How can I preserve my files' create dates, after copying and pasting to another drive?

Until reading this question I had never even considered using Copy & Paste. That was always something one did with text or pictures within files. I truly didn't know that would work with file manipulation. Hah, learn something new every day. I used COPY in DOS, and went straight to Drag & Drop in Windows.

A file's Date-Created date should, surely, be immutable, but Windows 7 clearly disagrees.
If the creation date of any file is important to you, then that information absolutely must be incorporated into the body text of the file itself, or included in the file name.
Including the date in the filename as, 20090921Letter.doc, (YYYYMMDD, 21st September 2009, UK order) lists files in date sequence when Sort By Name is chosen in Explorer, alternately ascending and descending following subsequent use of Sort By Name. And, of course, Windows 7 will append (2), (3), (4) etc., to files with the same name. (NOTE: using DDMMYYYY does not sort in correct, sequential date order.)
Retrospective renaming of many individual files would be tedious, but there are many bulk file renaming programs which may allow renaming with added date string in this way. I've not tried any, but can't see what use they'd be if they couldn't do this.
Using YYYYMMDDfilename.ext is actually a useful convention, and is worth adopting by anyone when creation date is very important. Though we could use the date digits in DOS filenames, there was no room for any other text in the filename. But, then again, DOS got the Date fields right so we didn't need it.

I have no idea what the outcome regarding Sort order would be using the US date convention of YYYYDDMM, I only know, by trial, that DDMMYYYY (UK) doesn't work properly.

Drag and Drop can be used to either Copy OR to Move by use of the Ctrl OR Shift keys following selection, or, depending on circumstances, a Link might be offered instead. (This in response to rcj007.)

The following is what I discovered when I first noticed this quirk of 7's some time ago, and only offer it for interest. I actually spent a fair bit of time messing about with file dates, and made notes.

Date, Date-Last-Saved and Date-Modified are always the same.
Date-Created often shows a later date than Date-Last-Saved, which is, of course, impossible without a Flux Capacitor and a DeLorean. This indicates that 7 is giving the file's Date-Created date as when it was simply MOVED or COPIED from one location to another, and not its true creation date. (I have many unrelated groups of files showing the same Date-Created, which confirms such movement - when I did a bit of housekeeping and moved files around into other folders.)
Date-Accessed does not change when the file is opened and closed, only when it's been opened and subsequently saved, which in my opinion is wrong - accessed means what it means - and then only Date-Created remains the same, which could well already be meaningless anyway.

Examples: (DL=DateLastSaved, DC=DateCreated, D=Date, DA=DateAccessed, DM=DateModified.)

True date of creation of the test file was 25/11/2010 (25th Nov 2010, UK order). The file is a letter which contains that date within its text.
How 7 presents it:
DL: 30/11/2010
DC: 13/03/2011
D: 30/11/2010
DA: 01/01/2012
DM: 30/11/2010
At this point, none is actually correct, but DL, D, and DM are close, and include the few days spent in final editing before the final save and send to print.
DC is already way off target, and is actually the date I moved the file to its new directory. DA seems always to be guesswork, and I absolutely know I didn't access it last New Year's Day.

After modifying and saving, or just saving (I tried both) on 22/04/2012:
DL: 22/04/2012
DC: 13/03/2011
D: 22/04/2012
DA: 22/04/2012
DM: 22/04/2012
And now not a single date offered is anywhere near the file's actual creation date (25/11/2010). Those dates that previously came close have now changed into nonsense.
If this system is followed at Win7's Search level then its Modified-by-Date Search function is likely useless. And how this will affect any Backup procedure, which will likely rely heavily on date, is anybody's guess. Of course, it is entirely possible that Windows maintains dates at system level correctly, and only user presentation is skewed.

Just remember to check Advanced from the View menu, then select the Options button.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx

I just tested using split pane on caja file manager in Mint 17 doing a drag from a linux ext4 formatted partition to a windows FAT32 partition and the dates stayed the same. I also did copy/paste and it stayed the same.

So, I thought maybe I needed to use two windows partitions, each on a different drive. Same thing, both drag/drop and copy/paste left the dates the same.

When I've done this in windows XP in past, as I recall only cut/paste retained the date, but that still leaves one with just the single copy of the file.

I see strange file creation date behavior when I back up files from my PC to the internal sdcard on my phone, and also when I copy those files back to my PC.

In almost every case, Android preserves the current date inside the files somehow, but displays the files from the PC's frame of reference (from the FTP client on the PC) as if they are all exactly 4 hours old, immediately after the copying. I happen to be in Eastern Time Zone, but my phone and computer have the date, time, and time zone set correctly, so I don't know why the files are showing as four hours behind.

Furthermore, in almost every case, when I copy the files from the phone's internal sdcard back to the PC, the original creation date reappears! However, the modified date shows 4 hours ago, and the accessed date shows a few seconds or minutes ago.

I'm using Andreas Liebig's FTPServer on the phone (look on Google Play) to allow me to access the internal sdcard using FTP instead of MTP. NetDrive on the PC gives the internal sdcard a drive letter in Windows, so that I can use folder sync software. (After configuring and starting FTPServer on the phone, right-click on the NetDrive icon in Windows and choose Run as Administrator.) The shortcut on my PC is using a string in this format to access the internal sdcard on the phone:

C:\Windows\explorer.exe "ftp://user:password@192.168.43.1:7777/storage/emulated/0"

This is necessary because Windows is using NTFS or FAT32, whereas Android is using ext3 (Linux file system), so there is no way to access the internal sdcard directly, as you could with an external sdcard or USB stick typically using FAT or FAT32 file system.

I tried this PC-to-phone backup procedure on a folder of simple text files with:
SafeCopy,
Robocopy [source] [destination] /MIR /DCOPY:T
XXcopy [source] [destination] /TC
SyncToy,
Araxis Merge,
and FileSync Pro.

The results are nearly the same for the first 5 in the list. I set the dates and times using a file date changer called Febooti FileTweak Pro. (With FileTweak Pro, I go into the file Properties, click on the File Date tab, check the checkboxes for Created, Modified, and Accessed, and type 1 1 1 1 1 1, 2 2 2 2 2 2, and 3 3 3 3 3 3.) The results for the first 5 on the list are as shown here:

Original text file on my PC:
Created = 1 Jan 2001 01:01:01.
Modified = 2 Feb 2002 02:02:02.
Accessed = 3 Mar 2003 03:03:03.

After copying the text file to the phone's internal sdcard and looking at the sdcard from the PC:
CD = exactly 4 hours ago.
MD = exactly 4 hours ago.
AD = exactly 4 hours ago.

After copying the text file back to the PC:
CD = 1 Jan 2001 01:01:01.
MD = exactly 4 hours ago.
AD = nearly this instant.

The one exception was FileSync Pro. For FSP, the phone apparently loses the original file creation date, and when I copy the file back to the PC, the results are:

CD = exactly 4 hours ago.
MD = exactly 4 hours ago.
AD = exactly 4 hours ago.

After using FileSync Pro, when I try to access the file to see if that is sufficient to cause the Accessed date to change, the Properties window for the file looks different than usual, like halfway between an Explorer window and an FTP window, and any attempts to access the file result in the message, "The server does not allow changing of file permissions" or something to that effect. This only happens with FileSync Pro. I have to close FSP, close the Explorer window, and reopen the window with the FTP shortcut, to return to the normal Properties window - but the file still shows Accessed = 4 hours ago.

All of this is maddening for someone trying to create mirrored folders on a PC and an Android device, without resorting to some kind of "walled garden"-type software that tries to insulate you from your own files.

I have used MS drag and drop to move/copy files to the same drive, but at times, I have noted not all files were moved/copied. Several times I have had to open two windows side by side and manually copy and past the missing files. The question is, if using some of this software to preserve the dates, am I still using MS drag/drop?

Teracopy software is very fast with no errors. But, will other transfer (copy/paste) software work with other software which preserves the folder/file dates?

Thanks

Use Ubuntu. It does not change any dates. It is free. You can use it from a DVD without installing it.

I've been using Teracopy since 2010 to replace Windows' stock program. The program speeds up copying files AND preserves the attributes such as creation date and modified date.

I was also having this problem. The solutions I read were not suitable for me, then I found a simple and easy solution.

For the "good source", hi-light all files in the folder> right click> properties> attributes> check "Read"> start. This sets the attributes all to 'R'
Then copy these files across to the destination that have the wrong dates.

This process may need to be repeated up to 3 times, after which, you are back in control of your files again.

For anyone who wants to use Robocopy but can not use a command line interface, there is a GUI version called Robocopy GUI on the Microsoft TechNet website. All it does is add a GUI to Robocopy.

Another utility similar to Robocopy is Richcopy. Unlike Robocopy, Richcopy comes with a GUI and a different layout. It is also available on the Microsoft TechNet site.