Sorry for all the old questions but it has been awhile since I have been in the DOS thing that I have forgotten everything. What is the difference between copy and xcopy? Can I delete a whole directory with one of those?http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3MOZA_en-GBUS386US388&q=difference+between+copy+and+xcopy&aq=f&aqi=g3g-m1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=xcopy is for directories and files. copy will only move files from one location to another. You cannot delete using xcopy or copy. If you want to delete, use del and if you want to remove a directory use rmdir.8)HOW DO I TRANSFER ALL FILES FROM ONE HARD DRIVE TO ANOTHER SO I CAME BOOT FROM THAT DRIVE
IN XP PROBoomer960 - Welcome to the CH forums.

Please don't hijack another member's thread, start one of your own.

To achieve what you want you have to clone the drive using dedicated software. I use XXClone (a free restricted version is available) and there are other packages available on the WWW.

Good luckAfter read and re-reading my post I am trying to remember What was I THINKING? I know that you can not delete in copy or xcopy, I was asking about moving files. Thanks for the help."Move" is nothing more than Copy + Delete, without verification.
It's actually sort of a dangerous command, as I found out, years ago, when I was working just in DOS.

The list of switches for XCOPY is EXTENSIVE and allows the command to do a lot of work, with a lot of selectivity.

I use it daily to back up all my data files, that are new or have just been changed, to like folders in my Backup hard drive.
That totally precludes me loosing any of my data in case my main drive goes up in a big ball of fire and smoke.
Don't laugh.....that CAN happen.

Cheers!
I'm not sure if you are working in a post XP environment or not, but there is also the functionality of robocopy. It has the ability to selectively include or selectively exclude files and directories, it allows you to mirror attributes, or only copy certain attributes, to change certain flags on files, and a lot of other tricks. I believe they only introduced it in the Vista command prompt and later, but if you are in that environment, it's definitely worth checking out. Just try a robocopy /? |more in your cmd line and take a look at all the goodies available (including log filing, in case you want to set up a routine backup with logging capability.) I personally have a backup that runs robocopy daily, with a logging function that names the log file the current date so I don't get confused when something was first backed up. Oh, and thats the other cool thing about robocopy, when you are using it in a backup style capacity, is it will automatically skip files that are already in the new location (can be toggled) so you don't have to worry about the time it takes to copy an entire directory, it will only copy new (or newer VERSIONS of) files. It also has a /mov switch if you are wanting to delete the source after the copy (as you suggested originally), and /purge or /mir switches to make the destination look just like the source.