Unable to copy *.tib files to External USB HDD

I have recently purchased an Elements (Western Digital) USB 250 gig External Hard Disk Drive. I am using this HDD purely for backup on a Windows XP Honme System. I have tried copying files across to the External HDD and also tried using Sync software and in both cases i get a message that says "Cannot Copy FILE.tib: There is not enough free disk space" There is 95 gig of free space and the file is only 10.5 gig. There are several other *tib files i have also tried to copy across and all are coming up with the same message. Any Ideas Please Thanks Allen

 

Good chance your external is formatted FAT32 (usually the default format since it is the most compatible with various OSs). The maximum filesize for a FAT32 partition is about 4GB so your 10GB file is too big.

Solution:
Reformat the external NTFS (be careful you don't lose your existing files since they will be wiped out if done with Windows).

or

Create your tib files using a split size that accommodates the FAT32 restriction. There is an option in TI backup wizard or under Tools to set a split size. This does not cause any problems for TI since it will recognize the "pieces" as part of a single archive.

 

You don't need to format the external. In XP you can use the convert command from a dos prompt which will convert Fat32 to NTFS without losing any data, open the command prompt from All Programs/Accessories and type help convert to see all the switches. If you are not sure this will work copy any data you want to keep to the internal drive first just in case.

Don't know if this applies to Vista as I have stuck with XP.

 

Correct, I forgot about Convert. I never use it because it writes 512 byte clusters instead of the NTFS preferred default of 4096. For a USB external this performance difference probably is not an issue.

 

Thanks for that titbit, they say you learn something everyday, I wasn't aware of that

 

You might find this link informative. I've used the Convert approach and had only one occasion where it didn't work. It's not foolproof.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

 

If you have Partition Magic it will also convert to NTFS. In fact I used it to do just that today. I have an old version 7 of PM.

 

Thanks for your help. I have partitioned the drive into 2 partitions. 1 is NTFS and the other into an ext3 partition for my linux backup . All is working ok now. Partition Magic did not work as it came up with a message to say the eternal HDD was not listed in the boot sector. Thanks again for your help.
Allen