*Update, sorry, I forgot to close the table first in my example also! I tested it and it works now, see the *remarks

Are you sure the table is not open anywhere? I do pretty much the same thing to create archives. Here is a portion of my code:

lcidx=ALIAS()
*--Must close the table first
USE IN (lcidx)
xdir="\data\"
bakdir="\archives\"
lcarchshort="_"+lcidx+"_"+LEFT(TTOC(DATETIME(),1),12)
lcarchlong=bakdir+lcarchshort+".DBF"
lcarchtable=lcarchshort+".DBF"
IF FILE(xdir+lcidx+".DBF")
    COPY FILE xdir+lcidx+".DBF" TO bakdir+lcarchshort+".DBF"
ENDIF
IF !FILE(bakdir+lcarchshort+".DBF")
    MESSAGEBOX('An error occured archiving '+lcidx+CHR(13);
              +'Please contact support.',16,'Error Archiving!',500000)
ENDIF

>I want to create a table with a date-stamp name. I tried the following code and I keep getting a "Cannot create file error". Can anyone help me? (I'm using VFP7)
>
>pay_dbf="\data\PR"+RIGHT(DTOS(Date()),6)+".dbf"
>
>Copy file payroll to &pay_dbf
>
>Thanks in Advance