Hello,
I will soon move, I bought a 4TB HDD and I intend to copy all my personal data (Data, Settings, VST presets ....), absolutely everything except the OS and its system files. I'm looking for a best way / apps to copy everything without receiving errors, such "administration permission"..., and :
- Continue to use my PC during this operation
- Ability to resume copy where it is stop in case of electrical failure for example (as with torrent)
- Ability to create a list of files and folders to copy, and save it if I want to cancel / pause, and resume later without starting over from the beginning
- Copy and paste data (copy, not clone), forcing the admin mode for system folders (program files, roaming ...), ignoring the errors and move to the next folder / file, and display a report to the end with the possibility of choosing an action, because in addition to personal data, I also intend to copy these folders to access settings and presets before removing them on the new PC:
X: \ Program Files
X: \ Program Files (x86)
X: \ ProgramData (I do not know if it contains personal settings but I also copy it in case)
X: \ Users

All this is done automatically when you reinstall windows on the same machine (new foler created "old win"), but I want this old machine remains bootable when I remove the new HDD.

which app should I use ?
Thanks

 

laplink pc mover is good if its still available
http://ppc.laplink.com/specialpages/uk-branded-pcmover/

 

Since you would have to point to the files and folders manually anyway - would it really be so much harder to do it manually? my system is complicated but still it takes few hours to transfer everything (in my case in order to move os to new ssd).

 

I have a lot of power outages here at home.
In addition to that, just with the folder "Users", I keep having error messages (you need admin permission), while it's months the admin, more other messages errors.
So to answer you, no, doing it manually is not a good solution in my case.

 

it looks very interesting, unfortunately according to the demo I just saw, it supposes to have the new PC ready and connected, while me, I have only HDD that I will connect to the old PC.
Thank you, I will see if I can transfer to an HDD.

 

Thank you for the reminder, I have not used this utility for a long time!
SuperCopier, Ultracopier, Copyhandler and TeraCopy are good apps, just miss the option (force copy of locked files "admin permission").

 

I have just seen that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grsync
Grsync is inspired by the famous Rsync copy utility, used in Linux.
Someone already tried it?
If I can not find more information, I'll try it as soon as possible and I'll let you know.

 

Maybe I'm not clear on your objective.. but if you want everything including program files on the external HDD
are you seeking an app similar to Windows To Go ? Sounds like you need to use more than one app actually,
since you have multiple requirements that may not be in one package.

Your title says new OS.. so you are going to put the new OS on the one you are transferring from?
If it will also be a Windows machine why not just leave the Program Files folders
( which may not copy due to permissions) ?
Then just enjoy all the space you freed up.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/planning/windows-to-go-overview

 

What I want to do is very clear but can be poorly explained.
I want to copy a large number of files/folders without error message or access denied and without repeating from the beginning in case of error or restart, as does windows in the case of a new installation.

 

You could use Linux, it doesn't care about Windows permissions and let you do anything with files.
You access 100% of the hd, no hidden files and such.

 

what do you have against cloning then..? some apps allow you to extract individual files from the image(s)

how would you do that.. make the Win disk like an external drive for a Linux box,
or use something like Knoppix and just copy away ?

 

Yes, I will do it on Linux if I can not find an app because I would like to continue working during this operation. Can we keep the original dates of the files ?

 

I would boot into a Pre-installation Environment (PE), and then copy.

I use this Gandalf's PE. Here :

http://windowsmatters.com/2018/07/10/gandalfs-win10pe-x64-redstone-3-build-16299-version-07-10-2018/

Create a bootable USB drive with that ^^. Then, you'll find lots of copy utilities and cloning utilities (..and much more) built into the PE. You shouldn't get any permission errors.

Take a look at his PE build descriptions.

 

Cloning is good if you want to keep the OS, otherwise it's crap because it will clone EVERYTHING: including the bad organization / distribution of files: all the fragments made for years and it's ugly on a new PC

 

that way you could take the time extracting what you want, and toss the rest...

by the way.. we do have a lot of smart computer people here, but this is a music forum where you are asking
strictly computer related stuff.. did you try a computer forum ?

nice one, packed to the gills with utils, just about anything anyone would need
for copying backup or whatever..

did you ever use any Hiren's? dunno if they still put theirs out..

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 11, 2018

I never got around to actually trying Hiren's. It's been around forever though, hasn't it? Gandalf just seems to work every time. The Windows 10 environment that he implemented makes it really easy to navigate; and you can use a wireless network.

 

Indeed it has , saved my arse a coupla good times at least

dl'ing Gandalf now.. little beast of a package

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 11, 2018

Done this last week & used:
EaseUS Todo PCTrans
I took an image from old to new.

 

This Gandalf WinPE looks good.
I usually use Sergei Strelec's Win 10 PE, which I'm guessing it's similar. It's a f... beast, you can pretty much forget all the others boot USB/DVDs. Boots better than the horrible Acronis Boot DVDs for starters.
It has so much good stuff that I've discovered several utilities that now I use in my regular Windows.