today i was trying to copy a many files and when i send this command: Command:
cp -rf /this/file /to/this/file
i get this prompts: Command:
cp: overwrite '/this/file /to/this/file' ?
when i look at the man pages for cp it says: 
-f, --force
              if an existing destination file cannot be opened, remove it  and
              try again
so it shouldn't ask me, so i found out that de defaults on the dedicated linux server we got from www.webune.com has cp as alias. so if you having this same problem, then run this command to see your alias: Command:
alias
OUTPUT:
alias cp='cp -i' alias l.='ls -d .* --color=tty' alias ll='ls -l --color=tty' alias ls='ls --color=tty' alias mv='mv -i' alias rm='rm -i' alias which='alias | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --show-dot --show-tilde'
as you can see, i do have an alias with cp so how do you overwrite without prompt? what i need to do is remove that cp alias witht he unalias command so i send this coommand: Command:
unalias cp
so now when you do the alias command, you wont see the cp alias anymore so what happens if your not the admin or dont have access to root, then you can run an unaliased cp command, try Command:
$ /bin/cp -rf /this/file /to/this/file
hope this helps.. thanks for the guys at www.webune.com for their support on this question