Disk full error

[Guest]

I have a COMSTAR 74 Gb 3,5" usb external HD with 44 Gb of free space.
Strangely, when trying to copy a 6 Gb file from my computer to my external
disk, I get a Disk Full error telling me to delete some files and clean up
the disk.

I can copy smaller files. It's as all the files I deleted in the past are
still there but only not showing in windows explorer. I tryed defrag hoping
it would write good files over old deleted files but nothing changed. Is
format my only solution or is there a programme or some way to tell explorer
wich files are really good so it can forget about the others and then really
give my 44 Gb of free space?

 

[Ted Zieglar]

What is the file format of your external drive? For example, FAT32
supports a maximum file size of 4 GB.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have a COMSTAR 74 Gb 3,5" usb external HD with 44 Gb of free space.
Strangely, when trying to copy a 6 Gb file from my computer to my external
disk, I get a Disk Full error telling me to delete some files and clean up
the disk.

I can copy smaller files. It's as all the files I deleted in the past are
still there but only not showing in windows explorer. I tryed defrag hoping
it would write good files over old deleted files but nothing changed. Is
format my only solution or is there a programme or some way to tell explorer
wich files are really good so it can forget about the others and then really
give my 44 Gb of free space?

Whatever's doing the copying is lying to you, "Disk Full" isn't the
actual error.

The problem is that the drive is formatted FAT32. You can't put a
file bigger than 4Gb on a FAT32 volume. The only way you'll get that
file on there is by converting the drive to NTFS.