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metichi
Asked: 2019-06-12 03:02:44 +0800 CST

Can you copy files with invalid filenames to ntfs and change the name automatically?

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I have a bunch of files spread over a lot of folders in an ext4 disk. Some of those files have illegal characters for ntfs (like : or | ) and so I get errors when I try to copy them to be seen in Windows.

Is there any tool that will let me copy the files and change the names as needed, or do I need to write my own?

ntfs

1 Answers

  1. Check this answer: https://superuser.com/questions/178025/linux-copy-to-fat32-filesystem-invalid-argument

    In short, install pax:

    sudo apt install pax

    Now instead of doing:

    cp -r sourcedir destdir

    to copy a directory tree, you can instead run:

    pax -rw -s '/[*?:]/_/gp' sourcedir destdir

    This way pax will rename only the copies of the files when necessary.

    Each * or ? or : character will be replaced with a _ character automatically. This means it is potentially possible that multiple files will receive the same new name.

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