Using the cp command.

[alex <radsky@ncia.net>]

I'm trying to copy the contents of one partition to another with:
        cp -afv  (partition a)/*  (partition b)/

Normally, the command works fine except when (partition b) already 
contains a large number of directories and files that are duplicates of 
those in (partition a) . 

The command works but each duplicate requires permission  to be 
overwritten so it's a tedious process, clicking on 'y' for each 
duplicate being copied.

Is there a way to copy the entire contents of one partition  to another  
partition that contains duplicates  without having to bang on y for each 
duplicate----different options, for example?
I checked out ' man cp' but don't see anything that might help.  Perhaps 
there's a different way of doing the copy.

The command works fine if there aren't any duplicates in the partitions.