.

Once your two drives contain the same content, then you can change the drive letters using Windows Disk Management.  Note: you should endeavour to shutdown all applications that are using the current D: drive, i.e. Dropbox...

Hi Steve,

It copies a few files and then I get this:

2019/10/23 05:52:29 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Destination Directory k:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-18\
Access is denied.

It keeps retrying. I rebooted to stop the retry. I see in the example page I could limit the retries.

Jeff

Jeff, are you running robocopy from an Administrator level command prompt, if not, please try doing so. 

If that still has a problem with the recycle bin, then modify the command

robocopy d:\ k:\ /mir /xd  $RECYCLE.BIN

you may also want to exclude the System Volume Information folders if present

robocopy d:\ k:\ /mir /xd $RECYCLE.BIN "System Volume Information"

Depending on how many folders are in your root folder, try copying just those folders rather than using just D: as the source. That way, all the mystery stuff is skipped.

 

Hi Steve,

Yeah, running CMD.exe as administrator did the trick. I did add /r:4 just in case it did not work and would keep trying. However, it was not necessary.

Thanks,

Jeff

Jeff, glad to hear, thanks for the feedback.