File is too large for destination file system - Already NTFS

Question

This is my first SuperUser post, so please bear with me if I make any mistakes, thanks.

I have some large database files (4-7GB) that I need to transfer to an external hard drive (WD My Book, 6TB). However, when attempting to copy the files to the hard drive, I receive the error that says The file '[my filename]' is too large for the destination file system and have to abandon the copying process. This is very annoying because I am copying from a server across an internet connection, and the copying process runs for 4+ hours before I receive the error.

EDIT: Just for clarification/details, the error has shown for at least 5 different files attempted so far.

UPDATE: As suggested, I tried copying one of the large files to my internal hard drive. This also resulted in the same error message, and my internal hard drive is also NTFS. It would appear that the external hard drive is not causing the error.

The frustrating thing is that every help topic I can find says to convert the external hard drive's FAT32 system to NTFS, but my external hard drive is already an NTFS file system.

Why does my NTFS hard drive throw maximum file size errors, and what can I do?

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I am using Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit, 8GB RAM

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UPDATE: Per suggestions, I tried to copy the files using robocopy, but it failed for the large files both to the external drive and to my local machine. There is an error message:

ERROR 87 (0x00000057) Copying File [my filepath]\[my filename] The parameter is incorrect.

There were smaller files that successfully copied, but it failed at 90.3% of a 4.4GB file. The robocopy command that I used was as simple as I could make it (it's my first time using it):

robocopy "[my filepath] " "[my destination path] "

So, an example with the company path names changed: robocopy "J:\Top Folder\Sub Folder\Originating Folder " "\\Client\C$\Users\doejohn\Documents\Top Folder\Destination Folder "

It seems to be something related to 4GB; but, unless I'm just flat missing something, both the external drive and my local disk are NTFS (I right-click on the drive in Explorer and go to properties, the General tab shows information about used and free space, the file system says NTFS).

Solution 1

So, after a lot more searching (I find it difficult to locate help for specific Citrix issues), I found a Citrix help page that actually describes my issue: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134844. It is specifically a Citrix issue, unfortunately, and the page does not provide a solution.

As some of you noted, the magic cutoff size is 4GB, and this is just a limitation of the XenApp service we are using, regardless of the file systems in place-- the error message is not accurate.

In order to copy these large files, I believe that I will need to find some other service (like a cloud storage location) or gain physical access to the server and copy the files to an external drive there.

Thank you to everyone that helped me troubleshoot this frustrating and time-consuming problem!

Solution 2

First, try copying the file to your local machine like daniel.neumann said in the comments to make sure it is not a problem with the file or the network and if that works then use a program such as gparted (not sure if Windows has a built in tool for external disk formatting, Linux user here) to reformat your external as NTFS, after backing it up of course.

If that fails then there are several pieces of software that you can use to asses the health of your drive to see if there are any other problems with it.

Comments

[Frank Thomas]

I have no issues copying databases a hundred times that size on NTFS (which has a max theoretical file size of 16 ExoBytes, and has for years and years), so it sounds like the error message is a false positive, or you don't actually have enough freespace on the disk. Or it could be a USB problem I suppose. have you run a chkdsk /f on the usb disk recently? it may be time.

[elmer007]

It's actually a brand new hard drive, with only about 33 GB of files copied to it already (the smaller, successful copies were first, coincidentally)

[daniel.heydebreck]

Did you try to copy the database file onto your internal hard drive first? Do you -- maybe -- get the same error?

[elmer007]

@daniel.neumann That's a good suggestion, and I'm trying that now (it'll be awhile due to the connection speed). However, I'm hesitant to troubleshoot the file to intently as I have received the same error for 5 different files attempted (I started this process by selecting all the files and copying them at once, which resulted in me clicking "Skip" when the error showed, only to have the same error for every file one-by-one over the course of many hours)

[Austin]

Happened to my friend yesterday. Sounds stupid but he rebooted and was fine after that.

[elmer007]

@Austin Thanks for the suggestion- once the current attempt to copy to my machine's internal drive finishes, I'll reboot and see if the problem persists

[Psycogeek]

stackoverflow.com/questions/13479280/… You know it should work via the size thing, so it could be time to ignore the text of the error message and instead explore other possibilites for an error when doing any copy. I forget, but i think one of them could be when it is nested too deep (length of multiple folders and subfolders), plus a long file name. 4 hours over the net , nothing could go wrong there :-)

[arana]

could you try a smaller file size (about 3.9 gb) , i know it will take a while, but if it succeeds then it means it is not the deep nesting or the file, but an actual problem on either the command used to copy it (try robocopy or xxcopy), or that it is in fact a FAT partition, those "My Book"come preformated as FAT

[elmer007]

I have updated the question based on feedback... I received the same error when trying to copy a 7GB file to my internal hard drive, and I have rebooted my machine and begun another attempt to copy. @arana I have successfully copied smaller files of 1.7GB with no issues, but I can look for one to test that's closer to the 3.9GB size suggested (I assume the purpose is to remain below 4GB)

[Nixphoe]

If a file is taking that long. Maybe it isn't an issue with the file size, it's that it there is some kind of networking error. I'd give the command line utility robocopy a spin. Use the /z switch to enable restartable copy mode. If the file fails, run the command again and it'll pick up where it left off.

[Frank Thomas]

what network protocol are you using to copy the data? SCP/SFTP, FTP, samba/SMB over a VPN?

[elmer007]

@Austin After rebooting, my attempt to copy the file to my internal hard drive failed again with the same error. Frank Thomas, I am not sure about network protocols- the method I am using is Citrix NetScaler Gateway / Citrix Recieveer, and I open Explorer and use it to copy/paste from the server to my computer or my external hard drive. The server is located offsite

[Frank Thomas]

ok, so smb. Try using Robocopy to perform the copy. it will work with your existing protocol. it provides recoverable/resumable downloads when correctly invoked. ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html You usually need to install the windows resource kit to get robocopy.exe.

[elmer007]

@FrankThomas Sorry for the delayed response... got re-prioritized last week. So I was able to try robocopy today, and it failed to copy to either the external drive or my local disk. I've updated the question to describe the error

[Matt Clark]

Please stop testing with with the 5 hour download :/ Can you try opening a command prompt, cd to the external drive, and run this command fsutil file createnew test.blob 10737418240, this will generate a new file, called test.blob that will be exactly 10GB in size. If this fails - might be time to wipe and reformat the drive. ( that number is the number of bytes in 10GB ) fsutil docs

[elmer007]

@MattClark I ran the fsutil command, and it successfully created the file on the external drive (and on my local disk in a separate command). I'm hesitant to wipe both my external drive and my local disk, but if that is eventually what must be done then I guess I would only have so many options...

[elmer007]

I have updated the question with recent findings, namely that I was unsuccessful at copying a large file to my internal hard drive as well and received the same error message

[Kerr_Max]

I don't have much experience with networks but that seems to be where the problem is. Either that or you may be exceeding some sort of cache where the downloads are stored but this is just guesswork.

[DavidPostill]

"reformat your external as NTFS" - it's already NTFS - as it says in the question if you read it properly.

[elmer007]

I've updated the question to include a robocopy attempt made today- still unable to copy the large files. Robocopy was successful for some files, but failed on a large one.

[David Schwartz]

The error message is accurate. The service you are using includes a filesystem that maps to the remote drive and it is that filesystem that has the limitation.