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Unable to copy large files to my new external hard drive

  • 05-11-2007 6:25pm
    #1
    zdooldreb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 184 ✭✭


    Hi..

    I recently bought an external 160G hard drive. I have copied some small files to it no problem. However I am unable to copy larger files to it i.e 2-3GB, i keep getting an error that the drive is full. I have ran disk clean up and there were no problems.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks.


Comments

  • #2
    DonkeyStyle \o/
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,145 ✭✭✭DonkeyStyle \o/


    If it's formatted fat32, you might be hitting the 4gig filesize limit (say if you're copying a whole bunch of files at once and one of them is at or over 4 gigs)
    I'd say make sure you've got enough free space on your primary OS drive (C:\ etc) in case it's trying to cache the files before copying, or doing something funny like that... I've run into this a lot when trying to extract large compressed archives from D:\ to D:\, while it insists on extracting them temporarily to C:\ where there isn't enough space... grrr.

    I'd say either backup the files and convert the external drive to (or reformat as) NTFS (if it isn't already), or split the larger files into a spanned archive of smaller files.


  • #3
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    If using windows vista make sure you have all the patches, one of them fixed a problem where large files took bleedin' ages to copy.

    try copying in safe mode to rule out anti virus doing strange stuff


  • #4
    zdooldreb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 184 ✭✭zdooldreb


    In Properties I can see the hard drive is formatted as Fat32.
    I am trying to reformat the drive but im not sure what settings are correct if I want to be able to transfer >4GB files.
    I have to choose NTFS but what Allocation Unit Size should I choose 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096?

    Thanks.


  • #5
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Always leave the allocation at the default setting. It makes data recovery easier and TBH it doesn't make much difference unless you have a specialised need like a tweaked to the max SQL server. You'll fit slightly more files with smaller allocation units, but windows has a special folder at the start of an NTFs drive for holding really small files, so even that isn't much of a distinction.

    http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-mft.htm
    The master file table allocates a certain amount of space for each file record. The attributes of a file are written to the allocated space in the MFT. Small files and directories (typically 1500 bytes or smaller), such as the file illustrated in next figure, can entirely be contained within the master file table record.


  • #6
    zdooldreb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 184 ✭✭zdooldreb


    Before I seen your response I had formatted the drive using the setting 4096. After the format I couldnt copy anything to the drive. I then did a Quick Format with the default settings and it seems to be working fine. Can copy files larger than 4GB. The strange thing is I had formated the drive when I bought it. Anyway, looks good, thanks.


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