Windows 10: Options available to consolidate files

Discus and support Options available to consolidate files in Windows 10 Support to solve the problem; There are two old windows HDs that have health (SMART) or chkdsk problems that have some duplicate files that may have been modified over time. Each... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Support' started by zbook, Jan 12, 2020.

  1. zbook Win User

    Options available to consolidate files


    There are two old windows HDs that have health (SMART) or chkdsk problems that have some duplicate files that may have been modified over time.

    Each Windows internal HD is 750 GB.

    There is an external 4 TB drive with 2 GB free space.

    One HD has had it's users folders copied and pasted to the external HD.

    The other had a recent failure to boot that was fixed by a system restore.

    What methods are available to consolidate the files from the two problematic drives?

    Are they the same or different if the drive did not have problems?

    Is it a tedious process where you need to compare each file side by side?
    Or do you end up having thousands of duplicate files and keep getting larger drives?

    Should the users folder of the second problematic drive be copied and pasted to the external HD?
    There is no Macrium backup image yet. Is there a role for a backup image if the Windows drive is being converted to a non windows drive (saving files without the operating system)? Or should it be done anyway as an extra backup step?

    :)
     
    zbook, Jan 12, 2020
    #1
  2. zbook Win User

    Options available to consolidate files

    There are two old windows HDs that have health (SMART) or chkdsk problems that have some duplicate files that may have been modified over time.

    Each Windows internal HD is 750 GB.

    There is an external 4 TB drive with 2 GB free space.

    One HD has had it's users folders copied and pasted to the external HD.

    The other had a recent failure to boot that was fixed by a system restore.

    What methods are available to consolidate the files from the two problematic drives?

    Are they the same or different if the drive did not have problems?

    Is it a tedious process where you need to compare each file side by side?
    Or do you end up having thousands of duplicate files and keep getting larger drives?

    Should the users folder of the second problematic drive be copied and pasted to the external HD?
    There is no Macrium backup image yet. Is there a role for a backup image if the Windows drive is being converted to a non windows drive (saving files without the operating system)? Or should it be done anyway as an extra backup step?
     
    zbook, Jan 12, 2020
    #2
  3. zbook Win User
    Options available to consolidate files

    For computer 1 the files were copied and pasted to the external HD by creating a new folder and moving the users folders into this folder.

    For computer 2 the files were not yet copied and there is no backup image.

    For a 750 GB HD this takes many hours and a substantial portion can be performed overnight.

    There will be two folders on the 4 TB HD, one from each computer?

    There are no other steps to perform before the copy and paste?

    Is this typically the most efficient / effective method?

    If there were Macrium backup images would they make the process any easier?
     
    zbook, Jan 12, 2020
    #3
  4. Options available to consolidate files

    File Explorer navigation pane sometimes expands to show all folders and sometimes consolidates shows only the selected folder

    Both the folders that expand fully and those that partially expand have exactly the same settings, which are as you suggested, so this didn't solve the problem. Any other ideas?
     
    Bruce Needham, Jan 12, 2020
    #4
Thema:

Options available to consolidate files

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