Can't Even Cut and Paste Anymore???

Maybe my skills are eroding.

I was trying to copy a 10 gig file (c_vol-b001.spf) and then a 40 gig file (c_vol-b002.spf) from one external hard drive to another - just doing a copy and paste.

The 10 gig copy went fine.

When I start the 40 gig file, I get a message about 2 minutes into the copy that says...

cannot copy c_vol-b002:cannot find the specified file

The copying stops. For some reason, it is dropping the spf file extension in the error message - any ideas as to why this is happening?

Thanks everyone,
Len

 

questions:

has the file been recently opened or always in use by a application before copying?

solution: reboot PC and try to copy the file again. attempt to move file to check it not always in use then move it back.

is the file damaged?

solution: check file isn't damaged and verifys ok.

are you running Vista?

solution: problems with Vista memory copying large files they time out: update to SP1 or upgrade to XP

is there 40GB+ on the destination drive?

solution: check internal and destination hard drive space that both have more than 40GB free.

have you run ChkDsk recently?

solution: run ChkDsk driveletter: /F from a CMD box.

are you running enough RAM or memory faulty?

solution: copying a big file uses alot of the memory. if there's not enough memory it just stops. also check your memory for errors.

 

has the file been recently opened by a application before copying?
No


is the file damaged?
Don't know - don't have shadow protect on this computer - It did validate with shadow protect when initially created, but I will validate it on a different computer.

are you running Vista?
file was created on vista machine - but attempt to copy is now occuring on XP SP3 machine

is there 40GB+ on the destination drive?
yes, 200gig+
(but source drive is close to full - 4 gig free out of 160 gig)

have you run ChkDsk recently?
yes - right after it happened - no issues

are you running FAT32?
no - both drives are NTFS; and the internal c drive is also NTFS


BTW, this is an old computer - internal hard drive is only 40 gig. Could that be part of the problem?


Thanks Markymoo - you've obviously given this a lot of thought.

Ronjor - I'll try Replicator - I have it on computer. Thanks

 

also try renaming the file and defragging your hard drive.

 

Did try renaming - didn't help - got same error

Which drive am I defragging - source or destination?

 

defrage the source that's running the O/S. you need several GB free.

can you do a full format on the destination to ensure it 100% valid?

if you tried Karens Replicator suggested above try Teracopy here http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php
it will be able to resume the copy from where it failed.

if it's old computer with lower memory then you could be running out of I/O resources to handle such a big file.

if you have a CD recovery such as BartPE try loading it and copy the files from there ensuring the external drives are plugged in before booting.

 

I have used this little program to delete stubborn files. I haven't tried the moving/copying part but it is worth a try.

MoveOnBoot

 

You could try copying it with Shadow Copy.

Panagiotis

 

Not really but good to have plenty of free space for an expanding swap file. A error should come up if system resources are low for this. you could try reducing and increasing the size of the swap file and make it a set size.

bypass all your startup programs by holding down Shift on startup until you get to the desktop. this will increase available memory and possible slight increase speed of Windows.

 

I am/was having the same problem and getting the same error message. I discovered that Diskeeper was monitoring all volumes and not only could I not copy files from drive to drive I could not eject the drives. Since I modified Diskeepers setting to not monitor all drives, just to monitor the C: drive I am able to eject the USB drives again. I expect from the comment quoted above and my own reasoning that I will probably be able to copy files as well as eject the drives. I have not had a chance to try this yet (I just discovered the Diskeeper thing this morning) but I will as soon as I get a chance.

By the way neither Unlocker or Process Monitor indicated that Diskeeper had hijacked my drives.

 

Here's what I did...

- tried to defrag source - said I needed 15% free space on drive

- deleted some stuff to get up to 20% and tried defrag again. It hung up - it seemed to choking on large file

- tried copy again (having previously deleted some stuff) even though defrag didn't work. Got same error message.

- deleted more stuff. defrag still hangs up.

- tried copy again - this time it seems to be running okay. It's got about 25 minutes to go - but i'm letting it run and going to bed - I'm getting up in 5 hours.

I'll report back tomorrow night but I suspect the copy will have worked. I will then reformat the source and start clean again.

Thanks everyone - you're great!

 

Why would you need so much free space? Or perhaps even though the space was free the files on the drive were fragmented so even though there was free space the contiguous space was too small to allow the copy to proceed. Does this make sense? Perhaps thats the source of my problem as well. The drive is showing only 6 gigs free and though I am trying to copy about 1.5 gigs to it perhaps there is just not enough room.....Does this make sense?

 

Install supercopier or teracopy!!!!

 

It is not crucial that there is the same amount of GB free needed as the system relies on a pagefile. If a system is heavily fragmented plus the pagefile it means it has to work so hard to copy the file to memory and pagefile and back out again in small parts. This is why defragging the hard drive can help as it puts less load on the system especially beneficial for the older the PC It sounds the PC didn't have enough space to operate well.

There are times when Unlocker can't delete files due to hardcore file policies setup. A way i use is to run Task Manager and shutdown explorer by it's process and select File, New Task and type CMD to open up a CMD box and delete the files that way.

 

I probably wasn't as methodical about correcting this problem as I could have been. The files weren't critical, so I didn't want to turn it into a major project - I was okay with losing data. This seems to be what happened:

- On a 160 gig external hard drive, I had 155 gig of data, that included three large files (approx. 60, 50 and 10gig) and then several thousand small files.

- I couldn't copy the 60 gig file off the drive.

- chkdsk /r reported no problems

- I tried defragging drive (using windows XP utility) and the defrag hung up at 98% complete.

- I deleted the 50 gig file and all the small files

- Defrag still wouldn't run, and copy still wouldn't run

- Gave up and deleted everything on the drive

- Tried to create a 10 gig Acronis TI image on the disk, and the program stopped saying the media quality on the drive was bad

- I reformated the drive and reran TI - it completed successfully

- I'm still a little suspicious of this drive and will probably retire it anyway, but that's what transpired.

Again, thanks everyone, I learned about some helpful utilities along the way here which I will take a look at.