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msbarrows · 8 months

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How To Back Up Your Computer Using Robocopy

So there are other walkthroughs out there, but all of them that I've seen assume the user has at least a certain minimum basic knowledge, to wit, doing command line stuff. I've been on computers since before the days of DOS (I started out on early Commodores) and have done tech support a few times in there, so I know what's basic knowledge to me is not that to other people, and particularly younger people. I'm going to attempt to explain this as if I assume you know nothing about any of the relevant things beyond "how to open file explorer".

Now, the most easy and basic backup you can do is just copying your stuff to a second location, not on the same device. Which might look like having your phone or tablet automatically backup stuff to a cloud service, or you copying files between a drive in your computer and an external drive or USB device. You might use software to have it happen automatically, either at specified times or continually in the background. You could just drag and drop relevant subdirectories by hand.

I'm going to explain a really simple way to create batch files that back up specific files from specific locations to specific locations, which you can run whenever you want to backup. So this is a somewhat automated manual backup. And for it I'll be explaining some basics of using robocopy, a Windows command line utility available in all recent versions of Windows (if you're running on a really old version, you need to go look up xcopy, which is essentially the same thing wearing a different name). It can do a ton of different things, but for this I'm going with dead simple, ignore all the unnecessary options instructions.

First (and biggest) question and answer that I assume is not common knowledge any more: how do you make a batch file? What even is it? A batch file is just a plain, unformatted text document that is a list of commands for the computer to run. You can create it using notepad, and most word processing programs can write to TXT format. A text file renamed from TXT to BAT becomes a batch file, which your computer can run. When creating a new batch file I mostly go to the subdirectory where I store all my batches, right-click and New -> Text Document, and then name it, being sure to change the extension (I have extensions enabled in my file views, because I'm an old foggy who prefers to see them and thinks it's stupid to hide them):

You'll get a pop-up confirming that you want to change the extension:

Note that I give the batches nice descriptive names so I'm sure of what each one does. Some of them are copying from protected spaces on my drive, so I need to right-click -> Run as Administrator in order to give the batches permission to access and copy those files, and I always note that in the file name to remind myself.

You can then right-click on the file name and choose "Edit" to open it in notepad. It'll be blank to start:

Also, in order to find relevant paths for the protected spaces, I have told the file explorer to show me hidden stuff, which you can do by using the "Options" menu found at the right end of the View bar in the file browser window:

Note that I have the "Show" radio button selected, and a couple lines down from that have "Hide extensions" de-selected. Drive letters are also on, because we'll need them. I've also applied this setting to all folders.

So! We now can look around to find out what we want to backup, and have a currently empty text format BAT file to write the instructions we need in. Let's start with something easy - I bet most of you game, and probably a lot of those games are on a service like Steam or Origin, because these days there's not much choice about that. The first thing to do is find where your library of games is. In my case, I currently have Steam installed on D:, since that's my original SSD:

So what I want to do is go into that subdirectory, then right-click on the path in the navigation bar at the top and "Copy address as text":

Then switch to notepad, where we're going to build a command line in our batch file. We want to tell it to use the robocopy command to copy this subdirectory and everything contained inside it to a different (external) drive, which in this case is my F: drive (a Western Digital 5TB drive from their Passport line of external drives). So we use some typing and some pasting (ctrl-v) and some editing to get the following line in the batch file:

robocopy "D:\Steam" "F:\Steam" *.* /mir

The *.* tells it "every file" and the /mir tells it to mirror, which means to copy over the existing files and file structure, so that the copy exactly matches what's currently in the starting location. When we first run this batch, it'll look at the starter location, see nothing matching it in the target location, and copy every single thing over as a new file or folder - this will take a bit of time. If you run it again several days later, it'll be much faster, since it will compare the starter location to what is in the target location, and only copy over files that are new or have changed, and will delete from the target location any files and folders that no longer exist in the starter location.

Now, since I have most of my games in a second library on my E: drive (it's PCIe format and therefore faster), I'd also add a line to the batch for that location as well:

robocopy "E:\SteamLibrary" "F:\SteamLibrary" *.* /mir

But what about stuff like save games or screenshots for some of the games I'm most invested in? Some of them will be stored in one of those two locations... some will not be. This is where having access to hidden locations comes in useful, because some times that where they can be found.

As an example of game saves, Cyperbunk 2077 stores its save games in a location inside my user space, which I can find under C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077

So to backup those save files I would need to have a specific line for that in the batch:

robocopy "C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077" "F:\MYUSERNAME\Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077" *.* /mir

Note that the target location path doesn't have to be an exact match for the starting location path - in this case, since I'll probably have multiple things inside my user space that I want to backup, I'll store those all in the same F:\MYUSERNAME subdirectory structure so I know where the heck to put them back if I need to restore. An example of this is that my local copy of my google drive files is also in the user directory, so to backup that I'd also have:

robocopy "C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Google Drive" "F:\MYUSERNAME\Google Drive" *.* /mir

So by now our batch file will look something like this:

Further note - if you have tons of backup storage space, you can just backup your entire user space, though that'll likely include a lot of excess files you have no need for. This tutorial is mostly aiming for a more selective level of saving. Basically for anything you would miss if you lost it, figure out where on your drive(s) it is (which might be spread across multiple locations) and make sure those are all included in the batch.

As an example of protected locations, note how the directory of what's in my user space has the folder for AppData greyed out - this is to let me know that's normally a hidden folder and files, and I should be extremely cautious when interacting with whatever is stored there (copying is fine, overwriting only if I'm sure I know what I'm doing - such as copying a file back to a subdirectory of it to restore an accidentally deleted file - and unless you really really REALLY know what you're doing, never delete stuff from it)):

Some games (and other software) do stick their save files under there, so for example to create a batch to only backup my No Man's Sky saves I have to burrow down into the AppData/Roaming files:

robocopy "C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\HelloGames\NMS\st_76561197972583107" "F:\MYUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\HelloGames\NMS\st_76561197972583107" *.* /mir

For my main data backup batch I just threw up my hands and mirrored the entire AppData structure, because so many settings and configuration files and save files and dictionary files for word processing and so forth are all hidden away under AppData (because they are all application data of one kind or another after all). Easier to just throw them all on the external drive, so if my laptop dies and I'm reinstalling stuff, I don't have that "ohcrap" moment of realizing I never backed up, say, the dictionary file I have any words specific to Dragon Age saved in for when i was writing fanfic in that universe (did that once, back in the days of yore when I was still using OpenOffice - thankfully my old drive was only dying, not dead, so I was able to get onto it and grab a few more files off of it).

When you finally have everything set up to your liking, save the file, then either double-click it to run it, or right-click and "Run as administrator" if you're accessing anything in protected locations. You'll likely get a popup confirming that it's okay for the batch to run, and then it'll sit there chugging away copying everything from all the starter locations to all the target locations.

Then just run it every time you want to make a backup, which should be some version or combination of whenever you've done something that made a big change (downloaded that new stupidly huge patch or game or whatever) and/or at regular intervals (end of every day, once or twice a week, once or twice a month, whatever). These will run much faster since the batch will only be making changes to the existing backup file structure, rather than creating a new one from scratch.

If you want the best backups, always have multiple backups - the 3-2-1 rule is always good to follow. At least three different copies, on at least two different media (not just multiple copies on one drive), with at least one of them being stored offsite (cloud storage, in a bank box, at someone else's house, etc).

Enjoy!

#Backing Up Files #Robocopy #Step by step instructions

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mllenugget · 4 months

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Hello I mcyt fandom-ified la Team du Lundi members and wrote a shit ton of text about it

After exhausting myself on trying to catch up on the current QSMP lore I got a sudden craving for a more familiar and fast paced kind of minecraft content and ended up rewatching all the Team du Lundi's SMP best of's I could find

And while doing so with my brain still hazed in fandom brainrot, I started picking up on minor details or info the players casually dropped, and drew parallels to the French speakers' QSMP counterparts This is going to be a long wordy post I don't even know what I am rambling about and for. Three things you need to be aware of about la Team du Lundi before reading :

Baghera, Antoine and Etoiles are the only QSMP players that are part of la Team du Lundi

As far as I remember the only two elements that suggest that la Team du Lundi's SMP could be canon to QSMP are Antoine being pressured into building another Tower of Shit, and Baghera's infamous fountain being mentioned when she was asked if her character remembers anything from her past before the island

La Team du Lundi's SMP was NOT a roleplaying server, it was just a private survival server for a small circle of friends casually playing together. So whenever I quote someone in this specific post, it is the streamer : there is no character other than the persona the streamer is usually showing on stream, but I just thought it would be fun to interpret certain situations while keeping in mind the QSMP lore. And here goes :

Baghera claims that when she was a kid she strongly believed that she could breathe underwater. The others joke about her having fins

Antoine jokingly tells Baghera he doesn’t need oxygen at all

Antoine claims he will still be alive thousands of years forwards

Antoine’s voice shifts when he wants to appear creepy

Baghera built an aquarium at her place, then helped Antoine build one at his tower, then built a giant swimming pool, then a fountain, then a waterslide- do you see a theme ?

Baghera knows that her skin is actually that of a chick and not a duckling, and calls it so here

Chat said that Baghera has a middle child syndrome, justifying that she bullies Angle Droit because Etoiles bullies her in the first place (Etoiles has also called her « little sister » in a derogatory way)

Etoiles has repeatedly asked people to play Valorant with him at least once

Here's a clip of Etoiles getting languaged in french and owing "a gifted sub in the swear jar"

Unrelated random clip of Etoiles because it creates happy hormones in me brain

Etoiles is regularly refered to as "the warrior"

Etoiles guided the whole group during an expedition to the End and he was literally glowing doing so (enchanted arrows effect) Everyone called him "the guide"

Baghera was the one who gave the final blow to the Enderdragon (and died from magic right after)

Etoiles spent most of his time adventuring in order to bring stuff and gear back to everyone for their builds

Etoiles asked Aypierre for help in order to design a redstone door for his cave which could only open upon solving a puzzle (which was egg & arrow related) (Aypierre was not a member of the server)

Etoiles built a nightclub with the walls and ceiling covered in wardenblocks making it look like a starry sky. He also rehomed Allays holding golden apples inside claiming them to be the souls working for him and that they lived there peacefuly

Etoiles jokingly talks about Antoine acting jealous and violent towards him because Etoiles told him he wanted to go and visit Kameto (who also was not a member of the server)

Baghera (along with Horty) had a rivalry with Joueur du Grenier (host of the server with admin powers) after he decided to build a massive parking lot right next to their house. They countered by covering the whole thing with dirt, followed by JDG building a factory and the two parties went back and forth. Baghera argued that it was stupid because they didnt even have cars to begin with (which is a sentence she reused when talking about Forever's roads) Also she tells JDG that he could've built a seaport instead, which makes JDG contemplate the thought of building an airport (and though he ended up never building it, I am side eyeing the French's plane crash)

At some point JDG wonders about what a roleplaying minecraft server would look like (RPZ 2), to which Baghera replies that she has a hard time picturing the thing "We'd all just build things you see ? I don't think we'd create stories, we would all just be like "I'm a builder, ah you too ? Well awesome, builders, cool"" and I find this to be hilariously ironic (fun fact : Baghera had no idea that QSMP was a roleplaying server when she first joined and often claims she would've taken a different approach with her character had she known right off the gate)

As I was finishing to write this down, these fuckers (/lh) decided to host a closure night for the server as they've never really officially did it, everyone just sort of deserted the server after a while. Baghera, Etoiles and Antoine kept referring to QSMP throughout the night, mostly talking about how weird it felt without mods. Among other meta commentary things

They mentionned Cellbit and Bad multiple times as the group was trying to solve enigmas. Antoine talked about "the cultural sharing" between communities as he taught insults to each others with Mike, Roier and Maximus in their respective languages Multiple more players were namedropped (including eggs) while Antoine was talking about how the server functions

Yes, Baghera and Etoiles kept their QSMP skins. Etoiles with his code corrupted purgatory one, and Baghera with her fading pink disheveled hair (with the addition of her cubito wearing Horty's merch)

Baghera admits that going back to this small familiar vanilla server feels like coming back home to your family during the holidays

Team du Lundi's cameos in QSMP :

Though Pomme has never canonically met JDG (even though most of her parents have talked about him to her at least once), she occasionaly breaks the 4th wall to refer to him. She once compared one of BBH's "vacation" flower shirts with his, and when Foolish and Bad asked her to elaborate (obviously not getting the reference) she proceeded to play JDG's music theme with the flute instead (Also I really feel the need to once more point out how mindblowing it is for your average french speaking viewer to have JDG's intro theme being added to the mod they use in the QSMP because of how anchored it is within french internet pop culture. Like this shit has been existing for 14 fucking years, it's part of the childhood of a lot of us, so to find a clip of British hardcore player Philza peacefuly listening to Mexican egg admin Tallulah play this theme on her flute feels like a multiverse fever dream)

Horty has been on Quesadilla Island through cc!Baghera's account, but neither of them really wanted to justify it RP wise. Baghera just wanted to give her best friend a tour of the island. Horty only got to meet Richarlyson who gave her a tour of Cellbit's castle and made her pick a room (she chose Chaos). She also chatted with Etoiles who tagged along for a bit and (this is obviously justified by it being a one-shot out of roleplay filler episode kind of night) they both already knew each other and were on friendly enough terms to bicker with one another Also she was part of the French speakers Quackity reached out to to invite on the server, but she had to decline because she was very busy at that time (and also not interested) Also also she was Baghera's teammate for that Formula 4 event, and Baghera has discussed it and showed pictures to a couple of islanders, including Richas who was very hyped about it

Another player the viewers were hoping to see on Quackity's server is Mynthos. He exists within the server with the picture of him that hangs in Pomme's art gallery, the cursed animation video that used to play in La France, as well as with Aypierre's health potion factory that bears his name

Angle Droit and Zerator are sometimes namedropped when the French speakers talk with their chat. Angle Droit frequently raids Baghera's and Antoine's streams, and though it has never been confirmed, a lot of viewers theorized that she was the +1 player Baghera and Etoiles wanted to invite on the server had they won the elections.

As for Zera, Etoiles went AFK on QSMP a couple of times in order to test some of Zerator's TrackMania maps (which he later discussed with Pac). I also remember a very trivial conversation Etoiles had with Mouse and Aypierre where he laughed about hurting his back very badly after carrying a fellow streamer during a caritative event, said event was hosted by Zerator (he's also the one judging them with concern from his desk)

I'm done.

Bonus alternative design for Angle Droit because at first I thought she was a fox then it turned out she was a corgi but then she changed it again to a fox and woop

#I wrote down a whole other post just as long as this one to explain my individual thought process behind each designs #Took me weeks to write- had a couple of clips to back up my headcanons #but then I was reading the post again checking for mistakes before realizing #yo just #that is so many words and for what #just let your designs speak for themselves hey trust yourself let there be room for interpretation #if people turn out to be curious well i guess thats what ask box was created for leave it be thats enough #(not) fun fact : I drew those Baghera Etoiles & Antoine designs back in june and the files got corrupted and I lost a week worth of work #if we are mutuals on discord youve mightve heard me whine about this one #mcyt #team du lundi #qsmp #angle droit #hortyunderscore #baghera jones #zerator #etoiles #mynthos #joueur du grenier #antoine daniel #serveur du lundi #my art

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