# Force Copy



## iic2 (Jul 3, 2009)

I understand that dump, snapshot etc has special functions to get the job done but right now I need to do straight copying of entire directories.  I can copy the entire /usr directory with no error but when I copy the var or tmp directory things are fine until it get into the gut of system files locked by memory (used by the system).  I get this error:


```
/var/db/entropy -> /usb/amd8.0/var/db/entropy
cp: chown: /usbb/amd8.0/var/db/entropy/saved-entropy.8: Invalid argument
cp: chown: /usbb/amd8.0/var/db/entropy/saved-entropy.2: Invalid argument
cp: chown: /usbb/amd8.0/var/db/entropy/saved-entropy.3: Invalid argument
etc...
```


```
/var/games -> /usb/amd8.0/var/games
cp: chown: /usbb/amd8.0/var/games: Invalid argument
```

Here is the code I use on the command-line


```
cp -pvr /var/ /usb/amd8.0/var/
```

I understand this is not an easy thing to do if not impossible.  That's what dump and snapshot was design for, to keep things simple,  but is there a way to still do force copying with cp or something.  I don't care what method used but in the end when I insert my flash stick into my Windows machine I just want to open up files and folders and see readable text and any other format that may came from a forced copy method for those hard to get files.   Is this possible.  If so, how?  It's not really that many files used by the system.  That the one of best things I am learning about this OS while trying to do so much manually. 

Thanks in advance

PS:
One more thing.  Whenever we do a copy of many files using cp, how would we print the entire screen text, including the unseen parts to a file on disk for viewing latter.  There may be hundreds of line.


----------



## iic2 (Jul 3, 2009)

Re-cap:

What I thought was an error may not be because it did copy the file to the USB but cp: chown: must be sayings there are no users settings.  Whatever the case, things are comming together and looking preety good, but I still like to know how to save entire screen text to file.


----------



## dh (Jul 3, 2009)

> PS:
> One more thing. Whenever we do a copy of many files using cp, how would we print the entire screen text, including the unseen parts to a file on disk for viewing latter. There may be hundreds of line.


use script command


----------



## iic2 (Jul 3, 2009)

Thanks button did not work

Thanks dh


----------

