Hi, Richard Owlett wrote: > Thought I was doing that by specifying -x.
Either cp -x has a bug or the target directory is not in a different filesystem than "/" and not a mount point of such a filesystem. Check the device numbers of "/" and "/media/richard/MISC...". E.g. like this $ stat / | fgrep Device Device: 803h/2051d Inode: 2 Links: 25 $ stat /bkp | fgrep Device Device: 814h/2068d Inode: 2 Links: 7 Here "/bkp" has a different device number (2068) than "/" (2051). So it (its inode, to be exacting) is in a different filesystem. As contrast see a directory in the same filesystem as "/": $ stat /home | fgrep Device Device: 803h/2051d Inode: 2228225 Links: 60 > Any way to accomplish that without explicitly listing all directories except > /media ? If it is indeed a bug with cp -x, then you could use some archiver like "tar" which has options to exclude a file. Totally untested fantasy: $ tar cf - --exclude=/media / | (cd /media/.../dev_sda14 ; tar xf - ) Get inspiration from googling "tar pipe for copying". Have a nice day :) Thomas
