Problem Transferring Files to an External HD

[bigk181]

I bought a 2 TB external Western Digital My Book Premium Edition II hard drive. I want to transfer all my files from my 2 WD 320 GB hard drives onto the 1 TB HD. However, when I try to transfer VOB files to the HD, it gives me a message saying that there is not enough disc space. I know that's not right because I currently have 1.35 TB of free space on the drive. I had this same problem with my 320 GB WD My Book HD when I was trying to rip DVDs to it that I recorded from TV. I didn't have this problem with the other 320 GB HD. The other drive is not a My Book drive. I didn't have a problem transferring the other files to my 2 TB drive. Does anybody know why this is happening and how I can fix the problem?

[lordsmurf]

Is the drive pre-formatted for NTFS?
I've had to re-format a few new drives, they came with pre-loaded crap I didn't want ("backup software"), and were not NTFS for Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7.

[bigk181]

It's formatted for FAT32. Does that matter? I don't know much about those formats. I checked the 320 GB My Book HD and that one is formatted for FAT32 as well. My other 320 GB HD is NTFS. I didn't have a problem with that one. My C: drive is also NTFS.

My 320 GB My Book HD had some backup software on it but I just left it there. My 2 TB drive was blank when I got it.

It would kinda suck to have to reformat the 2 TB drive and then transfer all the files again but it would be worth it if it fixes the problem. At least I still have all the files on my other external drives. Are you saying that I should reformat the 2 TB drive for NTFS?

[lordsmurf]

Your FAT32 drives need to be converted to NTFS. Re-formatting not required. (But it is best to convert to NTFS by doing a full format, not the after-the-fact method.)

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

Get yourself into DOS.
One way is to go to START > RUN and then type "cmd" and press enter (click OK)

If drive E: was the drive you wanted to convert from FAT to NTFS, the you'd type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:

convert e: /fs:ntfs

and press enter in DOS. It will convert. This can take a good bit of time, especially if the drive is full.

I've seen drives crash and become unstable by converting this way. Again, best way to convert is when formatting the drive.

FAT32 has a 3.99GB file size limit. So your "out of space" errors were from trying to put larger files on the drive.

Don't try to make smaller files -- that's stupid. Make the drive accept larger files. It's 2009, after all.

[bigk181]

I'm going to convert to NTFS by doing a full format. I'm working with some video on there right now and I don't have time to format the drive and copy all the files again right now, so I'm going to wait until after Christmas. I will make sure to backup the files I'm working with to my other drive before I format the 2 TB drive.

Thanks for the help.

[lordsmurf]

To save format time, you can "quick format" -- just pick the "quick" option when formatting. The best way to format is NOT to right-click and format, but rather go to the disk management. Right-click on My Computer, go to manage, and then find the disk management. Format in there.