Losing data with routine cp and mv -- "cannot create hard link"

[Thomas Baker]

I use Cygwin 1.3.17, NTFS file systems, and Win2000 (see
excerpt from cygcheck -s below).  Both with cp and mv, I am
getting error messages when copying or moving rather large
directories (1.4 GB, 89,000 files).  For example, the command:

    $ cp -Rip p:/rchive q:/

starts off fine, but half-way through the job, error messages such
as the following start to appear:

    cp: will not create hard link `q:/rchive/foo/bar' to directory `q:/rchive/fli/bers.gif'

..where the both filename A is always a directory name
and filename B (called a "directory" in the error message)
is usually a file, not a directory.

While showing these messages, cp and mv continue to execute
normally -- with error messages appearing intermittently --
except the directories named by filenames A are not copied,
i.e. the data is lost.  (Good thing I was paying attention
and not running these in batch mode!)

I could not find anything relevant in the mailing list archive
or FAQ.  Can anyone advise?  Is this an inherent limit of
these commands?  Should I perhaps be using xargs?

Tom



Cygwin Win95/NT Configuration Diagnostics
Current System Time: Sun Jan 12 18:41:03 2003

Windows 2000 Professional Ver 5.0 Build 2195 Service Pack 1

SysDir: C:\WINNT\System32
WinDir: C:\WINNT

    Cygwin DLL version info:
        DLL version: 1.3.17
        DLL epoch: 19
        DLL bad signal mask: 19005
        DLL old termios: 5
        DLL malloc env: 28
        API major: 0
        API minor: 67
        Shared data: 3
        DLL identifier: cygwin1
        Mount registry: 2
        Cygnus registry name: Cygnus Solutions
        Cygwin registry name: Cygwin
        Program options name: Program Options
        Cygwin mount registry name: mounts v2
        Cygdrive flags: cygdrive flags
        Cygdrive prefix: cygdrive prefix
        Cygdrive default prefix: 
        Build date: Wed Nov 27 18:54:29 EST 2002
        Shared id: cygwin1S3

-- 
Dr. Thomas Baker                                Thomas.Baker@bi.fhg.de
Institutszentrum Schloss Birlinghoven          mobile +49-171-408-5784
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft                          work +49-30-8109-9027
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany                    fax +49-2241-144-2352