When working with multiple disk drives, you may need to copy files from one drive to another drive. Or, you might need to download or transfer files from a usb drive or memory stick to a drive on your computer. Follow the steps below to copy and move files between drives.

Microsoft Windows users

To copy files from one drive to another internal or external drive in Windows, perform the same actions you would use to copy a file in Windows. For example, if you wanted to copy photos from a USB flash drive to the HDD (hard drive) in your computer, follow these steps. Open the USB drive in File Explorer, locate the photos or the folder containing the pictures, and press Ctrl+C. Then, in File Explorer, go to the location you want to copy the pictures (e.g, Pictures on the left to open your Pictures folder), and paste them by pressing Ctrl+V.

  • Microsoft Windows

  • Windows command prompt.

  • Using the copy command

  • Using the xcopy command

  • Other GUI (Graphical User Interface) programs.

  • Using the copy command

  • Using the xcopy command

Windows command prompt

The following examples use the Windows command prompt to copy files from one drive to another. For general information about using the command line (cmd), see: How to use the Windows command line (DOS).

There are other ways to copy files, and you can use whichever you prefer. For more information, see: How to copy files.

Using the copy command

You can use the copy command from the command line to copy files.

copy c:\myfile.txt d:

The above command would copy the file “myfile.txt” on the C: drive to the D: drive.

copy *.txt e:

The above command uses a wildcard to copy all text files in the current directory to the E: drive.

copy f:\example.xls

The above command would copy the file “example.xls” on the F: drive to the current directory. Notice that we did not specify a destination; if the destination is not specified, the current directory is used by default.

For example, if your command prompt says C:>, you are in the root of the C:\ drive. So, the command above would copy F:\example.xls to the destination C:\example.xls.

  • See the copy command for further information and help with this command.

Using the xcopy command

Using the xcopy command, you can copy the all the files from one drive to another drive. Example:

If you need to switch between drives, type the letter of the drive followed by a colon at the command line. For example, to switch to the ‘I’ drive, type “i:”. If done correctly, it should change your prompt to “I:>”.

xcopy /h /c /k /e /r /y c:\ d:\

The above command copies all of the files on the C:\ drive to the D:\ drive. There are many options specified here (the letters with a slash before them). Here’s what they do:

  • See the xcopy command for a description of all options, and more example commands.

Other GUI (Graphical User Interface) methods

All modern GUI operating systems let you use the familiar copy and paste functions to copy files and other objects. To copy files from one drive to another, follow the steps below.

  • Browse to the location of your files you want to copy.
  • Select the files you want to copy and then right-click and select Copy in the pop-up menu. You can also use the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut to copy the selected files.
  • Once the files are copied, move to where you want to copy the files, right-click and select Paste to copy the files to that location. You can also use the Ctrl+P keyboard shortcut to paste the copied files.
  • How to copy files.
  • How to copy a directory or folder.
  • Computer file help and support.