I am retiring soon and have about 0.5 TB of data on the company server that I want to take with me (I have permission). I bought a 2 TB Passport and planned to copy (not backup) the files. However, I am receiving messages that file names on folders are too long. What the heck? Permitting long file names happened long ago. I can’t understand why I would need to shorten all those names, which would make a big mess out of my file structure because I would have no idea what anything is.
It’s not the drive, it’s Microsoft.
This link might help.
Thank you. What about Windows 10?
I’m not convinced the drives don’t play a part in this. I am trying to copy/move a file with a long name from one WD My Passport Ultra to another and I am getting the long/not valid filename error. But I can copy/move to a years old (maybe decades) internal drive with no problem…so why would ‘Microsoft’ be the problem? If that were true, wouldn’t copying/moving be stopped in any case?
In my scenario, I dusted off my old DOS Command practices and that worked. I will only give the short overview of what I did as I must get back to my file transfers.
I opened a DOS window (or command prompt, if you prefer) Start, Run, type cmd, click ok.
In the DOS window I typed: move [original file path] [destination file path]
To start, I will simplify. I will just use root directories for this example, thus:
move D:\Househ~1.bmp E:\Househ~1.bmp
You can also use ‘copy’ instead of 'move, if that is your preference. But now, you ask two questions: “What do I do if my file is not at the root directory?” and “What do I do because my file has a long file name?”
My filename (and the path, as well) were very long, so I chose to use the DOS name in a command prompt to accomplish my move. “How do I do this?”
Well, I am lazy and don’t want to translate file paths/names in my head, so I use a little tool called DOSName. It translates the long file name into a DOS name you can type into your move command in the DOS window. You can use it for both the origin location and the destination location. You just click the buttons in the utility to navigate to the Explorer locations, it translates automatically; then you type the info at the command prompt, thus:
move D:\TEMPOR~1\2014-J~1\backups\MYWALL~1\ELECTR~1\Househ~1.bmp E:\TEMPOR~1\2014-J~1\backups\MYWALL~1\ELECTR~1\Househ~1.bmp
and hit enter. The file moves…or copies! In my case, both paths were the same, just a different drive letter…but your destination can be anything. What is important is that the DOS path/names be typed correctly or the operation will fail.
I hope this wasn’t too confusing. I’m sure if this is still baffling, someone can springboard off my post and explain further.
