Question

53

Why can't I copy a 5G file?

rated 0 times [ 53] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 55657 / 2 Years ago, sat, november 20, 2021, 4:39:37

I'm trying to backup my VirtualBox, but when I try to copy the .VirtualBox directory to my external hard drive I get an "File too large" error:

[130 amanda@luna ~]$ cp -r .VirtualBox /media/LACIE/Luna/Jun012011/VirtualBox

cp: writing `/media/LACIE/Luna/Jun012011/VirtualBox/Machines/Astro/Snapshots/{9fe69a30-d308-4754-b4e4-928eb90f93d2}.vdi': File too large

cp: writing `/media/LACIE/Luna/Jun012011/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Astro.vdi': File too large



[1 amanda@luna ~]$ ls -alh .VirtualBox/HardDisks/Astro.vdi 

-rw------- 1 amanda amanda 5.0G 2010-04-30 17:41 .VirtualBox/HardDisks/Astro.vdi

What should I be looking for here?

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atetamme

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3 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago herriail · Accepted Answer

/media/LACIE sounds like you're handling a pre-formatted drive, most likely with the FAT32 filesystem. According to Wikipedia, the maximum file size for FAT32 is about 4GB.

I suggest to reformat the drive to either ext4 (for supporting Linux file permissions) or NTFS (if you need to share the drive with windows users).

How funny, but you've now to backup your backup first before reformatting ;)