# DOS help fast! Server down at work. Please! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 24, 2003, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135 "2003-02-24T08:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/1 "2003-02-24T08:39:52Z")
How do I take a file off my floppy disk and copy it to a specific directory on the hard drive in DOS. So I want to copy file a:\x to c:\winnt\system32\x Whats the exact syntax in DOS? Please help! I have a server that is currently down and won’t respond in windows. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/2 "2003-02-24T08:42:19Z")
Copy x:\fullpath\filename y:\fullpath\destinationdirectory ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/3 "2003-02-24T11:58:00Z")
Man, how young do you have to be to never have used DOS?!?! Well, if anyone else is searching for DOS help, note that typing “/?” after a command (ie, “COPY /?”) will display a short usage guide to the command. Typing “HELP” will give a list of DOS commands in some versions. And of course, to run DOS in your MSWindows environment of choice, run either “command” or “cmd” from the run menu. And for those who did that and are stuck with a black screen, type “exit” and never look here again. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/4 "2003-02-24T12:07:06Z")
**Nanoda** , I think **Stinkpalm** ’s situation was that he had to boot to DOS from a floppy, because Windows wouldn’t load (because it could find file c:\winnt\system32\x). It’s not something that commonly arises. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/5 "2003-02-24T12:29:19Z")
Thanks for the help. I grew up with DOS but have not used it in so long that I forgot the syntax of that command and did not have time to look for it. I was working on the unit and came back the the good old SDMB a couple minutes later and my answer was waiting. Desmostylus was right though about the situation. Brutus was right with the syntax and thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately it didnt fix the problem and I had to rebuild the system from scratch. I couldn’t access the WINNT dir from DOS because it was NTFS. I didn’t think it would work, but I had to try it. The repair console didn’t work either. It hosed everything up worse. I had to call 4 people at 3am to put the databases back together. Ah well, such is the life of a mid-shifter. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/6 "2003-02-24T12:58:28Z")
Throw NTFSDOS on a bootdisk. Google it for future reference. ---
**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/7 "2003-02-24T13:30:08Z")
At work we make a dual-boot (on seperate partitions) of the OS on each server. The first boot is just the backup OS with basic service packs installed, and the second boot is our main production OS. If the loader/registry ever gets hosed on our production OS we can just boot into the backup OS and fix it up. This does add an hour to the installation time of a server, but the potential reduction of downtime is well worth it. ---
**Author:** ![tourbot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@tourbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tourbot)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-help-fast-server-down-at-work-please/157135/8 "2003-02-24T16:06:32Z")
You should really add this [Dos help website](http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm) to your bookmarks. For future reference. I mean, you must have to write the occassional batch file using dos commands, no?