Problems copying a very large file

[The Lurker At The Threshold]

I have 2 external hard drives. I am attempting to copy a large (4.19 GB)
file from one to the other. Tje destination drive has 32 GB of free space
but each time I attempt to do the copy,Windows tells me there is not enough
space available on the target drive.

I am mystified.

Any suggestions?

Sheena

 

[Jeff Gaines]

I have 2 external hard drives. I am attempting to copy a large (4.19
GB) file from one to the other. Tje destination drive has 32 GB of
free space but each time I attempt to do the copy,Windows tells me
there is not enough space available on the target drive.

I am mystified.

Any suggestions?

Sheena

Many external hard drives are formatted with the FAT32 file system
which has a maximum file size of just under 4GB, the message from XP is
a bit obscure.

You can check the type of file system by right clicking on the drive in
Explorer and selecting 'Properties'.

If it is FAT32 you can convert it by opening a Command Prompt and
typing:

convert x: /FS:NTFS

where 'x' is the drive letter.

You really should back up all the data on the drive before you do this,
it can go wrong (although luckily it never has for me).

The maximum file size for NTFS is only limited by the size of the
disk/partition.

A couple of 'gotchas'

(a) If you convert to NTFS the disk won't be readable by earlier
versions of Windows such as 95, 98 and ME so if you use it to transfer
files between these systems you would lose that ability.

(b) If you back up all the data first (preferably to two different
locations) you could then re-format the drive from scratch with NTFS,
it will give you a clean start and perhaps slightly faster access to
your data.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

If it is FAT32 you can convert it by opening a Command Prompt
and
typing:

convert x: /FS:NTFS

where 'x' is the drive letter.

Yes, but that will likely result in 512 byte clusters, which can
adversely affect performance. Read
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm before doing this.

 

[The Lurker At The Threshold]

Good idea. I missed that one completely. The drive is formatted as FAT 32
OTOH...
Earlier today, at a losss as to what else to do, I imaged my C: drive to the
external HD in question. Acronis True Image was able to perform the imaging,
creating two images of slightly more than 4 GBs each.
Good solutions lead to more puzzels.

Sheena

 

[Jeff Gaines]

In


Yes, but that will likely result in 512 byte clusters, which can
adversely affect performance. Read
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm before doing this.

You managed to snip the last bit of my post where I said:

(b) If you back up all the data first (preferably to two different
locations) you could then re-format the drive from scratch with NTFS,
it will give you a clean start and perhaps slightly faster access to
your data.