Can't send a file to USB drive as it's too large, despite numbers not adding up

Nine_Lives

USB pen drive: 14.8GB free (it's a 16GB stick with nothing on it). Next to 14.8GB it says (15,917,375,488).

The file i'm wanting to put on there is an Acronis True Image backup file. It was stated as about 55GB, but when compressed & i right click & hit properties it states 13.6GB (14,655,634,432).

Yet i can't copy the backup file as it's too large for the destination drive.

How is that when the figures say not?

closed

is the stick formatted with fat32, if so it needs to be ntfs to hold files bigger than 4GB

acronis should compress as you take the backup, zipping afterwards shouldn't affect the size much

hard disks are a more robust backup destination

Darksun

The USB stick is probably formatted in FAT32 which has a maximum file size of 2GB. So either split the file up into chunks or reformat the USB stick with a different file system

Nine_Lives

Thanks. Looks like that was the answer.

I was trying to make the USB stick the bootable drive from within Acronis AND put the backup on it, but when trying to make it bootable through Acronis it wants to format it with FAT32 - no good.
Looks like i'll need the bootable media to be on CD/DVD. Not what i wanted really, but it'll have to do. I was wanting the entire thing to be on USB stick, but not to worry.

closed

when you do the backup, you can specify the max size of the image file, so it will split the backup up into <4GB pieces

Nine_Lives

closed wrote: »

when you do the backup, you can specify the max size of the image file, so it will split the backup up into <4GB pieces

Thanks.

I've just tried again - formatted using fat32
I then selected the splitting to be "automatic" & then checked the box to make the backup bootable.

Hopefully this works. It's in the process of it now. About an hour & half to go.

Nine_Lives

Hmm, when splitting it, it doesn't fit. Keeps timing out with about 900MB left & 20 minutes to go.

I wonder if doing it on a 250GB ext HDD & then transferring all the files would work?

-TangleFoot-

Have you considered conversion?

Nine_Lives

Just done that but it seems it doesn't help

Made it bootable using Acronis. Used the conversion & then copied the backup file over.

Started up & booted to the USB stick - error message saying BOOTMGR is missing.

Looks like i'll have to buy a 32GB stick.

Nine_Lives

I'm not likely to get a nasty surprise if i buy a 32GB stick am i?

I tried the same with my 250GB ext HDD, but it wont format in Fat32 & Acronis wont make it bootable.

It will do with the 16GB stick, but it's just a tad too small, hence i was going to try the 32GB stick. Just don't want to buy this & face the same issue as i did with my 250GB ext HDD.

closed

hard disks are better, why do you need it all on a stick? boot cd and usb disk are better way of doing it if you have a dvd drive.

how big is the flash drive, how big is the acronis backup?

what type of bootable stick are you creating, linux, or windows pe

does the flash drive boot at all after making it bootable with acronis?

dont see why you cant format a disk drive, provided you don't want any data on it.