I'm a Linux (Knoppix 3.8.3) newbie, but a computer graybie. (old time programmer with gray beard).

I'm working in a terminal window and trying to copy all files with a specified extension from a hard drive ( /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ) to an external USB device (/dev/ubb1 /mnt/ubb1) . I need to preserve the original path information because the same filename may appear in more that one folder on the hard drive, for example readme.doc appears all over the place.

Here's what I am doing now, but it doesn't work right.

su # go to root
mount -o ro /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 # mount devices
mount -o rw /dev/ubb1 /mnt/ubb1
cd /mnt/hda1 # go to hard drive

find /mnt/hda1 -name '*.doc' -exec cp {} /mnt/ubb1 \;

This copies SOME of the .doc files but looses the full path informtion.

Everything goes into the root of the hard drive and files with the same filename but differant paths on the hard drive are lost.

I'd appreciate any help on this.
Many Thanks

Try using rsync.

rsync -r --filter='+ */' --filter='+ *.doc' --filter='- *' /mnt/hda1 /mnt/ubb1

Note: this command will also have the side-effect of copying all directories, even those that do not contain .doc files.

see http://rsync.samba.org/ftp/rsync/rsync.html for more options

Something like this should work:
Hopefully, someone would post a simpler solution.

This two step solution works fine. In addition it creates a zip file.
Nota bene: the arguements at the end of the second step are case sensitive.

While it is unlikely that anyone would save a file with the extension dOc, to be absolutely certain I guess I should use all 8 permutations.

1) cd /mnt/hda1/mystuff
2) zip -r /mnt/uba1/backup.zip . -i *.doc *.txt



PS How do I close a Man page ??

I suppose the canonical solution is: You can replace name by iname to make it case insenstive.
That's a pager thing. Try typing the letter "q".