downloaded movie file too large for flash drive

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downloaded movie file too large for flash drive

I downloaded a movie in HD onto my computer but I want to put it onto a Sandisk 32 gig flash drive. When I tried to drag it to the flash drive, it said the file could not be copied because it was too large for the volume's format. The site I downloaded the movie from said something about using IGetter. I have Igetter in my applications but it won't open because it says it is from an unidentified developer. (This may have been a pre-Yosemite download.) Anyway, my question is, is there any way to download and/or save a movie to a flash drive?

iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on May 23, 2016 8:30 PM

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Answer 1

May 24, 2016 8:09 PM in response to Vesta G

To clarify Neil's answer many USB memory sticks come pre-formatted as FAT32 drives which is a format that can be used by all computer operating systems, however FAT32 has a limitation on the maximum file size it will accept which is 4GB. You don't actually say how big the file is so Neil and I are assuming your file is indeed bigger than this limit.

A different possibility but less likely from your description would be if you have already used up a fair amount of space on the Sandisk drive and there is not enough room on it for this movie file.

Neil has suggested reformatting the drive as a different format and there are three options to consider with the following issues.

HFS+ = This is Apple's own format and does support large files, however if you use this format then effectively no Windows PCs will be able to use it (in theory you can install additional software in to Windows to add support for HFS+ drives but you cannot rely on other people doing this)
ExFAT = This is an alternative format that both Mac and Windows can use and which does support files bigger than 4GB, it cannot be used for bootable drives but you probably do not need this
NTFS = This is Microsoft's preferred modern format and again does support files bigger than 4GB however as standard a Mac can only read from NTFS drives and cannot write to NTFS drives, it is possible to install additional software for the Mac to add support for NTFS just like adding support to HFS+ to Windows. The best product to do this is this one - https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

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Answer 2

Vesta G Author

Level 1

10 points

May 24, 2016 8:13 PM in response to John Lockwood

Thank you - your info pointed me in the right direction. I went to the Sandisk site and learned how to reformat the flash drive:

To format a device on your Mac OS X:
1. Double-click on Macintosh HD - or in the Finder menu click File > New Finder Window
2. Click the Applications folder - if using a Finder Window Applications will be in the left side menu.
3. Click the Utilities folder.
4. Double-click Disk Utility.
5. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the Erase tab.

Example: If the drive is called "NO NAME", directly above that, you should see the drive capacity of "XXXX". Select this capacity.

6. Verify Volume Format is set to MS-DOS file system or exFAT, then click Erase.

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Answer 3

Niel

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Level 10

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May 23, 2016 8:38 PM in response to Vesta G

You need to either erase the drive in a format other than FAT32, or segment the file so that the files are smaller than 4GB.

(142501)

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