Command: diskcopy
DISKCOPY copies the contents of a floppy disk to a second floppy.
It currently supports disk copies for almost any diskette type
including 160 Kb, 180 Kb, 320 Kb, 360 Kb, 720 Kb, 1.2 MB, 1.44 MB
and 2.88 MB disks, using XMS, EMS, buffers or swap file. On top of
that diskcopy supports the use of image files.
The images can be used by SHSUFDRV.
Syntax:
Diskcopy [source][destination][/a][/v][/m][/i][/o][/1][/x][/d][/r]
[/f][/t][/?]
source: drive or image file to copy from.
destination: drive or image file to copy to.
Options:
/a Give an audible warning for user action.
This option gives a beep each time user action is required.
/v Verify reads and writes. With this option enabled reads and writes
are verified. Notice that using this option takes twice as long as
without it. The DOS verify flag is not influenced by this option.
/m Only use memory for disk copy. With this option only memory is
used for the diskcopy, meaning either XMS, EMS or buffers.
/i Show memory usage (informative).
Tells you which kind of memory is used.
/o Overwrite destination, if it already exists (in case of an image
file). When you want to make an image file of a floppy disk and
a file with that name already exists the program refuses to
overwrite the file. With this option you can change this behaviour
and force an overwrite of existing files.
/x Always automaticaly exit. This switch makes sure the program
always exits. You will most likely notice this at the end of the
program. If you use this switch the program will no longer ask you
wether you want another copy of the disk.
/d Assume disk already in drive. This switch is used to speed up disk
copying. The program will not ask you to insert the source or
destination diskette if possible.
/r Go into disk error recovery mode.
Sometimes part of a disk is unreadable, but everything else is
still valid. In those cases you might want to copy the disk to a
new disk, while recovering as much data as possible. Using this
switch you can force diskcopy to scan more effectively for media
errors on the disk and recover more of the disk than is possible
without the switch.
This option is not available, if you compile diskcopy to always be
in error recovery mode.
/f Perform fast diskcopy (only copy filled sectors).
Using this option only the sectors which are filled are copied
resulting in a much faster way of making a disk copy. Notice
however that the copy of the target disk in this case is not
exactly the same as that of the original. All files on the disk
will however be identical to those on the original disk.
This option is also used to make small image files. These image
files will then contain only the information of sectors which
contain data. If you write the image file back to a disk the disk
will not be identical to the first disk, but all files will be
the same.
/t Don't ask target disk if copying image file to same disk.
When copying an image file to the same disk as the one that is
being copied, the program normally asks to insert a new disk. When
using this option the image file is directly written to the disk
without asking for an other disk.
/1 This option doesn't do anything but has been included for MS-DOS
compatibility. In other versions of DOS, this copied the first
side only.
/? Shows the help.
Comments:
A minus sign after an option disables the option.
If the source and/or destination is a drive, for example
"a:" then it is treated as a floppy disk, otherwise it is
treated as an image file.
The source and destination can be the same drive; DISKCOPY will
first copy from the source, and then prompt you to swap floppy
disks. Then it will write to the destination.
DISKCOPY uses the Linux rawrite format for its image files.
Therefore the image files from DISKCOPY can be used by
Rawrite and vice versa.
DISKCOPY cannot read from or overwrite Linux floppy disks.
It can, however, write a Linux floppy image to a DOS disk.
DISKCOPY supports NLS (national language support) and long
filenames, see DOSLFN.
In order to facilitate using DISKCOPY you can optionally create
a diskcopy.ini file to store the options you use often.
For more information see:
https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/base/diskcopy/-/tree/master/DOC/DISKCOPY
OR:
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/
packet: discopy, section: DOC. OR:
C:\FREEDOS\DOC\DISKCOPY\diskcopy
Examples:
Example 1:
Diskcopy a: a: /a /i
Copy a floppy disk from a: to a:, give a beep before user action
and show memory usage.
Example 2:
Diskcopy a: example.img
Copy the contents of the floppy disk in drive a: to the image file
example.img.
Example 3:
Diskcopy example.img a:
Copy the contents of the file example.img to the floppy disk in
drive a:
Example 4:
Diskcopy example1.img example2.img
Copy the file example1.img to the file example2.img.
Example 5:
Diskcopy a: a: /a-
Copy the contents of the disk in drive a: to another disk in
drive a:, making sure there is no beep for user action.
Example 6:
Diskcopy a: a:a /f
Create a small image file of drive a: on drive a:
Notice that in this case:
- The program can give an out of memory error if the entire
contents can not be copied in one time.
- The resulting file "a" is not included in the image file.
Example 6:
Diskcopy a:a a:, or identically: diskcopy a:a a: /f
Copy the image file "a" on drive a: to drive a:
Notice that in this case:
- The user will be asked to insert a new floppy.
Example 7:
Diskcopy a:a a: /t
Copy the image file "a" on drive a: to drive a:
Notice that in this case:
- The contents of drive a: is overwritten. So the image file is
gone too!
See also:
copy
diskcomp
doslfn
dskimg/ospimg
move
raread
rawrite
shsufdrv
xcopy
Copyright © 1998 Jim Hall, updated 2007 and 2022 by W. Spiegl.
This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.