External HHD won't copy large files

Question

I have Buffalo HD_PXU2 (with password protection) and I'm trying to move a very important file of 90 GB (it's a virtual PC Hard disk and should be taken all) but once I try to copy I get the message "The file is too large for the destination file system". what can I do?

Answer 1

You need to reformat the disk with a file system that allows files that big. FAT doesn't allow them, NTFS might allow them.

Answer 2

Your disk is probably is FAT32. In FAT32, a single file's size cannot be more than 4GB. You need to convert the disk to NTFS as follows:

1. Run command prompt as administrator
2. Run convert <drive letter>: /fs:ntfs
3. e.g. convert f: /fs:ntfs

Though the process is official and pretty safe, please backup all the important data first.

Ideally, no data is lost during conversion. But, its always wiser to backup important data.