Moving winRAR file to external HDD

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Guys could do with some advice on this one please.

Got a user with a 13GB file, it has been rar'd using WinRAR so I'm not sure of the original size.

The file is on the users C: right now (which has 19GB free), he wants to move it to his external USB HDD.

Checked the external drive and it has 98GB free space and is formated in FAT32



When i try and copy and paste the file to external drive I get a "Not enough disk space"

I tried moving the file manually in command and still get error saying no space on disk.


Any ideas ? cheers guys.

 

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You might want to try reformatting the external usb hard drive and possibly installed correct drivers as well.

 

Because I believe FAT32 supports a maximum of 4GB file size. In your case its 13GB which is over the limit. However the max volume size for FAT32 is 2TB.

 

You are correct. Try the convert command to "format without data-loss" on the external drive. Not all drives are supported thou.
A maybe better option is to split the rar file into smaller chunks. Nice extra is that if something goes wrong during the copy, you don't have to resent the complete file, but pick up where you left of.

 

awesome, thanks guys, knew i was missing something obvious to do with the file system.

Thanks Tinus I guess I will try and convert it to NTFS without loss like you said, if not I guess I could have him take the files off the external drive and then format it to NTFS.

Do you do convert only in command or can I do it from disk management console ?


Thanks again for the advice, reps all round.

 

As far as I know you type convert.exe from within the command line.

 

I think it's only on fixed hd and cd drives that appear in the console... that said if I had a USB cable handy I'd give it a go.

Splitting the rar files is a good idea - probably best to unrar what the user has already and then re-raring at say 500mb files (would be even better if 25mb files but it would create a lot of them).

 

Thanks guys. Gonna go with "CONVERT F: /FS:NTFS" from command.

If that doesn't work will try splitting it up or reformatting.

 

No problem dude. Converting the drive will also give you alot of other features that NTFS supports.

 

You could always use somthing like Chainsaw to chop the rar file into smaller chunks?

Just an alternative i like to have around ;)

 

when you unrar a file it unrars to a temporary directory (usually on the C: if you installed all the default settings) so even though you want it to copy to the external drive it'll unrar to the C: before it copies to the external. so if you dont have enough on the C: it'll say insufficient space. you say its a 13GB file, when you open the file with winrar it should tell you the size before you extract it. does the size exceed the 19GB you have free ?

FAT - 4GB max partition size
FAT32 - 2TB
NTFS - 16 exabytes

grim

 

Thanks Grim.

So would I still need to convert the external HDD to NTFS after I have freed up some space on the C:?

didn't realise it unrar'd it when moving it.

 

no FAT32 should be fine.

grim

 

It doesn't. Windows treats it simply as another file - just a big single file.

 

it uncompresses the file to the temporary directory and then transfers it to the required destination hence why you can get an insufficient space error from either drive.

grim

 

External USB Flash drives & Hard drives will show up in the management console as well as internal drives.

 

Sorry to say this, but this is not true. What you are saying is that you can not move a rar-file if you have not installed winrar. Afterall, what program should do the unrarring?

 

No, fat32 maximum FILE size is not the same as maximum partition size.

 

well there you go - teaches me to actually try and find the USB cable before speaking next time

 

no thats not what i meant, you've miss understood me.

grim