Reverting xcopy file names

[CapnCrunch]

I used xcopy to copy some files and now they are still in dos form.
Ex: something like "down~1"
Is there a program out there that will convert these filenames back to what they were b4 i used xcopy?
Thanks

 

[Nothinman]

There's no way to tell what they were before the copy.

 

[Workin']

Originally posted by: Nothinman
There's no way to tell what they were before the copy.

Which is another way of saying no. You can't recover the old long filenames.

 

[JW310]

Not totally sure, but I think if you had used xcopy32 instead of just xcopy to copy the files over, it would've preserved the long file names. If you still have access to the source files, I would try using xcopy32 to copy the files over again.

JW

 

[CapnCrunch]

thanks
jw310 - unfortunately, i dont have access to the original files because i had to copy the files to another hard drive and format the original.

keep the replies comin! maybe someone out there will know how to do this

 

[Workin']

keep the replies comin! maybe someone out there will know how to do this

It's impossible (except of course renaming them all by hand). Inventing a practical source of nuclear fusion may be easier.

 

[Nothinman]

keep the replies comin! maybe someone out there will know how to do this

There's nothing to know, what you want is impossible.

Long filenames on FAT partitions are a kludge, they use extra clusters with invalid attribute combinations to store the part of the filename past the 8.3 limit (so you also lose space when you use long filenames, yay!) and when you use a utility that doesn't know about FAT LFNs they just get discarded because the clusters with the LFNs aren't holding any data as far as that utility can see. Unless you can get the original filesystem back and recopy them (or a list of the original file names to try and do it programmatically although that would be a b!tch to get right) they're gone.