backup .bat error checking

[mongoosemanm]

At work, part of my job is to run some .bat files that do backups on various user computers, network drives, and servers. What I'm trying to do is figure out a way that I can do simpler error checking than my current method (manually check that the source and destination have the same number of files, sub folders, and space). I was thinking of doing this with MD5 sums, but that isn't really feasible seeing as this is a weekly backup of hundreds of thousands of files so the time to generate hashes would be far too long. Does anyone know of a good way to automate this error checking? Thanks.

[mongoosemanm]

At work, part of my job is to run some .bat files that do backups on various user computers, network drives, and servers. What I'm trying to do is figure out a way that I can do simpler error checking than my current method (manually check that the source and destination have the same number of files, sub folders, and space). I was thinking of doing this with MD5 sums, but that isn't really feasible seeing as this is a weekly backup of hundreds of thousands of files so the time to generate hashes would be far too long. Does anyone know of a good way to automate this error checking? Thanks.

I was doing some more research and came across the command comp to compare two files or sets of files. it seems to do exactly what I want it to, but I want to figure out some way to get the output to be very generic like a 1 indicates success and 0 indicates some sort of difference was found. that way if I export the output to a text file, someone can just search the text file for whatever that output is and if 0 shows up they know an error occurred. Any ideas on this matter?

[Scarecrow Man]

There is not a whole lot you can do with a command prompt, but COMP and VERIFY may be what you are looking for.

http://www.computerhope.com/comp.htm

http://www.computerhope.com/verifyhl.htm

[Mateo1041]

Do you know Quick C or QuickBasic for DOS? Those would make some nice and easy command apps.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

I don't know how you backup these data, but if you use a professional backup software such as Acronis True Image, it will give you the ability to verify backup files. It will also give you easier automation than .bat files.

[mongoosemanm]

thanks for the replies. sorry it took so long for me to get back. My boss wants to stick with the .bat files we use. I don't really have the option of using professional backup software. At least not at the moment. What I'm curious about now is how I would write up the script that will run comp on the source and backup after the backup is complete and then output to a text file. I'm a little rusty on batch files...

[Mateo1041]

thanks for the replies. sorry it took so long for me to get back. My boss wants to stick with the .bat files we use. I don't really have the option of using professional backup software. At least not at the moment. What I'm curious about now is how I would write up the script that will run comp on the source and backup after the backup is complete and then output to a text file. I'm a little rusty on batch files...

You can output to text file by doing the following, for example:

dir > text.txt