2023-04-18 06:00:00
You are trying to copy a 6 GB video file to an 8 GB empty USB stick. But Windows complains that the file is too big. What now?
Usually with such an error, the USB stick is incorrectly formatted
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A classic: You want to quickly move a large file to a USB stick. Although the stick has a large storage capacity, Windows Explorer complains and reports this with the error message: “The file is too large for the target file system.”
There is a trivial reason behind this: namely the FAT32 formatting. Many manufacturers still deliver large USB drives in FAT32 format. This is primarily for reasons of compatibility with other or older devices. All operating systems can read and write to a data medium formatted in FAT32. The problem, however, is that FAT32 only allows file sizes up to a maximum of 4 GB. This means: If the file is larger than 4 GB, you cannot copy it to the USB stick formatted in this way, although there would be enough space on that stick.
In addition to FAT32, Windows also knows the file systems NTFS and exFAT. The file size doesn’t matter for these two.
The solution is either to format the USB drive in NTFS or exFAT format. Or convert it to NTFS format.
Solution 1: Reformat
If your USB stick is still empty or without important files, simply reformat the stick: Right-click on the in Windows Explorer drive letter of the USB stick. Please make a choiche formatting. In the small window, turn on file system from FAT32 for example NTFS or on exFAT around. click on Beginning and wait for the process to complete. All files and folders on it will be deleted. The next time you try, you should be able to copy the file to the stick.
Format a USB stick in NTFS format, for example, if you want to copy files larger than 4 GB onto it
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Watch out! On which target device would you later like to read, play or edit the file from the USB stick? For example, if it’s a Mac, you can exFAT grasp. But check beforehand which file systems the target device can handle. For example, there are smart TVs that can play video files from USB sticks. Find out which file systems your Smart TV supports. For example at LG it should come with NTFS clap.
Solution 2: Convert
The «Solution 1» described above is definitely the safest and easiest. If you do not want files on the stick to be deleted, we actually recommend first copying the files from the USB stick to your hard drive, then formatting the stick with NTFS or exFAT according to «Solution 1», and then formatting the files to put back on the stick.
However, if you have reasons not to copy the data from the stick, there is at least one way to convert the existing file system from FAT32 to NTFS (and only to NTFS) without deleting the data on the stick. But it is much more complicated.
click on StartAre you looking for cmd and choose at the one found command prompt the point Execute as administrator. Use Windows Explorer to find the drive letter of the USB stick, ours is drive D:.
Type in the following command and press Enter:
convert d: /fs:ntfs /NoSecurity
A query appears: «Do you want to unmount the volume? (Y/N)». Type in J for And in and press Enter. As soon as the prompt is back at “C:WindowsSystem32>”, the process is complete. You can transfer the window X top right or by typing exit (followed by Enter) close. The existing files on the USB sticks are retained. You can now copy the file to the stick, although this may take a while.
With the convert command, a FAT32 drive can be converted to the NTFS file system without data loss
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