Ted Gervais said:
I am trying to set up a new harddrive, and need to move my current stuff
from one to the other?? I will be getting rid of the old harddrive once
all the stuff has been copied over. So I need the new drive to be able to
boot up etc ..Can I do that with a command ? I don't have or want to use
Ghost or other software like that. There must be a simple command the will
transfer all date from one drive to another including all the hidden files
etc etc??
You could try using xcopy with all the appropriate switches, but frankly, I
doubt it will work properly. And it certainly won't be fast - even if it
does complete the copy, an event I have found to be unlikely.
I suspect you'll find that even if xcopy manages to make it all the way
through the drive's contents (and I've had it silently fail more than once
after hours of copying, leaving a situation where there's no easy way to
tell what was actually copied) the drive may not be bootable because Xcopy
may not set the flags needed to make a disk bootable.
You will be *much* farther ahead to use the free demo version of Acronis
True Image or the free utility from the manufacturer of your hard disk.
Either of those *will* make the drive bootable and be done in much less time
than xcopy, and with much less uncertainty.
HTH
-pk
Here is the help information for xcopy and its switches:
====================
C:\WINDOWS>xcopy /?
Copies files and directory trees.
XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/V] [/W]
[/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/G] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
[/K] [/N] [/O] [/X] [/Y] [/-Y] [/Z]
[/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...]
source Specifies the file(s) to copy.
destination Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
/A Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
doesn't change the attribute.
/M Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
turns off the archive attribute.
/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.
/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...
Specifies a list of files containing strings. Each string
should be in a separate line in the files. When any of the
strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
copied, that file will be excluded from being copied. For
example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
.obj extension respectively.
/P Prompts you before creating each destination file.
/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/V Verifies each new file.
/W Prompts you to press a key before copying.
/C Continues copying even if errors occur.
/I If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
assumes that destination must be a directory.
/Q Does not display file names while copying.
/F Displays full source and destination file names while
copying.
/L Displays files that would be copied.
/G Allows the copying of encrypted files to destination that
does
not support encryption.
/H Copies hidden and system files also.
/R Overwrites read-only files.
/T Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does
not
include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
empty directories and subdirectories.
/U Copies only files that already exist in destination.
/K Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only
attributes.
/N Copies using the generated short names.
/O Copies file ownership and ACL information.
/X Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/-Y Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/Z Copies networked files in restartable mode.
The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.
====================
