DOS Still Lives
By Fred Kagel

Installing a second drive in Windows 95/98 is relatively easy these days. Open the case, slide the drive into an empty bay, tighten a couple of screws, attach cables, set jumpers, configure the CMOS to autodetect the second drive, and you’re done --- well, almost. Duping a mirror image of the first disk onto the second disk is another matter and takes some major strategic planning, backing up, and restoring --- that is, until Win 95’s DOS 7 came on the scene. Xcopy and Xcopy32 now copy hidden and system files.

Xcopy32 c:*.* d: /s /h /k

does the trick. Switch /s copies subdirectories, /h copies the hidden and system files, and /k copies and maintains original attributes. The first time I did this, I did it over a network and ran into an "access problem" when the swap file, Win386.Swp, was encountered. I repeated the Xcopy32 command above but added the switches, /c /r. These switches continue copying even if errors occur and overwrite read-only files, respectively. For a full listing and explanation of the switch options, type Xcopy /? at the DOS prompt. I also highly recommend doing a Scandisk /surface on the original drive before doing any xcopying.

Fred Kagel, Director
Freehold Computer Training Ctr.
15 S. Main St.
Marlboro, NJ 07746
(732) 577-0606