Which tool to use when making a complete dump of the sysvol in Windows XP

Question

I have tried both robocopy and hobocopy.

Robocopy lacks the use av shadow volume copy so it always gets stuck on system files, you need to supply an ever growing list of filenames/directories to exclude.

Hobocopy works except from the fact that it fails on hard/soft errors such as crc errors, either due to the disk encryption or actual read errors from the underlying harddrive.

Neither way, I only want to make a complete dump over the net to another volume prior wiping the disk and I want the copy operation to proceed unattended until all files has been copied or tried being copied, only leaving a log of the failing files.

When searching for similar questions, most seems to bother with backup/restore. I will never need to restore the XP installation, just keep it archived or maybe run it in a virtual box.

Answer 1

I'm the author of hobocopy.

Hobocopy does have a /skipdenied option, which will cause it to skip files that it is unable to copy due to permission issues. It results in a partial backup, but for your scenario that might still suffice.

But if you're encountering errors when trying to copy files, please send a message to hobocopy@googlegroups.com with details and I'll see if I can fix it. Always interested in making it better.

Answer 2

How about something like Clonezilla if you just want a copy of either the whole disk or a partition. The livecd works great though it takes some getting used to. As it happens there are Episode 179 of Category 5 Tech TV covers this very thing, and the next episode covers restoring.