I use a 220GB WD drive to backup both my work and home PC hard drives. I don’t use the software. I use the drive as a USB mass storage device, just dragging and dropping files from the PC to the drive.
This all has worked just fine until recently. I get an error message when trying to backup my email archive file (a single 4.4GB file). The error message states that there is not enough space on the drive. This doesn’t make sense to me because when I check the drive properties, it appears I have only used about one quarter of the drives capacity.
It will continue to allow me to write all manor of other files to the drive, but will not let me backup this email archive file.
Is there an individual file size limit?
Based on the information that you just provided I assume that the drive is formatted as FAT32, this format presents a limitation that will not allow you to copy or transfer a file larger than 4GB, if you would like to resolve this issue then I recommend you to change the format of the drive to NTFS, you have two ways of doing this:
1- You can use the Convert.exe command on DOS.
2- You can reformat the drive on your computer.
Note: Please have in mind that reformatting the drive will erase all the drive’s contents and if you don’t want to loose the information that you have on the drive you can either use option#1 or you can move the data from the drive to another location, reformat the drive and then move the data back to the drive.
I hope that this information helps you solve the problem. :robotwink:
Excellent, thank you for the education.
Yes, upon checking, my WD drive was using the FAT32 protocol.
I reformatted it to NTFS and it is back on speaking terms with my PC again for files over 4 Gig.
And I learned a little about FAT vs. NTFS in the process.
Thanks again.
Yes there is a limit, I have found so myself with other HDD’s. The best thing I can suggest is to obtain a copy of Win zip or Win RAR or a program of you choice to split the file.
Kind regards,
Kyle Lacey
busimple wrote:
I use a 220GB WD drive to backup both my work and home PC hard drives. I don’t use the software. I use the drive as a USB mass storage device, just dragging and dropping files from the PC to the drive.
This all has worked just fine until recently. I get an error message when trying to backup my email archive file (a single 4.4GB file). The error message states that there is not enough space on the drive. This doesn’t make sense to me because when I check the drive properties, it appears I have only used about one quarter of the drives capacity.
It will continue to allow me to write all manor of other files to the drive, but will not let me backup this email archive file.
Is there an individual file size limit?
