Missing Folder (not hidden) when trying to back up hard drives

N

nihsahs

New Member
Hi all,

I'm using Vista Home Premium x64. I was attempting to back up some external drives to each other. I had previously used Robocopy on Windows XP with much success, so I thought I would do the same.

I initially just manually copied and pasted an external drive designated "G:" into a folder within another external drive designated "I:" (so for example I:\Backup1). The files were present and looked all good after this.

Today, I ran Robocopy to try to mirror those two, however as soon as I finished, the "Backup1" folder disappeared from "I:". The files however are present, as I can tell from the space used on "I:" and on top of that, when I try to make a new folder with the same name ("Backup1"), it won't let me, saying that a folder by that name is already present. Other folders (that do not have any data yet) are still present within "I:"

The Robocopy script is basically Robocopy "G:" "I:\Backup1" /MIR /XA:SH /XD AppData /XJD /R:2 /W:2 /V /ETA /Z /LOG:Backuplog.txt

Any help/insight would be much appreciated!

Thanks!
 

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Hi, thanks very much for your quick reply. Unfortunately, the link only seems to deal with "search" problems. In my case, I know where the folder is supposed to be, and the folder is just not there. Adding to my confusion is when I repeat Robocopy, it acts as though the files are all there already...

here is the robocopy output:

Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras
Dirs : 1213 0 1208 0 5 0
Files : 41408 1 41407 0 0 0
Bytes : 188.744 g 129 188.744 g 0 0 0
Times : 0:00:28 0:00:00 0:00:20 0:00:08

So it "found" the 1208 directories and the 41407 files within the destination, but for some reason I am not able to see them!!!
 

My Computer

System One

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Hi, thanks again for replying so quick!

I read through the second link; it's not the same issue...

I'll try to be very specific, I understand I may not be explaining my problem very well...

PROBLEM: Folder copied from Drive G: to Drive I: is not visible, although the folder actually appears to be present in I:

SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED:
I have two external drives:

G: which contains multiple folders with lots of files (189GB), and
I: which contains only three empty folders: Backup1, Backup2, and Backup3.

STEP 1:
I opened G:, selected all the files and folders, right clicked, selected "copy",
opened I:\Backup1, select "paste."

This copied all the files from G: to I:\Backup1. At this point, no problem.

After this is done, I can see the three folders in the I: drive. I: now has 189GB less than it had before I copied everything to it, and I can see all the files in the Backup1 folder. Backup2 and Backup3 folders remain without any files in them for the time being.

STEP 2:
I wanted to automate the backups using Robocopy. I made a .cmd file saying the following: Robocopy "G:" "I:\Backup1" /MIR /R:2 /W:2 /V /ETA /Z /LOG:Backup1.txt

and I ran it; I have had success using a nearly identical script (and changing the source and destination as appropriate) when backing up things in other instances, including using the current computer and OS.

Robocopy ran, and for all files, returned the attribute of "same," meaning that the files already existed in the destination folder which is I:

STEP 3:
After Robocopy was done, the Backup1 folder in the I: drive disappeared; it is not visible. Backup2 and Backup3 folders still exist within the I: drive. I thought maybe the folder and files got erased due to an error in how I ran Robocopy.

However, there are three things that demonstrate that the files actually are present in I:, but I just can't see them:

1) The I: drive continues to have 189GB less space, which is exactly how big the source was.
2) Since I don't see a "Backup1" folder, I tried to create a new folder with the same name in I:, and I get a window saying "this destination already contains a folder named 'Backup1'." So even though it is not visible, "Backup1" actually exists on the I: drive.
3) Each time I run Robocopy to copy G: to I:\Backup1, it indicates that the files are already in I:\Backup1.

I hope that the above made things a little clearer. Perhaps if things are still not clear, I can try to get some screenshots or something.

Thanks again for your help!
 

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System One

In your opening post you mention that the files are not hidden, but by definition if they are there and you cannot see them they are hidden. You can have two types of hidden folders. One is by hiding your folders. This is how you hide or show them, (option one).
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/86163-hidden-files-folders.html


The second way is to have hidden system folders, which is what may have happened in this situation, see option 2.. But try, option one, also

The situation gets a little more complicated because the folders are on a separate, external, drive, but I must maintain that if you cannot see them, by definition they are hidden.

If using the above approach is not productive, and I would not be surprised due to the scenario involved, the only other thing that I can think of is that a new drive was created, somehow. Verify that there are no new drives with the folders. That is all that I can think of at the present. If they are there and you cannot see them either they are hidden or they are on a drive that you are not searching.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Here is some additional information on hidden drives. There may be a hidden drive that contains the folders.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/155795-drive-hide-unhide.html

These unorthodox solutions, may be the answer considering the fact that your problem is rather unique. We are unaware of something that happened during the transfer process; we can only guess and try these various approaches.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Hi Richard,

Thanks again. You're correct, I did mention they are not hidden, but technically they ARE hidden... I checked the settings under the control panel, and I did have "Show hidden files and folders" selected, that's what I was referring to.

Due to time constraints, I unfortunately ended up having to reformat the destination drive, and redoing the backup, only selecting folders which contained data files like documents, photos, etc, and that worked. I am inclined to think that your suggestion that some system files may have caused this to happen might be correct... There was no new drive created, and when I searched across all locations for the folder name, there were no results.

However, I do know that the contents of the source drive MUST have been present on the destination drive, as the drive information showed exactly the same amount of HD space had been used up in the destination as the size of the source.

I suspect that your thought about somehow this being a problem with hidden system folders might be correct, but unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to test this. I think though for curiosity I will test that idea next time I back up the drive.

Thanks again for all of your help, it was greatly appreciated!
 

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System One

Glad that it all worked out, too bad you had to reformat the drive. In any event, take care. I wish you the best of luck.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Hi,

I came across this thread as I was having the exact same issue. I fixed this by running the following command (using the example "Folder1" for the "hidden" directory name and the E: drive letter representing the targeted drive):

e:\attrib "Folder1" -s -h

This removes both the system and hidden attributes. These switches cannot be run independently, as you will receive a failing message.
 

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