Help with Backing Up Files?

T

T. Frank

I've tried the backup utility twice with the same bad result. I have 60 Gig
of external drive free and only about 20 Gig of files to backup. The backup
seems to run fine (dumping it into the a .bkf file) until it gets to 4 Gig,
when it tells me " End of Media encountered while backing up to non-removable
media.
The operation was ended."

Help? Thanks
 
S

Shenan Stanley

T. Frank said:
I've tried the backup utility twice with the same bad result. I
have 60 Gig of external drive free and only about 20 Gig of files
to backup. The backup seems to run fine (dumping it into the a
.bkf file) until it gets to 4 Gig, when it tells me " End of Media
encountered while backing up to non-removable media.
The operation was ended."

Help? Thanks

External media is formatted FAT32 I assume?
You cannot have a single file size greater than 4GB using the FAT32 file
system.
 
T

T. Frank

Thanks for the reply, but I don't know. I do know that I already have some
stuff on the external that I don't want to lose. Can I reformat without
losing stuff and if so, how? Thanks much
 
S

Shenan Stanley

Shenan Stanley wrote:
T. Frank said:
I've tried the backup utility twice with the same bad result. I
have 60 Gig of external drive free and only about 20 Gig of files
to backup. The backup seems to run fine (dumping it into the a
.bkf file) until it gets to 4 Gig, when it tells me " End of Media
encountered while backing up to non-removable media.
The operation was ended."

Help? Thanks
External media is formatted FAT32 I assume?
You cannot have a single file size greater than 4GB using the
FAT32 file system.

T. Frank said:
Thanks for the reply, but I don't know. I do know that I already
have some stuff on the external that I don't want to lose. Can I
reformat without losing stuff and if so, how? Thanks much

Right-click on the drive in My Computer and choose properties. It should
tell you what File System it is using.

You might be able to convert it from FAT32 to NTFS - but the only way to be
sure you do not lose data is to copy it/back it up elsewhere - because
things can and do go wrong on occassion.

There is a built-in tool for conversions... "convert"
Command prompt, "convert /?" will give you the options.
 
B

Bob Harris

Most modern backup programs have some user option to control the size of
individual files. This excludes Ntbackup.exe, which is a very old program.
It is free with XP, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Try a different backup program, one that permits you to specify the "span
size" or similar. Both True Image and Ghost can do this. Other
alternatives, some free, can be found listed at:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads3.html
 
T

T. Frank

Thanks very much!

Shenan Stanley said:
Shenan Stanley wrote:





Right-click on the drive in My Computer and choose properties. It should
tell you what File System it is using.

You might be able to convert it from FAT32 to NTFS - but the only way to be
sure you do not lose data is to copy it/back it up elsewhere - because
things can and do go wrong on occassion.

There is a built-in tool for conversions... "convert"
Command prompt, "convert /?" will give you the options.
 

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