Problems coping large files using USB thumb drive

[Andrew G]

Hi Boys and Girls


I am having a few problems coping large files to a USB thumb drive (Home to Work). It seems anything over 1024MB (1 Gig) just will not copy, it will either fail "directory too deep" although it is in the root of the drive or in a folder off of the root of the drive OR it will seemly have copied fine but when you put it into another PC the thumb drive is seen as 0kb device. the other PC see's the device fine as it is listed in the safe to remove hardware list but only see's it as 0kb. Both machines are NTFS (WinXP 32bit to Vista 32 & 64 bit).

I have been getting round this problem by burning the work to a DVD whilst I atempted to find the casue (mostly google searches and reading forum posts and the links provide) bu nothing suggested has made it possible. I have read that it may be a limitation of the file system that a/single file cannot be more than a certain size in order to copy to an external USB device but the poster of that information didn't or couldn't point to anything that backed up that claim. i have end tried connecting an old 32gig hard d rive via a IDE/SATA > USB clip dodar but again the same thing happens.

Any ideas people?

 

[Lanz]

Maybe your USB stick is fubar. My mate bought a dodgy 16GB stick from auction and although it said it had 16GB capacity (even via the file system), it only had 1GB real space on it.

 

[lord filbuster]

Is the drive formatted as FAT or FAT32? FAT can only handle 1-2GB per file (depending on the cluster size). FAT32 can handle 4GB. If it is formatted as FAT, try reformatting it to FAT32. If it is already FAT32 it could be a duff drive as lanz said.

 

[nxr]

i have end tried connecting an old 32gig hard d rive via a IDE/SATA > USB clip dodar but again the same thing happens.

This would seem to suggest the problem lies with your PC rather than the USB drive.

Try plugging into a different USB port. Preferably one on the back panel, rather than on the front panel or in a USB hub.

 

[FaceplantSi]

Is the drive formatted as FAT or FAT32? FAT can only handle 1-2GB per file (depending on the cluster size). FAT32 can handle 4GB. If it is formatted as FAT, try reformatting it to FAT32. If it is already FAT32 it could be a duff drive as lanz said.

Or format it NTFS, then there is no 4Gb limitation to single file size as there would be for FAT32.

But it does sound suspicious that your PC also doesn't detect another device correctly... so check out other ports as nxr says.