I use a folder on my computer to backup my USB drive. This way,
should anything ever happen to it, all of the data is constantly
backed up on my hard drive. The commands make it possible so that the
folder and the drive will sync. The newer file will overwrite the the
older one in either location

xcopy h:\* e:\USBBackup\* /d/e
xcopy e:\USBBackup\* h:\* /d/e

Copy that code into notepad and save it as a bat file. I named mine
USBBackup.bat

Create a folder on your hard drive called "USBBackup". Change the H:
to the drive letter of your flash drive, and E: to your hard drive
letter. Once the file is created, I put it on my desktop and created
a shortcut key (Ctrl+Alt+U). So now every time I unplug, or plug in
the drive, i hit the keys, and it prompts me if I want to override the
changed files. If you do not want it to ask you, simply add /y to the
end of each line. FYI, /d takes all directories, and /e copies the
newer file.

Tom O'Connell wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion -- I wasn't aware that XCopy could do things
by datestamp that way.

If you decide you want more options, there's also a nice open-source
software package called Unison for doing this sort of thing that I've
recently found very useful. It has the additional advantage that it
works correctly across multiple computers (so you could sync an office
and a home machine to your USB drive when you carry it back and forth)
even if the clocks aren't in sync, and it also works across networks via
ssh tunnelling, even between different operating systems.

Link here: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

- Brooks


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