I missed that you were using Win98. That was apparently posted while I was checking the XCOPY switches.

I don't think the XCOPY command changed much between Win98 and WinXP, but be sure to check (XCOPY /?) on your machine to make sure the /D switch is shown and is the same.

A good idea, before backing up large bunches of files, would be to run a Disk Check (does anyone remember that for Win98?) and fix files just to make sure that your files and directories are all properly in order before you copy them. A bad cluster can appear to copy ok, but not be there in the copy. The CHKDSK or DiskChk should be able to fix things before you do your backup, but there's not much you can do for a copied unreadable file.

John