Robocopy + Powershell Variable

Question

Robocopy + Powershell Variable

Tyrone Hirt 41

I have a robocopy script that works very well so far, the point is that I would like to make it a little more advanced, and I believe the way is to integrate powershell into it.

My current script:

chcp 1252  
set /p dummy=Tecle ENTER para continuar  
  
robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "E:\My Company - Aaron Trevor\02. Clients" "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\Aaron Trevor" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi  
  
set /p dummy=Backup efetuado com Sucesso! Tecle ENTER para finalizar.

As you can see, the Backup folder path is hard-coded in the code, what I wanted is for it to be flexible according to the SSD name.

I would like the script to detect the name after the dash and copy the files to the folder with the contributor's name inside the backup folder.

For example, if the SSD name is "E:\My company - Aaron Trevor" the script will copy the files to the folder "\192.168.0.130\Backup\Aaron Trevor"

Why?

Because if at some point the backup path changes, I will have to create a specific backup file for each contributor instead of creating just one and asking everyone to replace the file at the root of the SSD.

If you can help me with this, I would be very grateful!

Accepted answer

1 additional answer

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Answer 1

Rich Matheisen 47,901

How about something like this?

$var1 = "E:\My Company - Aaron Trevor\02. Clients"  
$var2 = ""  
if ($var1 -match "\s-\s(.+)\\"){  
    $var2 = $Matches[1]  
    robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "$var1" "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\$var2" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi  
}  
else{  
    Write-Host "Didn't find expected pattern in '$var1'" -Foreground Yellow  
}

Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-18T20:03:39.39+00:00

Yes!
This works almost perfectly, but I explained it a little confusingly, so it would need to adapt a bit.

What I want to copy is the root of the SSD instead of "E:\My Company - Aaron Trevor", so the script would have to read the name assigned to the drive to extract the contributor name, and how each drive can to have a different letter would need a code that said something like "Interpret the name given to THIS STORAGE (not a letter embedded in the code) and extract the name of the employee to use as a variable in the Backup folder".

I really appreciate your attention and patience, if you can help me with this I will be very grateful, I'm really trying to create it myself, but I'm having a lot of difficulty and I've spent several days.

Anyway, the code you showed me has already opened my mind a lot.
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-10-18T22:47:13.357+00:00

It would help if you explained what you mean by "root of the SSD" and "name assigned to the drive".

E.g., "Root" might mean "E:*" which would be the drive letter and the root directory and all subdirectories, or it might mean just the drive letter ("E"), or it might mean "\", the root directory. The "name" of the drive might be the name given in the volume label, or it might be the drive letter.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-18T23:50:55.667+00:00

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause confusion.

When I refer to "root", I mean the root directory and all subdirectories, that is, I want absolutely everything copied from that drive to the backup folder.

As for the name, I mean the name given on the volume label.

As I commented, it would be nice if the code didn't refer to a specific drive letter for work optimization reasons.

I really appreciate your attention and patience, it will open my mind a lot to be able to create other things from this.

Rich Matheisen 47,901

I think this is what you want:

$var1 = "E:\My Company - Aaron Trevor\02. Clients"  

if ($var1 -match "^((([A-Z]):)\\)"){  
    $lv = Get-CimInstance win32_logicaldisk -Filter "deviceID = '$($Matches[2])'"  
    $Did        = $lv.DeviceID                  # E.g., 'E:'  
    $VolLabel   = $lv.VolumeName                # the volume label  
    $FSRoot = "{0}{1}" -f $Matches[1], '*'      # E.g., 'E:\*'  

    robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "$FSRoot" "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\$VolLabel" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi  
}  
else{  
    "Didn't find expected pattern in '$var1'"  
}

I don't know of RoboCopy uses "E:", E:\", or "E:*" to specify the set of data you want.

Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-19T03:22:29.44+00:00
I believe it's almost that, but maybe even simpler.

I will try to explain in a very detailed way.

The idea is that this script is in the root directory of each employee's SSD's Drive.

Employee 01 - SSD Information

Volume Label: Banana Productions - Aaron Trevor

Drive letter: "E:"

Employee 02 - SSD Information

Volume label: Banana Productions - Michael Rember

Drive letter: "G:"

Robocopy Script:

robocopy /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "ROOT-DIRECTORY-AND-SUB-DIRECTORIES_OF-THIS-DRIVE" "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\NAME-OF-EMPLOOYE-EXTRACTED-OF-VOLUME-LABEL-OF -THIS-DRIVE" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi

How the script works when executed on employee 01's SSD Drive:

Copy all directories and subdirectories from the root directory of SSD Drive to the path "\192.168.0.130\Backup\Aaron Trevor"

How the script works when executed on employee 02's SSD Drive:

Copy all directories and subdirectories from the root directory of SSD Drive to the path "\192.168.0.130\Backup\Michael Rember"

That is, the idea is that the script is the same for all employees, because if one day the backup path changes, I can change it in a single file and ask all employees to replace it in the folder instead of creating a new one for each employee.

I think this way is a little more visual, I'm sorry if I couldn't explain it right before.

Again, thank you immensely for your attention and willingness.
MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-10-19T12:26:48.093+00:00
Pick off the drive letter from the location of the script.

$drv = $PSScriptRoot.substring(0,3) $drv
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-19T19:01:20.82+00:00

I believe that would solve it, but I don't know very well how to apply it to the script in general.

Could you show me what the complete script would look like, please?

Thank you very much for your attention!
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-10-19T19:50:35.5+00:00

The script is located on a drive whose drive letter is unknown. Is this correct? If it is, how is the script run? Is it run by a scheduled task? A scheduled job? When a certain event triggers it? Manually, by the current user from a PowerShell session?

There are times when the value of the $PSScriptRoot is $null. Simply relying on it to supply the drive letter isn't always going to work.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-19T20:38:58.497+00:00

It's not that the drive letter is unknown, it's variable.

Each employee will have the script in the root directory of their SSD, each employee's SSD drive letter is different and so is the volume label.

For example:
Employee 01 - SSD Information

Volume Label: Banana Productions - Aaron Trevor

Drive letter: "E:"

Employee 02 - SSD Information

Volume label: Banana Productions - Michael Rember

Drive letter: "G:"

The idea is that the script is exactly the same for each employee, so it is not necessary to create variations of it for each employee, it simply executes and knows what to do according to the volume label.

As for the trigger, at first it will be triggered manually, the employee accesses the root directory of your SSD, right-clicks on the script and selects the option "run with PowerShell"

Later I will study an alternative for it to be executed by the task scheduler, maybe triggered by a .bat, but it is not necessary now.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-19T21:16:54.283+00:00
A question, would it be feasible to make this script in CMD?

I'm turning to PowerShell because I believe this is a bit advanced for a batch file, but if I'm wrong, I'd prefer it to run in CMD because it would make the workflow even easier as PowerShell needs to be authorized on all computers to work.

EDIT: I think something like this would solve the problem:

robocopy /e /zb /v /sec /copyall %~d0 "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\VARIABLE-WITH-TEXT-EXTRACTED-OF-VOLUME-LABEL" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi

Thank you very much for all your attention!

MotoX80 36,291

Stick with Powershell.

if ($PSScriptRoot.Length -eq 0) {  
    $drv = "C:\"                        # default it to C or D or whatever you want, or stop here.   
} else {  
    $drv = $PSScriptRoot.substring(0,3)  
}  
$vol = Get-volume -DriveLetter $drv.Substring(0,1)  
       
$lbl = $vol.FileSystemLabel  
#####$lbl = "Banana Productions - Aaron Trevor"      # use this for testing because that is what I expect the label to be  
  
$dst = "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\" + $lbl.split('-')[1].trim()    # Get the users name   
  
"Source is $drv"  
"Destination is $dst"   
robocopy $drv "$dst"  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi /l

Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T01:05:47.02+00:00
I could be wrong, but with this script we are apparently having the same problem, which is that the path information is hard coded in the code, instead of the script generating the path through the information it extracts from the volume label.

I don't know how it works in PowerShell, but does it accept the %~d0 command?

I already used this command in CMD to get the letter of the current drive of the batch file.

If this code works in PowerShell I believe we can replace

$drv = "C:\" by $drv = %~d0

Still, apparently we have a problem here:

$lbl = $vol.FileSystemLabel #####$lbl = "Banana Productions - Aaron Trevor"

Since we are giving the drive a fixed volume label, instead of reading the volume label and performing actions from it.

Again, thank you so much for all your dedication and patience.

EDIT: Sorry for the ignorance, apparently after ##### there are just comments exemplifying what the command is doing in the case of SSD 01.

As I commented, I'm new to PowerShell so bear with me please hahaha
MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-10-20T01:25:43.71+00:00

Save that as a ps1 file and test it. Let us know if it displays the correct source and destination folders.

And if robocopy works or not. You can add the /l switch and it will just report on what it is going to copy without actually copying any files.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T01:47:28.32+00:00

Yeah!
Apparently this worked exactly the way I need it, however it didn't copy the files, it just showed in the script that everything was copied correctly.

I enabled PowerShell script execution on my system and ran Windows PowerShell ISE as administrator.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T02:18:10.46+00:00

Sorry, now that I realized I had the /l option in the script, it worked perfectly!

I would just like to ask a few questions, if possible.

1 - The created folder was invisible, even enabling the visualization of hidden files in Windows, is it necessary to add some parameter in the script?

2 - Is there any way to run this script without having to manually enable PowerShell to run on all computers?

3 - I noticed that the Script only runs if you run PowerShell as an administrator, is there any way around it?

4- How do I add a message asking if the person really wants to backup and for the window to close only when the person presses ENTER after the backup is finished?

Thank you so much for all your attention and dedication, it will help me a lot!

I will study all programming parameters to improve my programming in PowerShell.

Rich Matheisen 47,901

To the script, it's unknown but discoverable. To you, it's known because it must be in the range of A to Z in the English alphabet.

However, if there's only one volume that has the "Banana Productions - EMPLOYEE NAME" on each machine, then this should work no matter how, or from where, the script is launched:

$Name = "Banana Productions - "  
$FSRoot = ""   # drive letter  
$Employee = ""  
Get-CimInstance win32_logicaldisk |  
    ForEach-Object{  
        if ($_.VolumeName -match "^$Name(.+)"  
            $Employee = $Matches[1]  
            $FSRoot = "{0}{1}" -f $_.DeviceId,'\*'  
        }  
    }  
if ($FSRoot.Length -gt 0){  
    robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "$FSRoot" "\\192.168.0.130\Backup\$Employee" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi  
else{  
    "Didn't find expected pattern in any disk volume label"  
}

MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-10-20T12:34:28.577+00:00
1 - The created folder was invisible, even enabling the visualization of hidden files in Windows, is it necessary to add some parameter in the script?

Try this.

Set-ItemProperty "$dst" -Name Attributes -Value ([System.IO.FileAttributes]::Archive) -force # remove system/hidden/read only attributes

You would also want to exclude system folders. Add these. Be sure to use single quotes due to the dollar sign.

/xd '$Recycle.Bin' /xd 'System Volume Information'

2 - Is there any way to run this script without having to manually enable PowerShell to run on all computers?

Do you mean the PS execution policy? I believe that you can set that in an Active Directory group policy. Or set it when you build the pc's.

3 - I noticed that the Script only runs if you run PowerShell as an administrator, is there any way around it?

What doesn't work? What error do you get?

4- How do I add a message asking if the person really wants to backup and for the window to close only when the person presses ENTER after the backup is finished?

write-host "Would you like to perform a backup? Enter y to continue." -nonewline -ForegroundColor Yellow $yn = read-host if ($yn -eq 'y') { ### script goes here. }
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T15:18:19.197+00:00
Perfect, everything worked great!

As for question 2:

I think I found a solution that works very well for what I need, I created a batch file to run the PowerShell script, the batch file has these lines of code:

cd %~dp0 powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "PowerShell Test.ps1" set /p dummy=Backup successful! Press ENTER to finish.

Do you think a good solution?

As for question 3:
If I do not open as administrator robocopy displays this message

"ERROR: You do not have the Manage Audit user right. ***** You need this to copy the audit information (/COPY:U or /COPYALL)."

This is still a problem, because it forces me to run the batch file as an administrator (this is not really a problem) and as an administrator I can't change the CMD startup directory (this is a problem), so the command cd %~dp0 has no effect and the script does not start.

If I remove the cd %~dp0 command and don't run the batch file as administrator, it works, but I get the robocopy error message.
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T15:21:34.593+00:00

Excellent alternative!

I'm going to save it and use it in another script I'm creating, this alternative allows a lot of flexibility.

Thank you very much for your attention and dedication, it will help me a lot!
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-10-20T15:34:54.507+00:00

Because that script doesn't depend on being on the disk device you want to back up, you can place it (the script) on any disk and not bother with trying to discern where to put it (since the drive letter varies).
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-20T15:40:56.477+00:00

Yes, it gives enormous flexibility!

That way it is possible to leave the script in some folder of the computer itself as soon as I finish building the pc's.

Thank you very much for your help and patience, it made it possible for me to learn a lot.

Tyrone Hirt 41

I tested your code now but I'm getting these errors:

No E:\Backup Tool\Untitled1.ps1:7 character:14  
+ $Employee = $Matches[1]  
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~  
Missing closing ')' after expression in 'if' statement.  
No E:\Backup Tool\Untitled1.ps1:10 character:6  
+ }  
+ ~  
Unexpected '}' token in expression or statement.  
No E:\Backup Tool\Untitled1.ps1:11 character:27  
+ if ($FSRoot.Length -gt 0){  
+ ~  
Closing '}' missing from statement block or type definition.  
    + CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException  
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : MissingEndParenthesisAfterStatement

I believe that some parameters were missing, I tried to fix it, but I still couldn't make it work.

Can you help me?

Tyrone Hirt 41

I managed to solve it!
Some "}" and ")" were missing, I also removed the "*" from the line $FSRoot = "{0}{1}" -f $_.DeviceId,'\*', because it is a parameter incompatible with robocopy , everything worked perfectly!

The code was like this:

$Name = "Banana Productions - "  
 $FSRoot = ""   # drive letter  
 $Employee = ""  
 Get-CimInstance win32_logicaldisk |  
     ForEach-Object{  
         if ($_.VolumeName -match "^$Name(.+)"){  
             $Employee = $Matches[1]  
             $FSRoot = "{0}{1}" -f $_.DeviceId,'\'  
         }  
     }  
 if ($FSRoot.Length -gt 0){  
     robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /copyall "$FSRoot" "I:\Backup\$Employee" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi}  
 else{  
     "Didn't find expected pattern in any disk volume label"  
 }

Tyrone Hirt 41

I took advantage and created a variation from it, so that the script looks for the name of the backup unit too, I just don't know if my variation is optimized, if you can validate it, I'll be very grateful.

Here's the variation:

$NameOrigin = "Banana Productions - "  
 $FSRootOrigin = ""   # drive letter  
 $Employee = ""  
 $NameBackup = "Backup"  
 $DestinationDrive = ""  
 Get-CimInstance win32_logicaldisk |  
     ForEach-Object{  
         if ($_.VolumeName -match "^$NameOrigin(.+)"){  
             $Employee = $Matches[1]  
             $FSRootOrigin = "{0}{1}" -f $_.DeviceId,'\'  
         }  
     }  
       
     Get-CimInstance win32_logicaldisk |  
     ForEach-Object{  
         if ($_.VolumeName -match "$NameBackup"){  
             $DestinationDrive = "{0}{1}" -f $_.DeviceId,'\'  
         }  
     }  
  
 if ($FSRootOrigin.Length -gt 0){  
     robocopy  /e /zb /v /sec /l /copyall "$FSRootOrigin" "$DestinationDrive\Backup Teste\$Employee" /xd "03. Proxy" /xf *.avi}  
 else{  
     "Didn't find expected pattern in any disk volume label"  
 }

Notice that I removed ^ and (.+) from the if ($_.VolumeName -match "$NameBackup"), because with that for some reason I was always pulling the C:\ disk, but I don't know exactly what they do, I'm trying to understand in the session "about_Comparison_Operators" here in Microsoft Learn

Answer 2

MotoX80 36,291

"%~dp0" is the current directory, so by doing a CD to it, you are changing to the directory you are already in. That does nothing.

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "PowerShell Test.ps1"

There is no need to have powershell launch powershell to run the script. Use the dot slash notation run the script from the current directory.

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Test.ps1

Did you apply any auditing ACL's to the file system? If not, there is nothing to copy. Replace /copyall with /sec. Or if you require the owner use /COPY:DATSO

Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-21T00:07:34.79+00:00
Really, using the command %~dp0 makes no sense in this situation.

As for ACL auditing, I don't know exactly what it does, so I believe it's not something necessary for my use.

I changed the robocopy code and it looked like this:

robocopy $drv "$dst" /e /zb /v /sec /copy:DATSO /xd "03. Proxy" "$Recycle.Bin" "System Volume Information" /xf *.avi

But now I get this error message:

ERROR: You do not have the Backup and Restore Files user rights. ***** You need this to make Backup copies (/B or /ZB).

What do the /B and /ZB parameters do exactly?

I looked at the robocopy documentation but I couldn't understand very clearly if it's something necessary or not for my backup purpose.

If removing this parameter could compromise the backup in any situation, what would be the best alternative?

I thought I'd create a shortcut from the .bat file and add this to the target:

cmd.exe /kcd /dd:\some_folder

In addition to setting the shortcut to run as administrator, but I would like to avoid it for the sake of organization.
MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-10-21T01:30:04.127+00:00
Bsckup mode is used when the user who has launched robocopy.exe does not have the security permissions to read the files. In you case, the user has access to his own data, so you don't need to use either /b or /zb.

https://superuser.com/questions/976864/what-is-backup-mode-in-robocopy

You should specify /sec or /copy:DATSO but not both, because they specify what to copy.

robocopy $drv "$dst" /e /v /copy:DATSO /xd "03. Proxy" "$Recycle.Bin" "System Volume Information" /xf *.avi
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-21T18:29:28.16+00:00
Perfect!
Everything working correctly now.

I was studying the parameters you used to assemble this code, as I said, my main goal is to evolve my PowerShell programming, so I try to understand everything I see.

If I may ask, could you explain to me what these first lines are saying?

if ($PSScriptRoot.Length -eq 0) { $drv = "C:\" # default it to C or D or whatever you want, or stop here. } else { $drv = $PSScriptRoot.substring(0,3) }

Thank you so much for all your attention and dedication, I gained my week with these lessons!
MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-10-21T20:08:35.307+00:00

Rich commented that there are times when the value of the $PSScriptRoot is $null. So that is what I'm testing for. I set it to use the C drive, but in a real world use case, you would want to either stop and alert the user that something is wrong, or iterate through all visible drives to see if you can find the script and then use that drive letter.

$PSScriptRoot should contain something like "E:\MyScriptName.ps1". So I pick off a substring starting at position 0 (the first character) for a length of 3. That would give me "E:\" which is the drive letter that is the source directory for robocopy. (Since you said that the script is stored on the drive that you want to back up.)
Tyrone Hirt 41 Reputation points

2022-10-22T21:42:59.347+00:00

Perfect, now it's much clearer!

Again, thank you so much for all your patience and dedication, it helped me a lot!

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Robocopy + Powershell Variable

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