How to copy folders with the help of CMD?

**xanix** · 16-12-2009

My system has Windows 98 operating system. It has a directory with many sub-directories. I want to copy all of them to an external hard disk. But, windows 98 does not detect the portable because of which I have to do it in DOS. But, I do not have that much knowledge with DOS. So, I wanted to know how to copy folders with the help of CMD? I want to copy them all together as I am not comfortable of copying them separately one by one.

**jesse** · 16-12-2009

I had the same issue to do such copying with my system having Windows 98 as it does not detect the portables or externals. There is a command that will help you to copy folders with the help of CMD. The command is "copy*.*". This command helps you to copy all the files within a directory. The problem with this command is that it does not copy the sub-directories.

Dr. V · 16-12-2009

I do not know why you are using such an old version of windows in your machine because there is nothing so special in Windows 98. I do not think there is any method to copy folders with the help of CMD or DOS. I suggest you to better switch onto a newer version of Windows as Windows XP or higher and then, you will easily be able to copy the directories with its sub directories without having any issues.

**Calvin K** · 16-12-2009

There is a very simple command to copy folders with the help of CMD. If you want to know about any of the DOS commands, you just have to type the particular command you want to know about. The xcopy command is used in CMD to copy files and folders of a directory along with its sub-directories. You need to just type xcopy/?. It had been successful in my case, hope that it will solve your problem too.

**Solomon** · 16-12-2009

Hey why do you want to copy folders with the help of CMD? Your operating system is not detecting your external drive means that there is some problem with the copy of Windows 98 that you are having in your system. Windows 98 detects all types of portables. I suppose that your operating system must have crashed. Check out your copy of windows and then do the copy.

**Lillebror** · 16-12-2009

If you are going to copy folders with the help of CMD, then all the copied files will be in 8.3 format. There may be a problem while opening these files in Windows. this will happen if you run a pure DOS by booting fully into DOS or when you exit from Windows. By doing a copy in Windows 98 via a DOS window, the files will be copied properly without any problem.