How to copy a floppy boot disk?

Posted by Sammy on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Sammy
Published on 2013-10-23T21:07:30Z Indexed on 2013/10/23 21:56 UTC
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I have a floppy boot disk and I would like to copy it to preserve it, as a backup. If I have two floppy drives, A and B, how can I copy the disk?

Assuming one has two floppy drives

Can I simply insert the floppy disk in one of the drives and then an empty floppy disk in the other and issue a simple command like this one.

A:\>copy . b:

Will this only copy the contents of the current directory and none of the files in subdirectories? Do I have to explicitly specify the option to copy everything?

Also, what about the boot information? That won't get copied, right?

If one has only one floppy drive...

How do you copy a floppy disk if you only have one floppy drive? Do you in fact have to copy its contents to the local hard drive C and then copy that to an empty floppy disk using the same floppy drive?

A:\>copy . c:\floppydisk
A:\>
A:\>c:
C:\>
C:\>copy floppydisk a:
C:\>

I'm guessing I will need some type of disk image tool to really copy everything on a bootable floppy disk. Something like the dd command on Linux perhaps? Am I right?

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