Transfering large files from my macbook Pro to my external hard drive

[pittopitto]

Hello!

I am trying to transfer a large file (~7GB) from my macbook pro to my external drive... but seems that I keep getting an error.

If I try to drag and drop from my Mac drive to the folder of my external hard drive I keep getting this message: 'The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code 0).'

So, I tried to use a UNIX command with the Terminal $mv file.xxx /Volumes/HardDrive/


at first it seemed to work, but after a while I receive this message from the Terminal: 'File too large'


I am now frustrated... I need to save this large file for backup purposes and my external hard drive is not big enough to be used for Time Machine (it has 80GB out of 160 of space left)

Is there anyone out there that can help me??

Many Thanks!

-pittopitto

 

[bartelby]

How is your external formatted?

 

[chown33]

How is the external drive connected? If USB, is it through an external hub?

Does it consistently take the same amount of time to fail? If so, make sure neither the computer nor drive are set to sleep (System Preferences > Energy Saver).

 

[pittopitto]

It is a Western Digital MyPassport and it is connected through a 2.0 USB port of my laptop. No USB hubs here.

I am not sure about the format of my hard drive.

It doesn't take time at all if I want to drag and drop... actually it's quite instant, but when I wanna do it through the Terminal, takes about 5 minutes but then gives me error that the file is too large...

 

[sammich]

If your drive appears on the desktop, just Get Info on it and tell us the format in that window under the general group.

FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB in size.

 

[logana]

It sounds as if your external may be FAT32 formatted - click on the drive and "get info" or command+i.

If it says FAT32 then what you are encountering is the FAT32 file size limit of 4GB and explains why you are getting error messages....

 

[MWPULSE]

It sounds as if your external may be FAT32 formatted - click on the drive and "get info" or command+i.

If it says FAT32 then what you are encountering is the FAT32 file size limit of 4GB and explains why you are getting error messages....

following on from this guy..
...You most probably want to reformat your drive (if possible) to mac os journaled.. This will make it easier in the future to back up files n such

PTP

 

[pittopitto]

My hard drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32), so probably this is the problem!!!

If I save my files of my hard drive on the desktop, reformat the disk to a macintosh format, then re-transfer the files back to the hard drive, can they be still opened on a Windowns computer?

If so, could you please explain me how to format my Hard Drive properly??

Thank you very much for pointing me to the right direction...

cheers

 

[pittopitto]

... or can I create a small partition mac formatted on my hard drive only for the large file and save it and leave the other partition FAT32 formatted??

or is it too complicated?

If I cannot open my files on a Windows machine with a Mac formatted drive, is there an alternative to save this large file?

Thanks

 

[logana]

If I cannot open my files on a Windows machine with a Mac formatted drive, is there an alternative to save this large file?

You can read Mac drives on Windows with the help of MacDrive. I don't know how often you want to be able to do that though.

Simplest option is one of your suggestions. Copy all the files back to your machine and reformat the drive into 2 partitions. Format a small partition as Mac OS extended journaled and copy your 7GB file to that partition.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

... or can I create a small partition mac formatted on my hard drive only for the large file and save it and leave the other partition FAT32 formatted??

or is it too complicated?

If I cannot open my files on a Windows machine with a Mac formatted drive, is there an alternative to save this large file?

Thanks

What I recommend doing is formatting the drive to NTFS and installing a tool called NTFS-3G on your Mac. Note that you cannot format a drive as NTFS on the Mac - this has to be done from Windows.

 

[arjen92]

I have "NTFS for Mac os x" (I believe from paragon), and I don't have the option to erase a partition and make it NTFS, however I can add a new partition and make it a windows based partition (I think this means NTFS, as FAT32 is there also as another option).

 

[mscriv]

Adding a Mac formatted partition is probably your easiest solution. If you do this sort of thing a lot and need additional space then you might want to just pick up another external and have one formatted for mac and one formatted for Windows. If you will be creating windows based files that are larger than 4gb in size then you will need to switch your drives from Fat32 to NTFS.

 

[MWPULSE]

following on from the others who posted here, i would suggest the dual partition solution.. Im under the impression there is a tool under windows which means you can read Mac os Journaled drives.. but i may be wrong..:s

PTP

 

[jampat]

following on from the others who posted here, i would suggest the dual partition solution.. Im under the impression there is a tool under windows which means you can read Mac os Journaled drives.. but i may be wrong..:s

PTP

macdrive does this, but it's pricey ($50/computer). It is cheaper to use the NTFS-3G on your mac (free).

Personally I use externals formatted with 90% as Extended Journaled and 10% NTFS. NTFS is damn slow on my MBP, so it is mainly used for times I need to get things in or out of a windows comp, most of my data lives on the OS X partition.

 

[pittopitto]

So seems that the only solution is to format a small partition of my hd as mac journaled....

.....

how can I do that? I mean both partitioning and formatting?? I am not very good in hardware stuff, I admit

I have thought of using a dual layer DVD and save the file on it... so I bought a DVD - R DL, but my MBP spitted the blank DVD out, so I think it doesn't write DVD DL at all (I thought SuperDrive 8x can write all formats of CDs and DVDs, seems I was wrong )

Thank you very much