I can't move this big file..?

[DevLano]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this may be more of a vmware issue, but I figured I'd start here.

Basically I have a 56gig vmdk file, that refuses to move. The vm is not broken at all and works fine. I've moved several vm's off my laptop drive onto this new usb drive.

I'm working with an alienware m11x r3 with a 750gb 7200rpm drive & a usb 3.0 wd my passport external drive that IS using drive compression. (blue text for file/folder names)

I've tried to move this file via explorer and tera copy. both fail.

in the explorer scenario, I've burnt at least the weekend attempting to get this file off my drive. in a few cases it gets down to just a smidgen of space in the transfer progress bar with a 'theoretical hour remaining', but that was 10 hours ago.

when I'd look in resource manager,it starts off in a normal read from c drive and write to d drive action. but at the end, it is just writing, and its moving at like 700kb a sec. Ive been in those, 'just wait it out' processes but I need to use both the laptop and the vm for the work week now lol.

In the teracopy scenario, it does fail with an error, that I cant recall at the moment, but I tried searching the error a day ago to no avail toward my issue.

If you-all need more info from me to try and assist in my issue, let me know, I will provide, as this is very irritating that there is something preventing me from moving this file off the drive and I cant! I got it on there and now it wont leave lol.

My only guess, is due to the drive compression, I really don't have 56gb left to spare? tho the free space on the drive is 232gb available?
http://s3.amazonaws.com/DevLano/Capture.JPG

 

[win7person]

Use a file splitter to break up that 56g file, move it piece by piece over to the other drive and when it is all there rejoin it. Google "File Splitter".

Note: 56g is enormous.

 

[Ztruker]

Can it be compressed any or is it already compressed?

 

[OldMX]

Get a ftp client, like FlashFXP, and use the built in file manager to move/copy that file.

 

[ben946210]

have you tried fastcopy, it works well and it can also verify before you delete it

 

[jimbo45]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this may be more of a vmware issue, but I figured I'd start here.

Basically I have a 56gig vmdk file, that refuses to move. The vm is not broken at all and works fine. I've moved several vm's off my laptop drive onto this new usb drive.

I'm working with an alienware m11x r3 with a 750gb 7200rpm drive & a usb 3.0 wd my passport external drive that IS using drive compression. (blue text for file/folder names)

I've tried to move this file via explorer and tera copy. both fail.

in the explorer scenario, I've burnt at least the weekend attempting to get this file off my drive. in a few cases it gets down to just a smidgen of space in the transfer progress bar with a 'theoretical hour remaining', but that was 10 hours ago.

when I'd look in resource manager,it starts off in a normal read from c drive and write to d drive action. but at the end, it is just writing, and its moving at like 700kb a sec. Ive been in those, 'just wait it out' processes but I need to use both the laptop and the vm for the work week now lol.

In the teracopy scenario, it does fail with an error, that I cant recall at the moment, but I tried searching the error a day ago to no avail toward my issue.

If you-all need more info from me to try and assist in my issue, let me know, I will provide, as this is very irritating that there is something preventing me from moving this file off the drive and I cant! I got it on there and now it wont leave lol.

My only guess, is due to the drive compression, I really don't have 56gb left to spare? tho the free space on the drive is 232gb available?
http://s3.amazonaws.com/DevLano/Capture.JPG

Hi there
just download a trial of Acronis / Macrium etc and back it up as a DATA file with one of those products to an external drive.

Delete the original (don't forget to empty the recycle folder) and then restore it again to where you want it.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Infinite]

Have you took ownership of the file or tried Unlocker?

 

[DevLano]

To give an update on my attempts thus far..

I tried to compress the vmdk using 7zip.. took the file from 56gb down to 22gb, and I was able to move the file over to the other drive.. so that part worked.. but when I tried to unzip the archive on the usb drive, it stopped half way through and error msg was: unable to open to to file system limitations.. :-/ ideas?

Really annoying but I will try a few more of the suggested methods in a few and post my results.

Thanks for your help guys. still trying.

 

[F5ing]

I've encountered the same issue when trying to copy or move files >~60GB. Saw the same thing in Resource Monitor that you saw when using Win7 Explorer to move it. Same error msg as you saw when you were unzipping when trying to move the file with Teracopy (file system limitations).

Pretty sure it has something to do with NTFS compression. If I turn off compression in the destination drive or folder I can move these huge files with no problem.

 

[DevLano]

In addition, just as a few hours ago. I deleted a few of the failed attempts for the vmdk.. and the recycle bin started saying something to the affect of, write failure.. can't recall fully, had the yellow exclamation point sign, as I was assuming it was related to a different problem I experienced due to vmware not being able to write to the disk if the vm is live. (if u pull the plug on the drive for example or put the laptop to sleep) so I'm starting to think there is some kind of rights control that's happening here. not sure yet.

I didn't want to say this before, as I didn't want to exclude a possible solution, but I really don't or haven't had the same issues with copying large vms. I've been known to move 300 to 500+ gigs of vm with little to no issues. This tho, is a completely different environment. I'm more used to 2tb/72krpm drives over 1gb network gear, so this is a bit newer for me, as I'm attempting to be free of all desktop/land based machines. #gomobile #gocloud

 

[pparks1]

i can hardly believe that people are still compressing drives, i cannot remember the last time i encountered a compressed drive

 

[JerometheGiraff]

True, compressing drives is a bad, choice. I can't believe the author can't move a 56 gig file.

 

[F5ing]

I think whether or not NTFS compression is used depends upon the perspective of the user. There are international corporations that use it still. I doubt that many individuals use compression any more (except maybe on older equipment) due to the inexpensive $/B these days, but NTFS compression had always been 100% reliable for me. Had never found any previous on-the-fly compression methods trustable/reliable/predictable (DoubleSpace/DriveSpace).

I've still got a few TB worth of old compressed disks around here that I use to store images of repaired computers. The newer, larger drives I've never bothered to turn compression on. Nowadays I just use the older, smaller compressed disk to store the smaller images. Not gonna bother uncompressing them.

But the images have gotten bigger over the years, and what troubles me is that when using Windows 7 to move these larger files the process never ends (when moving to a compressed drive). From what I experienced, it doesn't stop with an error, nothing in the event log or any other log I could find, the process just goes on and on. One time just let it go for a whole 24 hours just to see if it would ever end!! Teracopy would actually halt, on each attempt, with the previously mentioned error message (I guess apparently recognizing the NTFS driver was trying to tell the system that something's wrong).

For the original poster, it might be worthwhile to check out the following links:

A heavily fragmented file in an NTFS volume may not grow beyond a certain size

File System Limitation - The Sean Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs