On 24 Feb 99, at 10:42, Dave Perry wrote:

> So, if I try to copy the contents of a hard drive in a dos window I
> will get a perfect copy of the hard drive??

  Since a DOS window is running "inside" Windows, xcopy will run
xcopy32 and support all of the necessary switches, so that

  xcopy x: y: /r/i/c/h/k/e/y

will copy all of the files and directories, and get their names right,
including any that are marked "system" and/or "hidden".

  Whether this is a "perfect copy" of a drive is open to a few
remaining bits of argument.  For one thing, it will be a copy of a
"volume" or partition, identified by a "drive letter", but it does not
include a physical hard drive's partition table.
  For another, the result will be an *equivalent* copy -- the same
names and directory structure and contents as the original -- but it
won't be fragmented, and the underlying format (FAT16 vs 32, for
instance) needn't match.  So the result is different from doing a
partition copy with a product like Partition Magic.
  I would not call this copy "perfect", but for many purposes it may be
more useful than an exact copy would be.


David G

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