Problem Copying Files to a ZIP Drive

[Joe Harman]

I tried to copy several (>5000) jpg files from a CD that I had created to a
250 MB Iomega Zip disk. It failed several times so I copied the files from
the CD to the C:\ drive with no problem. I then attempted to copy the files
from the C:\ drive to the Zip disk. It copies some of the files then halts
and displays an "Error Copying FIle or Folder" dialog box with the message
"Cannot Copy filenmxxxx:The Directory or File Cannot Be Created. I thought
maybe the number of files being copied might have had some effect so I
copied only a few but it doesn't seem to matter.

Does anyone know what my problem might be? The files can be copied from one
folder to another within the C:\ and were copied from a CD to the C:\ drive.
But when I try to copy that same file to the Zip Drive, it fails. It seeems
to be consistent with particular files.

 

[Nick Burns]

5000 will never fit on a 250 meg zip. Just copy less then 250 megs of data.
It all depends on the size of each pictures, do you know how big each
picture is...? If not, find out.

 

[Joe Harman]

The total files are <224 mb.

5000 will never fit on a 250 meg zip. Just copy less then 250 megs of data.
It all depends on the size of each pictures, do you know how big each
picture is...? If not, find out.

to

 

[Nick Burns]

You have probably hit a size limitation of the zip. Can you make several
folders on the zip and split up the pictures to the different folders.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Joe.

The "size on disk" may be much more than that, depending on how the Zip
drive is formatted. Even a 1-byte file will take a full allocation unit
("cluster"), and the size of a cluster depends on the format. If the Zip is
using NTFS with typical 4 KB clusters, 5,000 files would take at least 20
MB, even if every file was less than 4 KB. If they were 1 KB each, for
example, they would total 5 MB, but they would take 20 MB of disk space.

If 5,000 files total 224 MB, the average size is 44.8 KB. An average file
would take a dozen 4 KB clusters, because 11 clusters would not hold the
entire file. Of course, it's not likely that each of your files is the
"average" size. And 5,000 * 12 * 4 KB = 240 MB. In general, a group of
files of random sizes will waste 1/2 cluster per file, so 5,000 files would
waste 10 MB using 4 KB clusters, or 256 MB using 512-byte clusters.
Depending on the sizes of YOUR files, you MAY be able to crowd them all into
250 MB by reformatting your Zip drive.

For a 250 MB HD, WinXP uses a default cluster size of 4 KB when formatting
FAT16, 2 KB for FAT32 and 512 bytes for NTFS. (For details, see this page
in the online version of the Windows XP Pro Resource Kit:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp)

RC

 

[Bob Harris]

Try formating the ZIP. Use the long format option. If the format command
fails or gives an error messages, throw the ZIP cartridge away. Note that
like floppies, ZIP cartridges do not last forever.

Although I own a ZIP-250, and before that a ZIP-100, I would suggest that
you hould consider copying the files to a CD-R, (using Joliet format, not
drag&drop). In the future, more PCs would be able to read them, since
almost every PC made these days has a CD reader. Far fewer have ZIP drives.
Also, modern CD writers are faster than ZIP-250 drives and obviously hold
more. DVDs are even better than CDs, easy to write these days, and are also
very common on modern PCs.