Copy an Entire Hard Drive with Xcopy32.exe

*** no need to spend one red cent ***

Windows comes with DOS-based executables xcopy.exe and xcopy32.exe  -  what most people do not know is that they are the same exact file !!  The myth was that xcopy32 retained long filenames and xcopy does not.  However, so long as you run them within a DOS box in Windows, they will both copy long filenames flawlessly.

Products such as Norton's Ghost sell by the millions because people believe that is the only way to copy an entire drive - wrong!!  Here is how to do it for free.  This works 100% and I have done it many times.

1) if the drive is new - connect it up as a second drive (D drive - make sure the jumpers are set so that C drive is the Master and D drive is the slave).  Then Start/Run . . . FDISK, and partition the drive as one extended partition.  Then format the D drive
2) restart windows
3) START/Run . . . command (Win98) or cmd (WinXP) - to open a DOS box - you must use a Windows dos box (not the true DOS that Win98 has upon booting to a command prompt) Xcopy and Xcopy32 won't copy long filenames or copy hidden files from regular dos.
4) if you are copying C to D, in the DOS box, type

xcopy c:\ d:\ /c/h/e/r/k/y/s >>temp.txt        ( >>temp.txt is optional)

NOTE: xcopy.exe and xcopy32.exe are identical !!!

/C Ignores errors. /E Copies all sub directories, even if they are empty, /H Copies files with the hidden and system file attributes, /K Copies attributes, /R Copies over read-only files. /S Copies directories and sub directories, unless they are empty.) 

You may have a few files that fail to copy, so you don't want these error messages to fly off the screen. HOWEVER, USUALLY ONLY THE SWAP FILE FAILS TO BE COPIED !!  And it is automatically recreated upon reboot.  The >>temp.txt copies all the rapidly scrolling text to a file temp.txt, so that the only thing you will see on the screen is the exceptions (errors). Write down the files it fails to copy, and copy them later in DOS (not a DOS box, since windows may have them locked - restart into DOS mode to do this). If they have long file names, write these name down - and when you start windows, go into Explorer and rename them back to their original long filename after copying them in DOS.


Shut down, remove the old drive, change the jumpers on the drive to make the new drive the master or stand alone, and reconfigure your bios to recognize the new drive. Boot Win 95 with your emergency disk or Win 98 startup disk in drive A 

Start FDISK, make the partition active 

NOTE: the swap file c:\windows\Win386.swp would mess up your new drive since it need to be recreated by windows on that drive. However, xcopy will not copy it, since it is locked by the system. The message you will get is "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process"

Start up the PC - Done