command line to "mirror" copy a drive to another drive???

[nortexoid]

i want to mirror one drive to another...making
each drive identical - both bootable, etc...i know
there's an xcopy command for this - can anyone help me?

or, is there 3rd party software i could use to do it? - free software that is...

thunks

 

[BoberFett]

Try "xcopy /?" to get the parameters list. I assume you want something such as "xcopy /s c:\ d:\"

 

[Mark R]

You'd be strongly advised to use a commercial drive clone program such as Norton Ghost. While it costs $60 to buy, a fully functional trial version is available.

A limitation in Windows means that any program which attempts to copy a drive on a file by file basis, eg. XCopy, Explorer, Ontrack Filecopy will not preserve filenames. There is no way around this.

 

[BoberFett]

Not preserve file names? Xcopy works on long file names.

Edit: Or are you talking about the 8.3 name for a long file name?

 

[jamarno]

XCOPY (XCOPY32) will not preserve short filenames, as John Navas shows: http://navasgrp.home.att.net/tech/clone_copy.htm

XXCOPY is better but still fails to preserve all short filenames.

However, I believe Ontrack Filecopy from Disk Manager will perserve them (but not the Disk Go Disk Manager package) and is not drive brand-specific even when the rest of DM is. IOW Western Digital and Maxtor owners can use Filecopy from IBM's release of DM.

 

[jamarno]

!

 

[MadRat]

Beware the Norton Ghost 10-gig limit. Make a partition to ghost to thats sub10-gigs and then use another program, like Partition Magic, to expand it out.

 

[ltk007]

Xcopy worked fine for me. Its free, easy, and FREE!!! Its not worth the trouble of going out to buy a program when you have the command built into your OS.

 

[larrymoencurly]

I found this from a FAQ about Xcopy's limitations:

--------------------------

Create a new folder within the root directory ("C:\&quot called "Test".
Go into this folder.

Create a new folder within "Test" called "Source". Go into this folder.

Create a folder within "Source" called "Microsoft is #1".
Create a folder within "Source" called "Microsoft is #2".
Create a folder within "Source" called "Microsoft is #3".

Open a DOS prompt box.

Type "CD \Test\Source" and hit {Enter}.

Type "DIR" and hit {Enter}. You will see the three folders you just
created, and their short file name aliases. Note that the short file
name for "Microsoft is #1" is "MICROS~1", the alias for "Microsoft is
#2" is "MICROS~2", and the alias for "Microsoft is #3" is "MICROS~3".
This is what you'd expect; so far, so good.

Go back to Windows Explorer and delete "Microsoft is #2".

Go back to the DOS box, and again type "DIR" and hit {Enter}. You
will see that there are only the two folders left, but the aliases
have not changed: the short file name for "Microsoft is #1" is
"MICROS~1", and the alias for "Microsoft is #3" is "MICROS~3".

Type "CD \Test" and hit {Enter}.

Type "XCOPY /R /I /C /H /K /E /Y Source Dest" and hit {Enter}. This
will copy the contents of the "Source" subfolder to a new subfolder
called "Dest".

Type "CD Dest" and hit {Enter}.

Type "DIR" and {Enter}. Take a look a the short file name alias for
"Microsoft is #3" and you will see that it is now "MICROS~2", not
"MICROS~3" as it was before.

And by the way, it doesn't matter if you use "XCOPY" or "XCOPY32".
---------------------------------------------

It was enough to convince me.

 

[Aboroth]

Whenever I want to copy a drive I just select all files in Windows explorer except for the windows swap file and copy them. It is called win386.swp and is normally in the Windows directory unless you specify a swap file size. If no programs are running in the background this should be the only file windows won't let you copy. If it is in the windows directory, just move everything but the swap file to a directory on the drive you are copying to called windows.