Home Forums Discussions Problems AC Backup to Thumbdrive

After going to Beta 5.0.24 (it may have been a problem before but I just never noticed it) I noticed that the full backup of AC to a thumbdrive did not work. The Backup in our 2 Doc clinic using the limited backup without imports is about 2.5 GB, and works fine on our XP Pro system. But, when I include the imported items, the backup is about 5 GB, and it will not backup directly to a thumbdrive (16 GB size), or a USB connected my Passport (250 GB HD). It also will not copy/paste to (says not enough disk space) or "send to" (same message)these external devices. I can copy/paste from the host computer to a workstation computer desktop without a problem. Claire in tech. support is excellent to work with, but we still don't know why the larger .enc file will not copy over to the thumbdrive.
If anyone else knows why this would happen, or has a solution, I would love to hear it.

DocLon,

I would be willing to bet your Passport external drive is formatted as FAT32. And, I know your thumb drive is. Unlike NTFS, FAT32 will not accommodate any file over 4GB. This is why you can back up the 2.5GB file but not the 5GB file. Generally, if the hard drive with FAT32 sees that the file is over 4GB, it will split it, saving 4GB on one sector and 1GB on the other. However, given you may be saving a compressed file, it would not be able to do that. And, it may not be able to anyway.

Attach them to your computer, open the Run command, type in "Compmgmt.msc" without the quotes, hit enter and select disk management. Right click on them and choose format and select NTFS. Save your files before obviously. You may not be able to formt to NTFS with your thumb drive, although it may be possible with other methods. If you can't, I would just purchase a newer one that is formatted as NTFS.

Why Western Digital chose to format a 250GB hard drive in FAT32 can only be explained by WD. Supposedly, it is because it will be compatible with any OS right out of the box.

Bert,

Thanks for your input. You are right that the thumbdrive is FAT32, and will not accept reformat to NTFS. I don't have the WD HD at home to check it.

I tried a 8 GB video file (non-compressed)that copyed fine, but the other point you made is that a compressed file may not be able to be split.

I'll let you know what happens.

Lon Hatfield
Family Practice
Colville, WA

I have read that most inexpensive flash drives are formatted FAT32 rather than NTFS to lengthen the usable life. NTFS is a journaling file system and reads and writes to files much more often than other file systems like FAT and FAT32. Bottom line -- don't look upon a flash drive as reliable backup media, only as a handy way to transfer data between more reliable storage media.

One advantage of formatting flash drives with NTFS is that Windows XP enables the write cache, so writing small files to the USB drive becomes much faster.

If you use Macs, be aware that MacOS X can read from a NTFS-formatted flash drive, but can only write to FAT-formatted drives, unless you use a 3rd-party program such as MacFuse.

I was able to reformat several flash drives to NTFS this way. The key step is to change the default "Optimize for quick removal" to the "Optimize for performance" option under the Properties>>Policies tab.

Or use the "command line":
convert x: /fs:ntfs
(where "x" is the drive letter assigned to the flash drive).

Bert & John,
Thanks so much for the great input. I did get the WD 250 GB HD reformatted to the NTFS form, and it did take the 5 GB .enc file just fine.
Lon

This is extremely good advice not only from what John is saying but that its biggest strength (size and mobility) is its biggest weakness (easy to lose).