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The capacity of your external flash drive is large: 8GB, 16GB, or more. There is enough free space on the drive. You can copy the smaller files to the external drive just fine. Yet, when you attempt to copy a large file (4GB or larger) to the external drive, Windows gives you an error (such as: There is not enough free space on the drive, or similar.) Does this sound familiar?
If you experience such a problem, most probably it’s caused by the fact that your flash drive is formatted with the FAT32 file system. This type of a file system has a built-in limitation on the size of the files that it may contain. Although the total size of the files that you can copy to a FAT32 drive could be as large as 2TB (or the physical capacity of the drive, whichever is smaller), the size of each individual file may not exceed 4GB.
This limitation may sound silly: why would anyone design a system that would not allow for the larger files? The problem is, when the FAT32 file system was designed (that was back in the days of Windows 95), no one anticipated that we would have such large files in use today. Or, maybe the designers hoped that by the time such large files become common, the use of the FAT32 system would be replaced by the more modern systems.
In any case, how to solve the problem of copying the 4GB files? Easy: you need to replace the FAT32 file system on the drive with the NTFS file system. The latter does not have the 4GB file size limitation, and it also allows for many other functions not supported by FAT32: file security, encryption, compression, etc.
One caveat, however: the older versions of Windows (such as Windows 95, 98, or Windows Millennium, remember those?) do not support the NTFS file system. If you plan on using the drive with such old computers, then DO NOT format the drive with NTFS, because you won’t be able to get the old Windows to recognize it anyway. If, however, you only plan on using the drive with the more recent versions of Windows, such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and of course Windows 7, such computers should work with the NTFS drives just fine.
How to change the drive from FAT32 to NTFS format?
There are several ways to go. If the drive is empty or contains no important files of yours, the easiest way is to use the Windows Format command to format the drive with the NTFS file system. Specifically:
1. Attach the external flash drive to the computer, wait for Windows to recognize it and assign a new drive letter to it.
2. Open the Computer folder and locate the drive letter assigned to the flash drive you want to format with NTFS (in the example below, it’s drive F:)
3. Before continuing, open the drive in a window and make sure it’s empty or does not contain any important files, because after you format a drive, all information that was on it will be erased! If there are files on the drive that you want to keep, take this opportunity to copy them over to the hard drive or some other drive.
4. If you are sure that the external drive contains no important files of yours, go back to the Computer folder, and right click on the icon of the external drive:
5. Select Format from the menu, and then choose the formatting options:
6. Make sure to select NTFS in the File System drop-down list. That’s what determines the kind of a file system that the drive should have. Also, you may want to select the Quick Format option, which should speed up the formatting process quite considerably.
7. Press Start, and Windows should warn you once again about erasing any existing information on the drive (see step 3 above). Again, if you are sure the drive does not contain any irreplaceable documents, confirm that you want to proceed with the formatting:
8. If you’ve selected the Quick format option, the formatting should take no longer than a minute or two.
As a result, you should have the same drive, but now it should have the NTFS files system on it. Now you should be able to copy the files larger than 4GB to the drive just fine.
In addition to formatting a drive with the NTFS file system, Windows also offers a way to convert a FAT32 drive to NTFS. The difference is that the conversion process would keep the existing files on the drive. See Windows Help and Support of your computer for the instructions on how to do the conversion.
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P.S. Our encryption software USBCrypt can create a NTFS-formatted Virtual Encrypted Disk even if the host drive is formatted with FAT32. This suggests yet another solution: instead of formatting the host disk with NTFS, you can instead use USBCrypt to create a NTFS-formatted Virtual Encrypted Disk. If you do that, then in addition to breaking the 4GB file size barrier, you would also get the strong security and password protection for files you put inside of the Virtual Encrypted Disk. See the USBCrypt web page for more information or to download a free 30-day trial.
P.P.S. If you only need to transfer a large file from one computer to another, you can get by with the FAT format if you use a file splitter utility, like the one included in our file manager AB Commander. Using its Split command, you can split a large file into smaller chunks (say, 2GB each). Such chunks can be put on a FAT-formatted drive without a problem. Then, on the destination computer, use the Merge command to combine the chunks together into the original file. Of course, if you want to open the file directly from the external FAT drive, this won’t help you, but just to transfer the file between Windows computers should work fine.
P.P.P.S. Here is what to do if Windows does not offer the NTFS format option.
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Tags: 4GB limit, external drive, flash drive, usb drive, usbcrypt
i dont normally comment on forums, but i am doing so to give my deepest thanks for your very comprehensive article. i thought at first my microsd was the problem, but reading this solved my month long problem in just a snap! thank you very much. hopefully other people who have the same problem like mine could find this article.
I have Win. XP but there is no option of NTFS. In the dropdown list only FAT32 is available
Thank you very much. you have solved my problem.
good on you.
well i have a move that is 12GB lol its a Blue-ray file and my terabyte is already under NTFS (default)
and im still getting the error pop up i do have the room on it i still have 75GB free so i was wondering if you could help :D ?
also i have the OPtion of picking Exfat or NTFS with one is the best for a Terabyte ?
Thanks for the info.Worked !!!!
Thanxxxxxxx 4 the information …..it really worked :)
Thanks a lot its really a good info for me.
I only have 2 options: FAT32 and exFAT, no NTFS! Does anyone know why?
Thank you very much, you have solved my problem. God Bless you.
Again thanks, for updating my knowledge.
Matt: sometimes Windows does not offer the NTFS option for the removable drives. In such a case, the exFat option should make it possible to keep the lager files, just like NTFS. Good luck!
Thanks alot for the invaluable info….it worked..
Thanks, Worked great
Thanks! The perfect fix in a pinch
Thank you so much for this!! I was desperate trying to figure out how on earth i am going to copy an iso file of windows 7 on my usb!
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks so much!
Thanks a Lot!! Just follow the steps and it works without any issue.. Good job!!
You just made my life so much better! Thank you so much!
Thanks, really saved me as I was really annoyed with that error.
thanks…..yaar……..this information is very valuable than my gf…….thanks
Thank you so much! For the people who are having trouble because the NTFS format option doesn’t appear, check the Read More section and look for the article titled “Windows does not offer the NTFS format option for the removable drives”. It worked for me. Thanks again!
Thank you very much for this lifesaver!!!!
Thanks for solving my problem.
thanks mate , you solved my problem!!
and my problem is solved …..thanks
Thank you! It works!
note: If you are using XP – it will not work, there will be no option for NTFS. You should format it on win7 or win8, format on NTFS, and than it will work even on XP.
Great help here! Thanks.
About Windows (XP in my case) does not offer NTFS option: Odd behavior, but R.click on Start / Explore. That path to Windows Explorer did not offer the NTFS option when R.click on the USB drive/ Format. BUT – Click Start / My Computer / R.click on the USB drive/ Format did offer NTFS.
note: I dont think this had any effect, but I did change “Policies” (double click the drive in the Hardware tab of Properties) to “Optimize for performance” between the format attempts.
Microsoft XP privides answers on “How-To” “Convert” Drives to NTFS Format.
Microsoft XP instructions for changing drives to the NTFS format can be found by googling this line:
“Convert” in Windows XP
Copy and paste the Line above in a Google search box.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Open a CMD; found in: Start~{Programs}~{Accessories}
Choose the appropriate command Line {below} which corresponds to the {Fat32} Drive; that you wish to
convert to NTFS. Example; Let’s use Drive G: as a Fat32 Drive – which could be an external USB Drive.
Copy this Line, and paste it in the CMD window; and touch Enter.
Convert G: /FS:NTFS /NoSecurity /X
Wait for MS-DOS to complete the proces.
Convert (Fat32) Flash Cards, drives, & SD Cards to NTFS.
Convert E: /FS:NTFS /NoSecurity /X
Convert F: /FS:NTFS /NoSecurity /X
Convert G: /FS:NTFS /NoSecurity /X
—————————————————————————
To find out what the “Convert” command is; and does:
Copy this Line, and paste it in the CMD window; and touch Enter.
Convert /?
This was amazing to happen upon. I was in dire need to change my usb to this format without even knowing it and in time for a school project that exceeded the 4gb. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I do not believe I could say it enough!
Katie
very useful article; solved my problem. Thanks.
Ron
I’ve learned something new today thanks to you! I appreciate!!!
Thanks, with out this I wouldn’t be able to update my mac :)
Many thanks, you solved my problem! I found the article VERY easy to read, follow and understand.
I was lost of wondering what happen as i can’t transfer big files to my thumb drive / pen drive at all & i tried my luck searching on the net ” how do i transfer big files to my thumb drive” and it straight lead me here so just like Jack mention, i also dont normally comment on forums, but sincerely i would like to say a big big thank you for leading to me this article. It help me instantly and now i can transfer all my files easily.
Thank you so much again.
Thank you very, very, much to the person that wrote these instructions – I could hug you right now! ^_^