Invalid MS-DOS function

[tzetsin]

Hey guys, i'm getting some lame error when i try to transfer large files.

I was in the middle of transfering a 100 gig file to an external (file full of files, not one 100 gig file) and about half way through i get an "Invalid MS-DOS function" error with the option to try again, skip or cancel. Try again gives the same error, skip, brings me to the next file in the folder which also has the error and so on, till all remaining files are skipped.

After trying another file (73 gigs) i get the error right away. I've done some looking on the net and only came across work arounds wich dont interest me as i KNOW this is a recent problem as i've been transfering large files for a few days now.

Transfering the files singly works perfectly fine, just not when i try the whole lot.

anyone came across this before? have a solution?

[frontier204]

To start, I'd run "chkdsk /f" (check disk for errors) on both drives. That should eliminate issues with bad partition / HDD. What kind of partitions are your source and destination? For lots of files, you won't want to use FAT32.

Someone may correct me on this, but IIRC the "Invalid MS-DOS function" may occur on invalid named files or on a file path that is too long. Can you verify that you're not copying to a very long path?
example: copy-pasting C:\myfile to D:\blah1\blah2\blah3\(...)\blah10\myfile

Personally I use the console app robocopy (called xcopy in earlier Windows) to do copying of files.
example:
robocopy "W:\Personal Archive" "E:\Archive\Personal Archive" /E
Robocopy seems to ignore a lot of the stuff that makes Explorer's copy-paste go crazy, and it also maintains the "date modified" information, which is useful for backups.

Hope this helps

[Squeetard]

had this problem when the external drive was formatted fat32 and not ntfs.

[tzetsin]

Both are ntfs and the file was transfered from one internal to an external to another external, an it wasnt untill the second external that the error appeared. looks like im going to have to format (the easiest option for stupid errors...) not what i was looking forward too over christmas..


Thanks for the replies guys, Merry Christmas!

[kirk_d]

4 gig file is max under a 32 bit os, nevermind Dos, I know there's a patch you can get for windows 32 bit. 64 bit doesn't suffer this issue!

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by kirk_d

4 gig file is max under a 32 bit os, nevermind Dos, I know there's a patch you can get for windows 32 bit. 64 bit doesn't suffer this issue!

4gb is a filesystem limit of FAT32 not of the OS. NTFS fixes this and allows larger than 4gb files.

[kirk_d]

Originally Posted by enaberif

4gb is a filesystem limit of FAT32 not of the OS. NTFS fixes this and allows larger than 4gb files.

Whoop's, too much egg nog
Thank you for the clarification!

[tzetsin]

I'm running 64 bit either way ;) its in the sig. Thank you kindly for the suggestion though.