Hard drive claims it's full

May 4, 2005 11:29 PM

I have a 250GB Maxtor external firewire hard drive. The drive has 190GB of space but when I try to copy a 12GB video onto it I get a "disc is full" message. What gives?
posted by backOfYourMind to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

What operating system? What is the filesystem on the hard drive?

If you have an older BIOS, or are running Windows 2000 with FAT32, or an older operating system, you may be subject to a max file size of 2GB or 4 GB .
posted by stovenator at 11:54 PM on May 4, 2005

Response by poster: Sorry, should have mentioned - Windows XP SP1
posted by backOfYourMind at 12:40 AM on May 5, 2005

Yes, but what is the filesystem?
posted by grouse at 2:18 AM on May 5, 2005

Best answer: Specifically BackofYourMind - Fat32 cannot handle files greater than 2gb in length.

You'd have to have the drive formatted at NTFS.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx
posted by filmgeek at 3:14 AM on May 5, 2005

Response by poster: The filesystem is indeed FAT32!

Thanks everyone for your help.
posted by backOfYourMind at 5:02 AM on May 5, 2005