# Solved: Transferring Media files to external hard drive



## CarrollM (Jun 27, 2005)

My computer is a Dell 8400 with XP Media Center 2005. I have recorded several movies which I intend putting on DVD eventually but so far only have one transferred to my 80 g hard drive. Now I cannot move two others to the external as it tells me I have no room and the 80g drive is only about 15% full. My main hard drive is a 160g and had about 100g free. What could prevent my not copying the movie files to the external drive?

CarrollM


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## kiwiguy (Aug 17, 2003)

You need to check just what size the video file you are trying to copy over is.

Depending on the settings when recording, they can be HUGE...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Check the properties of the hard disk. My guess it's FAT32 formatted, and you are running into maximum file size limitations.


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## CarrollM (Jun 27, 2005)

JohnWill said:


> Check the properties of the hard disk. My guess it's FAT32 formatted, and you are running into maximum file size limitations.


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## CarrollM (Jun 27, 2005)

Yes the external drive is Fat32. I do not understand the limitation on this external drive. The 160g hard drive on the computer is also Fat32 and the Media system recorded the movies to a file on that drive. These movie files are 6g or more. I could buy them if they existed but most of them are very old films and have never been available besides this is more fun. I could have recorded VCR but thought this would eventually be on a DVD recording this way.

CarrollM


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## lister (Aug 10, 2004)

4gb is the maximum file size for a FAT32 formatted drive. What OS is on the PC?


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## CarrollM (Jun 27, 2005)

The OS is XP Media Center 2005. The hard drive is 160g and about 80% free. The external is a Western Digital 80g and is about 15% full> If there is a limit on the file size that the Fat32 Formatted drives can handle is there any way to correct this or fake it out. Maybe my solution will be just to copy the file to a double layer DVD and be done with it. At the price of double layer I had hoped to store these larger ones for awhile and practice on some smaler ones to DVD. My DVD recorder is a Sonic MyDVD LE Version 5.

CarrollM


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## lister (Aug 10, 2004)

You could format the external drive to NTFS in the Disk Management console (right click *My Computer - Manage - Disk Management*) - it would mean transferring the files stored there onto your main HD whilst your doing it of course.


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## Jeckler (Jun 1, 2001)

Convert should work on an external drive. Open a command prompt and type *convert volume /FS:NTFS* (where _volume_, including the colon, is the drive letter to convert to the NTFS file system)


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## CarrollM (Jun 27, 2005)

Thanks for all the help. Converting my external drive over to NTFS will solve my problem and by using the information from you all found my main drive is already NTFS so understand why it is now holding large files. This old geezer thanks you, over and out.

CarrollM


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

You're welcome, that's what we're here for.


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