Fewer permutations to debug
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Could use a little help over here 
This is a first for me. I can’t seem to copy my files from the SP8 to an external hd (whether ssd Extreme or spinning Western Digital Passport). Whether I highlight and drag-n-drop, or use Copy/Paste nothing ends up on the external drive. I thought this was a problem because of OneDrive (it had moved all my files to the cloud with a recent OS upgrade) so i copied them out of the OneDrive folder to a new subfolder under my user name, and they still won’t copy to the external drive.
Well, going to try our old friend xcopy…
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What is the file system on your external disk. We’ve seen that with drives formatted in FAT or ExFat by a Mac. It’s not supposed to make any difference, but when this happens formatting them on an actual PC seems to resolve it and the Mac doesn’t care either way
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Thanks! I tried a quick format to NTFS (came out of the box with Exfat believe it or not) but didn’t seem to work. If xcopy works I’ll use it to restore the SP8 (want to do a full restore to clean out the dust and cruft) and then reset everything and will do a full format on the SanDisk Extreme…
BTW - these Extremes are VERY fast on a TB4 port…
PS - what moron would be doing this on New Years’Eve eve from a command prompt in the first place…
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True grit!
I finally got a “copy” but it has far fewer files than the original and I’d say 98% of those are hidden files which appear to be duplicates of an existing file but much smaller and cannot be opened. I’ve been deleting them as I open the various subdirectories - a REAL PITA and I have no idea how these came about. Here’s a sample directory so you can see what I found - the “grayed” files are the hidden mini files:
The “._DS_Store” is a MacOS artifact of swapping files between devices that I always delete.
And now it goes from bad to worse with multiple folders have true duplicate files noted as - Copy. Heaven help me I think I’m being thoroughly punished for all this back and forth between devices. If I ever get this all fixed I want ALL OF YOU to hit me with a 2x4 if I switch OSes again…
@dstrauss What a pain!! Maybe try using Syncback SE? You can set up a sync job that mirrors your original drive/folder to the external drive. You can allow it to delete files that are on the external drive and not on the original drive.
Final thoughts - this is going to have to be addressed as time goes on and as I use a client folder - just too pervasive to handle directly…glad it’s a 1TB ssd so I have a good reserve for right now.
What a mess…
I should be more clear - these are on the original drive! That’s what got me flummoxed - and with hundreds of folders/subfolders on the original drive it could take full time DAYS/WEEKS to clean out all of the cruft
I’m sure it’s possible to delete all files that have “- copy” in the filename. Unfortunately that’s also the kind of thing that results in “oops, I deleted all my files” type situations…
Edit: here’s just such an example, including a user who likely made a typo and deleted all their files.
BTW I think adding /s to the command does the same for all subfolders of the one you’re in. Use with care! Do you know your CMD and CD etc?
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Unfortunately I was there BEFORE Gates ripped it off for DOS…
But seriously, do you know how to do this? You’d open a command window (hit Win-R and type cmd ).
Next you’d navigate to the folder which has all the duplicates, using something like
CD C:\Users\dstrauss\DocumentsThen can do a sanity check to see if your command finds all duplicate files by typing
dir /s "* - Copy.*" | moreHit the space bar to see the next page of results, and hit CTRL-C to stop. If that all looks like it’s finding all the correct files and nothing it shouldn’t find, then you could use the command that deletes all those. Again, only do this if you’re absolutely sure, I don’t think there’s an undelete for this. Maybe copy the whole folder to the external drive first, and THEN try this.
Once you know you have a backup of the whole thing, you could run the following:
del /s "* - Copy.*"That should clear out all duplicate files. Not sure about any duplicate directories. If there are any of those, that’d require the rmdir command. Again use with care!
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My approach in such situations is to always start by making a complete backup.
Then, one can experiment destructively, confident that any file inadvertently removed can be gotten off the backup tape/disk.
The …" - Copy" files can be all-too easily made by File Explorer mis-interpreting a drag-drop as a copy operation onto the original location — it really should have a confirmation prompt if a directory is part of the selection.
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The _. files are a dubious legacy of both UNIX and MaC OS attempts to be “compatible” with NTFS. It’s where the file type and icons are stored as well as “open with” aka which app will open when you double click on the file.
The reason Apple didn’t adopt the three letter. xxx design of Windows was the lack of compatible/comparable apps.
To me the epitome of how convoluted it can get on the Windows side is AutoCad
AutoCAD File Extensions - Everything You Need To Know | Scan2CAD
And FWIW I blame all sides in this as they all just assume/assert they have the best way 
And related but another Windows related gripe, specifically Windows 11 and Edge.
EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. MS updates EDGE it sucks in my shortcuts etc. from Chrome even though I specifically set it not too
My Windows gripe: even after a mere cumulative update (not feature) it makes me go through a “let’s finish setting up” process which is purely meant to get me to switch Edge browser settings (search engine in particular) to Bing stuff and then it tries to sell me Microsoft 365, or to add a trial icon if I resist buying outright. There might be other upsells from time to time.
Just went through another of those on my Galaxy Book 12, which is stuck on Windows 10 due to old processor and you’d think there would only be security updates by this point but nooo, I think they invent reasons for larger updates just to have an excuse to slip Bing or 365 in there when I’m not paying enough attention. 
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My previous comment, which may have come across as a bit flippant, is that I have a well deserved fear of the command line having wrecked more than a few DOS directories in the past, to the point I bought this when it was originally published in 1985…
Thus, I’ll probably still do it by hand in File Explorer because I have to also get rid of the garbage that @Desertlap referenced below.
VERY likely given all of the drag and drop operations I’ve done moving files/directories across the SP8 and various Macs tha last six months.
You are so right - this is a fight that neither side is right and ultimately will never prevail - we’ll be Canada with Quebec and the rest of the country…
Thanks to all of you for the tips and insights! Everyone have a safe, fun, and blessed New Year - see you on the other side…
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“…this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture…”
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