Folder dates

[Tom_C]

 

I bought a new hard drive for my laptop. I backed up my old laptop drive to an external using Retrospect 6.1, installed the new laptop drive, and restored the whole drive to the

 

The only problem so far is that all of the folder dates have the same creation date. (Files are fine.) Because I was restoring after opening up my laptop, the clock date was 1976 at the time of the restore, so now all my folders look like they were created in 1976.

 

Is there any way to preserve folder dates when restoring/backing up?

[CallMeDave]

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Is there any way to preserve folder dates when restoring/backing up?

 

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Yes.

 

Hold the Option key while clicking on Preferences (in the Special tab).

 

From there, select "File System" and "Restore folder modification dates."

 

Dave

[Tom_C]

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Hold the Option key while clicking on Preferences (in the Special tab).

 

From there, select "File System" and "Restore folder modification dates."

 

 

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1. I didn't have this option set when I backed up from my old HD. Did this option need to be set before the backup in order to restore folder dates, or were the folder dates archived anyway, such that if I check the option now, it will restore with the folder dates?

 

2. The preference description says, "Restore folder modification dates during duplicate and restore." Does it work only if you backed up the volume with "Duplicate," or will it also work with a standard backup? (My backup set is a file type, on an external HD.)

 

3. I restored with the 1976 folder dates and have been using the computer for two days. Needless to say, I have new files that I don't want to wipe out by restoring over them. Let's say I run my usual backup script (which I've been avoiding) so that I backup the new files to the same backup set. If I then restore from the backup set, will the folders have their original modification dates, or by running the script, will it overwrite my original folder modiciation dates with the 1976 dates?

 

Thanks for your help!

[rhwalker]

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1. I didn't have this option set when I backed up from my old HD. Did this option need to be set before the backup in order to restore folder dates, or were the folder dates archived anyway, such that if I check the option now, it will restore with the folder dates?

 

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No, yes. It's only an option for restore. The backup has the true file dates.

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2. The preference description says, "Restore folder modification dates during duplicate and restore." Does it work only if you backed up the volume with "Duplicate," or will it also work with a standard backup? (My backup set is a file type, on an external HD.)

 

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No, yes. It will work as expected for you.

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3. I restored with the 1976 folder dates and have been using the computer for two days. Needless to say, I have new files that I don't want to wipe out by restoring over them. Let's say I run my usual backup script (which I've been avoiding) so that I backup the new files to the same backup set. If I then restore from the backup set, will the folders have their original modification dates, or by running the script, will it overwrite my original folder modiciation dates with the 1976 dates?

 

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There are several ways to handle this. One way would be to make a selector to only back up files newer than your backup, back up what you have now with that selector, do the restore from your first backup with the "restore file/folder dates" option set, then do the restore of your new files, which would overwrite any files from the first restore. Others may have some other suggestions.

 

Russ

[Tom_C]

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1. I didn't have this option set when I backed up from my old HD. Did this option need to be set before the backup in order to restore folder dates, or were the folder dates archived anyway, such that if I check the option now, it will restore with the folder dates?

 

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No, yes. It's only an option for restore. The backup has the true file dates.

 

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Strange. Over the weekend, I experimented first by re-restoring my "small" partition that I just use for downloads, caches, etc. It restored using the original folder dates, even without checking the secret preference. Then I tried my "big" partition (albeit using "Restore files from a backup" instead of "Restore an entire disk," because I wasn't ready to overwrite my recent work yet). It didn't restore the folder dates, regardless whether the secret preference was checked or not.

 

 

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3. I restored with the 1976 folder dates and have been using the computer for two days. Needless to say, I have new files that I don't want to wipe out by restoring over them. Let's say I run my usual backup script (which I've been avoiding) so that I backup the new files to the same backup set. If I then restore from the backup set, will the folders have their original modification dates, or by running the script, will it overwrite my original folder modiciation dates with the 1976 dates?

 

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There are several ways to handle this. One way would be to make a selector to only back up files newer than your backup, back up what you have now with that selector, do the restore from your first backup with the "restore file/folder dates" option set, then do the restore of your new files, which would overwrite any files from the first restore. Others may have some other suggestions.

 

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As I was thinking through my restore strategy, I thought of two problems doing it this way. First, while the second restore will overwrite files from the first restore, it's not going to delete files that have been deleted since the earlier backup. Second, when I was walking through the options with "Restore files from a backup," it said that it would restore to a new folder, and I didn't see any way to change this. That would mean manually copying the files from the second restore from the new folder to the corresponding places from the first restore. Any way around this?