I wanted to share my sad experience with you, guys and warn you about some issues with portable Reaper installation.
About a week ago I just copied all files from my installed Reaper into C:\Reaper folder (SSD) and got myself a working copy of my Reaper, but in a portable form.
For the last few days I was working with that portable version and was thinking about deleting the installed version, since I found portable version doing fine.
So, my new Reaper was in C:\Reaper folder and all my Reaper related stuff (projects, renders, scripts, templates, docs, etc) was in D:\Reaper folder (for years).
Today I've found a small .bat file in Reaper's folder, called reaper-to-usb.
I've opened it with a text editor and found out that it can convert my installed Reaper into a portable one. "That's great!", I thought to myself. Instead of deleting the installed version, which isn't needed anymore, I can now convert it into another portable version, in case I would need to revert from the current portable version.
So, since all my Reaper related stuff is located in D:\Reaper (HDD), I've decided to put a new converted Reaper onto the same drive.
So, I ran reaper-to-usb.bat file and pointed it onto disk D. The process didn't end well, telling me that some "*" files weren't copied. Well, ok, then. Let's leave everything like it was before, I thought to myself. Alas, nothing will be like it was "before". But, I didn't realize that yet.
A couple hours later, I've ran my portable Reaper from the SSD drive and it told me that the default project couldn't be found. Weird. Ok. Let's open one of the projects, on which I'm currently working, from recents.
"Can't open", said Reaper. What? That's also weird. But, I have a raising suspicion now.
Of cause, when I've opened my D:\Reaper folder, it was empty! Only Peaks folder was there and free space on the disk increased by 30 something gigabytes.
Yep. Everything's gone. All my work and hobby projects.
It seems like one of this commands from reaper-to-usb.bat deleted all my stuff.
Code:
mkdir %dlet%\REAPER
xcopy /E /Y "%appdata%\reaper\*" %dlet%\REAPER
xcopy /E /Y %REAPERDIR%\* %dlet%\REAPER
Although I have some backups, most of the files are completely gone. Nothing in the recycle bin, either.
Be careful, guys. Do not repeat my mistakes. Just a friendly warning. 🤠