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I have a 4GB Virtual Machine file I'd like to get off of my computer entirely, and right now (at least till tomorrow) I have only an 8GB flash drive. According to the Windows 10 Storage Settings UI, the flash drive has used 320MB of 7.58GB.

However when I try to copy, I get:

The file 'box-disk1.vmdk' is too large for the destination file system.
box-disk1.vmdk
Type: Virtual Machine Disk Format
Size: 4.76GB

I cannot zip the file first either, since I only have 300MB left on my C drive, and when I try it says "The disk may be full"

Is there any solution to this with the resources I have today?

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  • What filesystem does the flash drive have?
    – Little Helper
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 17:53
  • Under properties shows as FAT32 - and Windows 10 is NTFS
    – Oliver Williams
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 17:55
  • 2
    Well that's your problem.
    – Little Helper
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 17:56
  • Can I reformat the Flash Drive as NTFS?
    – Oliver Williams
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 17:57
  • 1
    If Windows lets you, then why not? Just be sure to backup the files before doing so.
    – Little Helper
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 17:58

2 Answers 2

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In your own post you show the size of the file to be 4.76GB. That is over the maximum filesize for FAT.

You have these options:

  1. Reformat with another (more modern) filesystem which supports files over 4GiB.
  2. Split the file in part smaller than 4GiB.
  3. Create multiple files (each less than 4GiB) on the pendrive and loopback mount those in stripe.

(The last is technically possible, but unless you like a challenge I would skip it).

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  • +1 for item 3 (though I'm not doing that). Thanks, I edited what I'm doing that is working.
    – Oliver Williams
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 18:45
  • Somewhere on Su is a closely related question. IIRC it was FAt32, Linux and no option to reformat or split. So we came up with a wird way of mounting another filesystem back by smaller files on the FAT formatted pendrive. It was a fun answer. It also was absolutely insane for 99% of the people.
    – Hennes
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 19:23
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The answer was yes, but just barely with space constraints in my case.

I first had to move the 320MB of files off of the desired USB flash drive, and since I had no disk space on C, moved it instead to another USB flash drive (that barely had room).

Then I followed (carefully) these directions: http://www.ntfs.com/quest22.htm

Then moved the 320M of files back to the new NTFS format, and then successfully copied over my Virtual Machine file.

Moral of the story: FAT32 takes a 4GB max file size as per the accepted answer, so be careful

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  • 1
    no need to move the file. just run convert X: /fs:ntfs
    – phuclv
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 5:51

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