File copy issue while trying to copy the files to my USB drive
I like taking photos, and recently when I wanted to share some photographs with a couple of relatives via USB drive, I found a pretty interesting issue.
I had about 200 pictures which I wanted to copy in my 1 GB USB drive. I selected all of them and when I tried pasting them in USB drive it started throwing me the following error...
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Error Copying File or Folder
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Cannot copy <FileName>: The directory or file cannot be created.
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OK
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Interestingly, my USB drive had plenty of space still left.
I used Process Monitor, and repeated the same process. Pretty soon I found the following in the log...
6568 8:45:21.4215702 AM Explorer.EXE 1436 CreateFile R:\Picture 200.JPG **0xC00002EA ** Desired Access: Generic Write, Read Attributes, Delete, Disposition: Create, Options: Sequential Access, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Attributes: A, ShareMode: , AllocationSize: 0
This status code - 0xC00002EA is something that I was totally unaware of. After searching sometime I came to know that this is a limit in the FAT format (which my USB was using by default!). Read here for more details... https://support.microsoft.com/kb/120138
Thus, if you are trying to copy a lot of files on the root of your USB and getting this error message, all you have to do is to create a folder and then try copying them to that folder and it should work fine.
Hope this helps!
Rahul
Comments
Anonymous
November 21, 2007
It is best to change the file system on a new USB to FAT32. On a similar note one issue I faced was when I copied mp3 to my USB and plugged it in my car's audio system it did not recognize any files for the simple reason that the file system on the USB was FAT and had a few files with names not in the 8.3 format.Anonymous
November 21, 2007
It is best to change the file system on a new USB to FAT32. On a similar note one issue I faced was when I copied mp3 to my USB and plugged it in my car's audio system it did not recognize any files for the simple reason that the file system on the USB was FAT and had a few files with names not in the 8.3 format.Anonymous
November 21, 2007
Well, I am not sure if we should always use Fat32. I found that my USB's performance reduced by approximately 50% when I used Fat32. So, I have created a folder and moved all my files in for now. BTW, even Mark has suggested to change it to Fat32 at http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/10/01/2087460.aspx, but I am still perplexed about why the performance would be slow for Fat32??? Wish I had the answer. Anyone???Anonymous
November 22, 2007
Any explanation/thought about following ? Primary Possible Directory file name 8.3 alias entries used ------------------------------------------------- EXAMPLE.TXT EXAMP~1.TXT 1 Example.txt EXAMP~1.TXT 2 why would Example.txt file name use 2 directory entries in FAT?Anonymous
November 22, 2007
Hi Jigar, Hmmmm.... if you notice... The characters that are valid for an 8.3-compliant file or folder name include any combination of letters (A-Z) and/or numbers (0-9), plus the following special characters: $ Dollar sign % Percent sign ' Apostrophe ` Opening single quotation mark - Hyphen @ At sign { Left brace } Right brace ~ Tilde ! Exclamation point # Number sign ( Opening parenthesis ) Closing parenthesis & Ampersand _ Underscore ^ Caret It doesn't even have a space as valid 8.3 character. Thus, not only Example.txt uses 2... if you try to use... LFN TEST.TXT LFNTES~1.TXT 2 ... Even that will take 2 directory entries. Hope that answers your query! RahulAnonymous
February 21, 2008
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This article (blog) really helped me. I couldn't figure out why the access databases would not copy over to a USB drive but now I do. Thank you!!!Anonymous
August 28, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
September 14, 2008
hey.. i had the same problem.. thanks a lot Rahul.. it worked... creating a new folder works.. THANKS:DAnonymous
December 09, 2008
I went over too my friends house today and we copied some mp3 files onto my mothers mp3. It all went smoothly. When I came home and tried to put some more songs on it I was receiving this ... Cannot copy <FileName>: The directory or file cannot be created. I don't know how to solve this problem as I am no where near a computer wizz unfortunately. I really would appreciate your help. Thanks!Anonymous
December 15, 2008
Hello Jenny, Please create a folder inside your USB. Move your mp3 files into this new folder, and THEN try to copy more files to this new folder Hope that helps, RahulAnonymous
December 19, 2008
Copy your files from the USB drive somewhere on your computer and then format the USB drive (FAT32 mode). After that, copy your files back. It works 100%.