Automatic copy from USB drive to PC on plug-in

[Mr.Humble]

Hi,

 

I need some help with my backup.

 

My situation: I have a laptop and a desktop with a large hard drive for storage. I periodically backup the laptop to a portable SSD using Acronis and differential backup.
 

I want to have an automatic solution to copying that backup to my desktop. I know this can be done with a robocopy script in a .bat file and an autorun, but I'm not sure how to make it work when I plug in the drive.

 

I would prefer to avoid a solution requiring other software.

 

I tried to modify a solution from this thread but I don't know how to make it start on it's own when I connect the SSD to the desktop.

https://superuser.com/questions/22766/how-can-i-automatically-copy-files-to-a-usb-drive-when-i-connect-it-to-my-comput

 

these are the "scripts" I use:

 

the .bat file:

@echo off
cls
echo waiting
goto check

Change the STUFF TO COPY location to the folder that you want 
everything inside to be send to the usb's, and change the 3 instances of 
G: to whatever drive letter that the USB uses.
Good Luck!

:start
set choice=
robocopy "W:\BACKUP\VOJTA-NOTEBOOK" "D:\BACKUP\VOJTA-NOTEBOOK" /E /XA:SH /R:3 /NP /V
echo Waiting for removal
goto wait

:check
timeout /t 1 /nobreak >nul
if exist "W:" (goto start) else goto check

:wait
timeout /t 1 /nobreak >nul
if exist "W:" (goto wait) else (
echo removed
echo waiting
goto check
)

the autorun:

[autorun]
 ;Open=backup_copy_ntb.bat
 ShellExecute=backup_copy_ntb.bat
 UseAutoPlay=1

Does anyone have any suggestion please?

[nerdv2]

Are you sure that autoplay and autorun are enabled?
Enabling autorun/autoplay is bad idea security-wise.

You could force it to be enabled via group policy.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-disable-autoplay-and-autorun-in-windows-10/

If you have time, prefer to detect the device dynamically with C# using InteropServices.
https://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotnet/detecting-usb-devices-using-c.html
And you can execute the batch script or even customize it yourself.

[Mr.Humble]

7 hours ago, nerdv2 said:

Are you sure that autoplay and autorun are enabled?
Enabling autorun/autoplay is bad idea security-wise.

You could force it to be enabled via group policy.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-disable-autoplay-and-autorun-in-windows-10/

If you have time, prefer to detect the device dynamically with C# using InteropServices.
https://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotnet/detecting-usb-devices-using-c.html
And you can execute the batch script or even customize it yourself.

It probably could be done if I knew any programming at all.

 

I found a solution though: I looked up the event ID and source when the external SSD gets plugged in, then I used that as a trigger in Event planner to start the copy "script" stored on the external SSD.

 

However then I was running into an issue where if I plug in another external drive, it starts the copy if the external SSD is still connected. I solved that by making a more detailed filter for the trigger event as shown:

<QueryList>
  <Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs/Operational">
    <Select Path="System">*[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs'] and (Level=4 or Level=0) and (EventID=98) and TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) <= 10000]]]
    
    and
    
    *[EventData[Data[@Name='DriveName'] and (Data='W:')]]</Select>
  </Query>
</QueryList>

I found out how to do that here.

 

This way the event "Import laptop backup" only triggers when the external SSD is inserted, and it ignores any other (NTFS) external drives.

[nerdv2]

That is a clever hack, now I learn something new.

And hey, I consider batch file and xml scripting is programming.