In these days of extra large hard disks many try to copy large files from a DVD but find that can’t even though there is plenty of free space on the hard disk. Why not?
The most likely cause for this is not some sort of copy protection but that the file being copied is too large for the file system to handle. Windows XP allows you to format a hard disk in two different file system formats: FAT32 and NTFS. These file systems differ in the size of file they can handle. FAT32, for example, can only handle files up to 4GB in size. When it was developed, that size file was almost unheard of but now, a DVD can have files that large or larger routinely. So, if you are trying to copy a movie from a DVD onto your FAT32-formatted hard drive it likely won’t copy as most full-length movies are files larger than 4GB.
FAT32
The original File Allocation Table (FAT) file system was introduced in 1977 and generally applied to floppy disk storage. It was later modified to work with hard disks and other removable media. FAT had a problem however; it could only manage spaces up to 2GB in size. As Windows came into being and programs became larger, the 2GB barrier became a serious problem. Thus, in 1996, with the OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2) of Windows 95 (also known as Windows 95b) came a FAT enhancement known as FAT32.
The two major features of FAT32 that improved upon the original FAT (or FAT16 as it’s sometimes known) are the disk efficiency and size of the disk supported.
Files are stored in clusters on the disk. The size of the clusters depends on the size of disk. Under FAT, drives over 1.2GB used clusters that were 32K in size as the file allocation table itself could not track more clusters because of it’s 16-bit structure. The 32-bit structure in FAT32 allows disks of that size to use 4K per sector. This improves efficiency as a file, no matter how small, will always use at least one cluster and the space in the cluster not used is wasted. FAT32 doesn’t start to use 32K clusters until the disk goes over 60GB in size and can handle disks up to 2TB (terabyte or trillion bytes); though not all operating systems can deal with disks that size even if the file system can.
There are many other features changed between the two but these are the major ones to be concerned with.
The problem that many encounter now is one of the limits of FAT32 that’s being run into: file size. The original FAT (FAT12) had a maximum file size of 32MB, FAT16 has a maximum file size of 2GB, and despite the much larger hard disk size supported by FAT32, the maximum file size only doubled to 4GB.
This is largely why a movie file larger than 4GB in size might not be able to be copied to a hard disk with lots of space. The hard disk is probably formatted using FAT32. There is no quick solution short of converting the hard disk to the NTFS file system.
NTFS
The New Technology File System (NTFS) was introduced in Windows NT (mid-1993) and is available in different forms in all following products: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Vista. It replaces FAT and FAT32 although some operating systems allow you to format disks as either FAT32 or NTFS. You can convert FAT32 disks to NTFS with little problem however going back from NTFS to FAT32 may not be possible due to FAT32 limitations that NTFS does away with (e.g., file size as seen above).
NTFS makes a number of improvements over FAT-based file systems. It uses advanced data structures, has a B+ tree directory structure, has improved reliability and use of disk space, allows for extensions such as security control, and has both a hard disk and file size of 16 EiB (EiB = exbibyte; a contraction of exa binary byte, and equaling 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes).
So, if you need to copy files larger than 4GB, you need to make certain that the file system on the hard disk you are copying to is NTFS and not FAT32. Unfortunately, many portable USB hard disk drives come formatted as FAT32 in order to interface with the maximum number of operating systems.
[Added from comments] You can use a Windows Command Prompt command to convert a FAT volume to NTFS. Open a Command Prompt window (Start | type CMD and Enter into the search dialog to open a window). To see the full syntax of the command and to verify that the command is present in your version of Windows type (no quotes) “CONVERT /?” at the command prompt and hit Enter. This should give you the help and if it comes up you have the command available to use. The command to convert any drive from FAT to NTFS would then be: CONVERT d: /FS:NTFS where d: is the drive letter of the disk/volume you wish to convert. If you want to watch the details add a /V (for verbose) to the command. Also, to enable all users to access the drive, just in case you might want to also add /NoSecurity to the command line. These latter two are optional and usually not needed.
Also, this procedure does not erase the disk so files should be safe. As in all things computer, having a backup of important files is critical no matter what and I’d be careful if the disk is almost full as FAT and NTFS disks likely have different sector sizes and therefore hold different amounts of information.
More Information
- Microsoft Description of FAT32
- How to convert a FAT16 volume or a FAT32 volume to an NTFS file system
- FAT32 Structure Information
- Wikipedia FAT Entry
- Wikipedia NTFS Entry
Comments from Original Article:
#4
anand
Said this on 2009-12-21 At 10:42 pm
very nice article
the command for converting fat32 to ntfs is as follows
Start > Run > Cmd
convert d: /fs:ntfs
where d: is the drive letter of the external disk.
#6
Vicky
Said this on 2010-01-02 At 09:00 am
In reply to #4
Thanks anan, this info was extremely helpful. When I tried to do Format it showed only FAT32 option but with this command it converted to NTFS. Now I can copy large files!
#8
clubber
Said this on 2010-01-17 At 11:34 pm
In reply to #4
“the command for converting fat32 to ntfs is as follows…”
Thanks Anand. Worked perfectly, was trying to copy an 8gb movie to a 16gb usb stick and kept getting the disk is full (brand new and freshly formated). After I ran that it copied no problems.
#24
ashish
Said this on 2010-04-26 At 12:08 am
In reply to #8
thats EXACTLY the prob i was facing! though my USB was 8 GB.
solved now after i stumbled upon the solution given here.
many thanks 🙂
#49
gazza
Said this on 2010-09-10 At 07:52 am
In reply to #4
legend. worked first time
#7
ripple
Said this on 2010-01-14 At 03:50 am
Microsoft has provided the recommended solution for this issue here : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881
#9
capicar
Said this on 2010-01-19 At 02:40 am
Thanks 1000 for your precious informations, very easy and understandable!
You solved my problem with huge files.
#11
darkunderscorestar
Said this on 2010-01-23 At 12:02 pm
That microsoft article didnt have my problem ‘the drive is not clean’ so i couldnt convert it. I ran chkdsk like prompted (it even ran it in the initial process) and to no avail it was a-okay. So I just went ahead and opened up admin tools via control panel then formatted my terabyte portable HDD over night…its been seven hours and its at 89%
#12
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-01-23 At 02:42 pm
In reply to #11
Sometimes a full format is the only way to change a drive but, frankly, I’m a bit surprised that a drive as large as that was FAT formatted to begin with and not NTFS formatted. The world of computers constantly throws curveballs. 🙂
#13
Robin Hood
Said this on 2010-02-07 At 02:26 am
Hi, I think it is happening again. MS has win7 out and xp must go, so
they do the same thing as with win98se, when it was at its end of life, and xp took over. It is the big file copy/delete etc that was then crippled. And now its the same with xp.
Damn M$.
#14
davide
Said this on 2010-02-16 At 06:41 am
thank you very much! by far the best answer on the internet!
I was wondering if now my macor the PS3 at home will be able to read this file from the usb.
#15
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-02-16 At 10:05 am
In reply to #14
AFAIK the PS3 game system uses FAT32 and cannot read NTFS disks. So, it is limited to files smaller that about 4GB.
#59
farhang
Said this on 2010-12-04 At 03:12 pm
In reply to #15
HEy U can use winrar It help u to convert your file to Something like 5X700…………
#17
George
Said this on 2010-02-23 At 03:40 pm
Thanks i needed this information for an external disk which came with FAT32 format , now i can move large files into it thanks again!!
weed4all
Said this on 2010-03-10 At 11:19 am
THNX man! U saved my life! Cheers!
#21
dave
Said this on 2010-03-23 At 06:20 pm
1. How can i tell if my drive is FAT32 or NTFS? is there a dos command?
2. if i convert from fat32 to NTFS do i loose the data on the drive>?
txs in advance
#22
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-03-23 At 08:54 pm
In reply to #21
Right click on the drive and select Properties. In that dialog it should tell you what the drive format is. In Vista all you have to do is click on the drive in the My Computer window and down at the bottom it should say what the file system is.
In general, there won’t be any data loss when converting from FAT32 to NTFS however a backup of critical data is always a prudent thing to do; particularly when the disk is almost full. If the sector size changes and the disk is almost full with lots of small files then the spare space at the end of the sectors could add up to trouble. But, if you’re changing the file system to put on a large file then that situation is very unlikely.
#25
max
Said this on 2010-05-06 At 10:24 pm
Excellent Article! If You have to transform FAT32 in NTFS, You may format the drive into NTFS! Right cklick on the drive You want to convert in Windows Explorer, than Format, on options You choose NTFS, and click Quick Format! But, You loose all the data on the formatted drive!
#26
tony
Said this on 2010-05-12 At 10:06 am
SUPURB ARTICLE! I am having the same issue. My brand new 1TB drive is FAT32 formatted and I can’t move my backups (17+ GB) to it. The issue I am having is that I have created several “manual” backups where I copied the files/directories over manually as the backup file (DNA) would not work with the drive.
If I run the CONVERT D: /FS:NTFS command, will it overwrite/destroy my “manual” backups that I already have on the drive or will it convert the files in the process of converting the drive?
Thanks in advance,
TONY B.
#27
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-05-12 At 10:19 am
In reply to #26
The CONVERT program will take care of moving the files into the NTFS structure with (usually) no data loss. I say usually because if the disk is quite full before the conversion strange things sometimes happen. But, if it’s not particularly full then all should be OK. I would not try the command if the disk is almost full. I’d move some things, do the command, and then move them back.
#29
muteki
Said this on 2010-05-27 At 02:17 pm
if i already have files on the portable drive will i lose those files when i convert it to ntfs?
#30
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-05-27 At 04:31 pm
In reply to #29
No. At least not unless the drive is almost full. In that case it’s remotely possible that one or more files might not be converted properly but this usually happens more when going from NTFS back to FAT rather than FAT to NTFS. That said, it’s always good to have a backup when messing with the lower levels on a drive. 🙂
#32
WTF
Said this on 2010-06-22 At 09:19 am
VERY GOOD ARTICLE. i just bought a USB drive and i couldnt copy files larger than 4g and i didnt know why !! i searched google, found this article and in 2 minutes i made it work !! thank you
#33
Jeremy
Said this on 2010-06-28 At 03:04 pm
Thanks for this post, I’ve learned a lot.
However, I found the post whilst searching for an answer to a related problem.
I have a mini cam on which I filmed a long AVI video – shows as just under 4 GB (4193258KB – maybe somehow the cam capped the file size?) – however I am not able to open/play the movie.
I converted the memory card to NTFS (so I won’t have the issue again) but am still unable to view this movie.
Any ideas what I can do to rescue my movie?
Thanks,
Jeremy
#34
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-06-28 At 03:16 pm
In reply to #33
Your theory about the camera capping the file size is likely correct. As to viewing the file, I’m sorry but I’m not a video file format expert. It’s possible that the file is simply not correctly terminated by the software in the camera. Search for video recovery software; there should be a free version of something out there (be careful you don’t get any junkware with ads, etc. in it though).
BTW, if you reformatted the memory card to NTFS it’s quite possible that the camera will not be able to write to it at all. Most devices are programmed to write to the FAT file system. You might want to try the card in the camera before you commit to filming anything important. You may just have to reformat the card again and content yourself to shooting shorter sequences and then edit them together.
#35
wcat1319
Said this on 2010-06-29 At 10:56 pm
Thanks for the great write-up. I recently bought a 32GB USB flash drive to copy large PST files and couldn’t because the USB was FAT32. Read your article and ran the convert command to make the USB NTFS , and voilla, I can now copy the files. Thanks!
#37
baz
Said this on 2010-07-06 At 02:53 am
i have win xp and ntfs file system in the both drivers
but when i try to copy big file whuch size (28 GB or more ) it gives me can’t copy ,not enough space , Despite Having Larger Free Space
idont know why??
#38
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-07-06 At 04:59 pm
In reply to #37
28G should not be a problem (other than the time it will take!) for NTFS formatted media. The max file size allowed is just shy of 16 Terrabytes.
Narasimha
Said this on 2010-07-21 At 01:27 pm
I have the same problem. I wanted to copy a movie file that is aprox. 7GB to a external HD of 320 GB and it has a free space of 10 GB.
so now my question is if I convert the HD file system, does my existing data be erased or it would remain as it is.
please I am waiting for your response.
[Previously answered. The conversion is SUPPOSED to keep your data intact. Every now and again it might not. With so little space left on the drive I’d likely back some of that up and take it off the drive during the conversion and then put it back so the conversion routines have enough free space to work with. There is no absolute answer to your question. –DaBoss]
#42
Damien Grant
Said this on 2010-08-21 At 01:11 am
Is there any way that a file greater than 4gb can be watched on the PS3? im trying to convert my dvd library, but i want the files to be the best quality they can be. if i cant move a file that is greater than 4gb, but i need my hard drive to be NTFS to move files to it, but the PS3 wont recognize NTFS – what do i do?? Damien Grant.
#43
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-08-21 At 10:29 am
In reply to #42
The PS3 only recognizes FAT32. You’ll have to break the movie up into smaller sections.
#45
Bob Kight
Said this on 2010-08-28 At 05:51 pm
I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 for many years now and have only recently found the following bug. I have no problem when saving a file from this program to a terabyte size hard drive (which is really around 930 GBs). But after attaching an external 2TB Hard drive, I’ve found that this program will not save to this drive, because it is full – and according to My Computer it has more than a terabyte of room(?). Apparently, this program has a maximum limit to saving files to a 1TB hard drive. If I save any file created to any other drive (equal to or less than a terabyte) – no problem. Then I can drag and drop it into the 2TB Drive – no problem. I can only guess that the software people imagined that this early program would NEVER save files to more than a TeraByte – “surprise – surprise – Sgt Carter”!!!!!
#46
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-08-28 At 05:58 pm
In reply to #45
Actually, it’s probably not the program but the operating system. I’ll bet you are using Windows XP. That’s a limit of XP. The larger than 1TB disks start writing data at a different location that requires multiple sectors to be read and written for each single sector call and Vista and beyond can easily handle this this but XP cannot. I have an article in writing about this but it got delayed by my 99.5-year-old Mother’s passing and my moving to a new city. I’ll be getting back to that shortly.
Note that some disk makers provide a program that can make XP work with the larger disk but it does so by moving data on the disk to a different series of locations and so the disk might not be able to be read if later moved to a different operating system.
#98
Alex DeBongo
Said this on 2011-11-05 At 04:37 pm
In reply to #46
Hi – – DaBoss:
Wrongo! This is a problem with nearly ALL PSE programs up to 7 or 8. They will NOT write to a Terabyte sized HDD. Once above 1TB, you’re cooked. You can open, but not save. Adobe, in it’s vast wisdom, has only recently realized that the TB barrier would likely be broken with people still using PSE-2 thru 7. What we need is a crack to disable the remaining disk-space check.
OBTW – – I am running Winblows Vista (which sux – Shades of WinME).
[Actually, righto as far as it goes. The terabyte limit (and it’s usually around 2T but can vary by device) is something else having to do with 256 byte FAT versus 4096 byte FAT design; not as easily solved as you’ve found. Vista and above won’t be bothered but XP and outside devices will. There are workarounds for XP but these won’t work with external devices like the Playstation. –DaBoss]
#48
lounisproduction
Said this on 2010-09-07 At 08:48 pm
If I convert my External Hard Disk to NTFS will this erase all my file in it???
Also when I try on Command Prompt it says:
”Acces denied as you do not have sufficient privileges.”
[As answered before multiple times, generally no to the file loss. As to the privilege item, right click the command prompt icon and select Run As Administrator. If asked, give the proper password and then you should be able to continue. –DaBoss]
#50
Gary
Said this on 2010-09-28 At 01:42 am
There’s a lot of useful information in this article, but the original premise is flawed:
“if you are trying to copy a movie from a DVD onto your FAT32-formatted hard drive it likely won’t copy as most full-length movies are files larger than 4GB.”
That’s not correct, if you’re talking about the DVD video standard (as in the movie DVDs you buy or rent), the maximum .vob FILE size is 1Gb, which FAT32 happily supports. The TOTAL amount of video data does, as you say, far exceed 4Gb, but that is achieved by breaking the video data into multiple files.
Unless you’re creating a .iso image file, FAT32 isn’t a problem. Dealing with the DVD encryption is far more of a problem.
#51
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-09-28 At 08:34 am
In reply to #50
Most people try to get the ISO file as they don’t know about the chapters and DVD encryption was broken a long time ago. Even the master Blue Ray code was leaked not long ago so that will be less and less of a problem over time now.
#52
Janet
Said this on 2010-10-20 At 12:59 pm
Hi. I have XP w/Nero. I tried to copy a 2.17 GB file to a 4.7 GB DVD and received the message my file was too big for the disk, & was required to select “use 8.3 file names for back-up.” I tried your formula above – Start > Run > Cmd convert d: /fs:ntfs & received the message “cannot convert volume on this device.” Am I doing something wrong? I am backing up some large picture and music files and it seems wasteful to have to use 3-4 almost 5 GB disks for only 8 GB of files. Thanks for your help.
#53
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-10-20 At 01:14 pm
In reply to #52
I would contact Nero. You can’t use the conversion on a disc but you should not have to. Sounds like a program limitation to me; particularly with the need for 8.3 names. Have not needed those for a long time now. There are special (obscure) rules for CD/DVD file naming but 8.3 is not one of them.
#56
dnv
Said this on 2010-11-20 At 10:29 am
Thanks for the article, very informative.
1 Question though:
If my external hard drive is 320GB in size, and only 28GB is free and I want to copy a 6GB file over without losing any of the data; can you assure me that converting from FAT32 -> NTFS that I will not lose any data?
Thanks.
#57
DaBoss
Said this on 2010-11-20 At 01:24 pm
In reply to #56
Absolutely assure? No. Nothing in life is absolutely certain. But, under the conditions you describe I see no problems. You have enough space to spare so the conversion should leave you with pretty much what you have free and that’s plenty to do the copy you want to do. As always however it there are critical files on the drive they should be backed up somewhere and this is true even if you were not contemplating a conversion. Drives fail. That’s a rule you can pretty much count on.
#58
Ammar
Said this on 2010-11-21 At 09:16 pm
u dont have to use this method. there is an easy way. U just have to right click on your drive and click format and change the settings from fat into ntfs and click format and then u will be able to transfer large files easily.
[The point is that people want to KEEP what’s already on the drive. Formatting will erase all that stuff. But, yes, if you don’t care about what’s on the drive then by all means format it as it’s faster. –DaBoss]
#59
Jugal
Said this on 2010-12-05 At 11:50 pm
Does the drive get formated by this method???????
[Not exactly but sort of :-). The drive is incrementally changed to NTFS format so that’s the ultimate result but, in the process, the data is preserved where it’s not when you format the drive. –DaBoss]
#64
Wing Tat Chan
Said this on 2011-01-09 At 06:13 pm
Do I have to backup my files in my external drive while the windows is converting my external drive from FAT32 to NTFS?
[The answer is in the article and following comments. I’m tired of typing the same thing over and over so please READ what’s written. Thank you. –DaBoss]
#65
darren
Said this on 2011-01-10 At 12:32 am
By converting my external hard disk from FAT32 to NTFS will my data stored be erased?
[The answer is in the article and following comments. I’m tired of typing the same thing over and over so please READ what’s written. Thank you. –DaBoss]
#68
Jacob Norgaard
Said this on 2011-01-17 At 10:03 am
Nice article, but sadly it never tells you what to do if you want to see a movie via your extern harddrive. As far as i understand the only format that tv, soundbars etc can read is the fat32. So what to do if you want to watch a movie on your extern. The only way to get the movie to the extern is to make it NTFS, but then your tv wont be able to read it..
#69
DaBoss
Said this on 2011-01-17 At 12:04 pm
In reply to #68
While not explicitly stated the answer is implicit in the article. To play on an external device you basically need to make the file less than 4 gigabytes in size. Use your favorite editor to either re compress the file to a smaller size or split the file into multiple files.
#71
Janis
Said this on 2011-02-17 At 06:48 am
Is there anyway at all you could transfer files larger than 4gb on a WD My Passport Hard Drive on a macbook ? apparently people have problems using nfts on mac operating systems.
[Sorry, I’m not a Mac person. Anyone? -DaBoss]
#72
Jeremy
Said this on 2011-02-22 At 10:39 am
I just tried this to an external HD and now it’s telling me my drive is unformatted and/or corrupted. Any suggestions as to my next step in troubleshooting?
[Without being there to see the situation and understand what happened simply trying now to format the drive would be my suggestion. If that doesn’t work then I’d contact the manufacturer and try to find out what makes their drive so special that it won’t take simple Windows commands. –DaBoss]
#74
[email protected]
Said this on 2011-03-06 At 10:08 am
Hi THIS IS COMMON PROBLEM WITH WIN XP AND WIN VISTA when transfering or copying files esp above 4 GB . I’ve simple solution attach pen drive or memory card to ur usb port open Windows Explorer/My Computer ..now right click on the drive letter SELECT OPEN AS “PORTABLE MEDIA DEVICE”..THIS OPENS NEW WINDOW..DRAG AND DROP OR COPY PASTE THE HUGE FILES INTO THIS WINDOW. NO NEED TO FORMAT OR CHANGE PARTITION TYPE!!
NOTE THIS IS SLOW AS NOW COMPUTER WILL TREAT AS PORTABLE DEVICE INSTEAD OF USB.
[This will work but pay attention to the last part. As a portable device the USB device will not look like a standard file system to Windows or the Mac and can ONLY be used as a portable media device. If NTFS formatting is used then the device can store media and other files. The down side of either is that the computer or other device you plug the USB drive into must either support portable media devices in one case or NTFS in another. That’s not always the case so know what your devices support. –DaBoss]
#76
Joel
Said this on 2011-03-21 At 02:31 pm
i did all the steps and then it was calculating the size for the conversion with a bunch of numbers …….
THEN after waiting it gave me a message saying this .
” Data error (cyclic redundancy check) ”
HELP ME???????
[Sounds like maybe one or more sectors on the drive have become corrupted in some way. I’d back everything up by copying to another disk and then after you know the backup is good (test it) I’d just reformat the initial disk and start over with it. –DaBoss]
#77
deviant
Said this on 2011-04-09 At 07:20 pm
This does not fix the problem. Cuz my TV cant read from NTFS structure, but it support H264 (I flashed firmware on LG). Thats really sucks! FAT32 sucks.
[That’s what happens when you live at the convergence point of technology. Often, the old isn’t good enough and the new isn’t well supported. Until the TV maybe gets a new operating system update that does support NTFS best you can do is either reduce the resolution to fit everything into the proper size or break the video apart into properly-sized sections. –DaBoss]
#79
Spencer
Said this on 2011-06-10 At 02:17 pm
I think this question come about in this scenario. You have a 20gb hard disk with only 500mb free, you try to copy or move a 3gb size file to another drive. The copy process is halted because you need a certain amount of caching area on the disk your copying from for the data to be written for the simple reason if the copy or move fails you already have a duplicate of the duplicate in a temp file form. I find depending on the file being moved you need an equal size amount of free space to produce the same temp file your copying. Confused OK let me simplify I had a drive C: with only 20mb free so I though “I know I will move a large video file say 700mb to get me more space WRONG error says your don’t have free space on the drive your copying TO (seems weird) even though you have GB’s free. Solution move loads of lesser than 20mb files to create enough cache or temp space to copy the large file in my case only 2 lesser than 20mb then with now 60mb approx freed up moved 50mb files and so on until I had 400mb then any size file was movable….phew…hope that helps if even a little.
[Actually, a valid observation but it does not relate to the specific topic here which has more to do with the overall limits of the file system instead of quirks in how Windows copies files. 🙂 –DaBoss]
#81
Nag..
Said this on 2011-06-20 At 09:45 am
Hi,
My DBA’s & server’s support team trying move one large Sharepoint Content DB file(around 100 GB) backup file from Prod to QA..
But they always recieve the error “Cannot copy the db : Not enough storage is available to process this command” .
Server : Windows 2003 SE SP2
Please can you advice on how to avoid this error, and copy the file properly from one server to another..
[Sorry, no experience with this specific task. However, as a general comment, make certain there is at least double the size of the file you want to copy free on both drives. Some network systems will, in order to prevent conflicts, make a temporary copy of the file, copy that and then delete the copy. Likewise, on the receiving end, the file may be copied to a temporary file, copied over to the actual file name and then the temporary file deleted. These actions require the double free space. But, that’s just a guess. –DaBoss]
#83
Timmy
Said this on 2011-07-13 At 09:58 am
When I’ve done the above convert commands I get the message:
the type of file system is FAT32 and doesn’t go any further in the process. Any ideas please?
[Sounds like the conversion did not process correctly and so you still have FAT32 instead of NTFS. –DaBoss]
#85
max
Said this on 2011-07-18 At 04:29 am
Thanks for the info.
You have resolved 75% of my problem.
I have to external disc driver both in NFTS. And I cannot transfert big files from one to an other. ERROR COPYING FILE OR FOLDER CANNOT COPY FILE.
why?
Thanks.
[Sorry, no way knowing from that error message. Could be one of a great many reasons. –DaBoss]
#89
Tommy
Said this on 2011-08-22 At 04:59 am
A very good article. But no solution?
[Please consider reading it again. Solution is convert to NTFS. –DaBoss]
#90
Julie G
Said this on 2011-11-25 At 04:30 pm
Followed the instructions and it says is not available for raw drives, I have a 120 GB ipod hooked up, what am I doing wrong ?
[You are trying to apply a Windows command to a non-Windows-formatted device. Won’t work on Apple stuff. Sorry. –DaBoss]
#105
NOman
Said this on 2011-12-11 At 06:02 am
DON’T DO THIS FOR MEMORY CARD! U HAVE TO FORMAT ALL OF UR DATA HUH OTHERWISE IT WILL CONVERT IN TO S***.
[Yes. This is just for USB drives and not for things like SD cards that might fit into a camera. The memory cards carry their own FAT-style formatting but it’s a bit different than the disk FAT. –DaBoss]
#107
sibipaul
Said this on 2011-12-26 At 06:28 am
your article is so helpfull for us , ut itz not complete…….. some file system type u didnt xpossed , eg: exFAT , its a file sytem can u give the information about this ???????
[It’s not really an article about file systems as such; just a way to get more onto a removable device. But, I’ll think about it. –DaBoss]