Error issues copying file

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Are you trying to copy or save the file, and to where? Internal or external drive?

I am also getting this error when copying DVD-sized (>4GB) files to an external hard drive with plenty of room. Smaller files work fine.

The copy is from an internal drive to the external drive. As far as I know, the files are not in use by any other process.

I just tried this again while watching closely and to the best of my observation, the error was thrown as the amount of data transferred passed the 4GB mark (300MB left to transfer of a 4.3GB file).

Message was edited by: Granny Hacker

What format is that external hard drive?

If it's HFS+ (also known as "Max OS Extended") or NTFS, you can save files of just about any size.

However, if the drive is FAT32, you can't copy files larger than 4GB to the drive.

~Lyssa

Feh!!

Of course, the external drive is formatted as FAT (according to Disk Utility) although I suspect it is actually FAT32. I'm no expert on the characteristics of file systems, but I think I remember something about a 4GB file size limit for some windows file systems.

Disk Utility will call it "MS-DOS" and what it means by that is FAT32.

Seems we've found what's causing your trouble!

Do you need to be able to use the drive with a PC? If not, can you get the data backed up and reformat the drive as HFS+?

If you can't reformat the drive, you need to find a way to compress the file you have so it will fit on the drive or break it into two or more parts.

~Lyssa