Odd XP "Copy" problem

Message

dsvochak · #1 Post by **dsvochak** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:47 am

I recently got a NAS 3.5" hard drive enclosure to replace a broken USB enclosure. The NAS box can also be used as a USB external drive. In order for the NAS software to function, the drive has to be formatted FAT32.

It works fine when attached to the network.

When attached to a machine as a USB drive, even though XP recognizes the drive and knows there is about 100g free on the drive, when I try to copy large files (eg True Image backups) using the XP copy command, XP refuses to copy the file to the drive in the NAS enclosure and gives a message that there isn't enough space on the target drive.

I can copy files to the drive using file synchronization software.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 12:32 pm

The short and true answer from me is: No.

There was once an update from Microsoft that prevented copying large files. I recall the update and the copy failure, and there was relatively quick fix from Microsoft. So try making sure your machine is up-to-date (I sure this issue is too old for any decently modern machine).
... JDH

steveg47 · #3 Post by **steveg47** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:16 pm

As far as I can remember fat32 cannot support files larger then 2gb (or is it 4gb not sure). I don't know how a nas running fat32 gets around that limit but apparently they do. (mine does). This question is a good one and begs for a better explanation.
Anyone?

BillP · #4 Post by **BillP** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:22 pm

Microsoft has built limitations into XP's handling of FAT32 partitions. There is also a 4 GB file size limit in FAT32. See the articles below for more info.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

Since your drive exceeds 100GB you clearly didn't format it using XP. Check your partition for compliance with the limits listed in kb314463. If you can break your partition into two with one partition less than 32GB, maybe the copy command would work on the 32GB partition.

Just for info, how large is the drive and how much of it is filled with data?

#5 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:09 pm

There is also a limit to how many files the ROOT of a drive can contain. Make one or more directories and you can copy an unlimited number of files into them.

dsvochak · #6 Post by **dsvochak** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:32 pm

I was just coming back to thank jdhurst for posting something that caused me to start looking at Microsoft where I found the answer.

Apparently so did everyone else who posted. It's the FAT32 4gb file size limit that was the problem.

When you don't use something for a long time, you forget how it works. Fixed my problem with Partition Magic by resizing the FAT32 partition and creating a NTFS partition large enough to store the big files that I need to keep around.

To answer BillP's question it's a 200g drive about 1/2 full. You're right, XP wouldn't format it as FAT32. True Image 10 (running in XP) had no problem doing it as one 200g FAT32 partition.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

#7 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:58 pm

Ha

Now I see why I couldn't copy that Mandriva .iso (4.3GB) I downloaded last week to my FAT 32 partition!

Odd XP "Copy" problem

Odd XP "Copy" problem

Who is online