[Joeturf]

I'm getting a "The disk in the destination drive is full" message when trying to transfer a 4.6 GB file from my desktop to my 16 GB USB flash drive.

I looked at the properties for my flash drive and there is 14.9 GB remaining, why can't I transfer this 4.6 GB file to it? It is an ISO file if that helps at all.

Thanks

[Neil Jones]

Most flash drives are formatted FAT32 and the maximum size of any file under FAT32 is 4Gb. Therefore as far as Windows is concerned, the drive is full because it won't talk to anything bigger than a 4Gb file.
You can check how your drive is formatted by right-clicking on it in My Computer and choosing Properties. The Filesystem will probably be FAT32.

[makai]

If the USB drive is formatted to FAT32, then that explains it. FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit. You will have to format to NTFS to overcome that limit. However, for removable drives, NTFS is more of a hassle to use. You can research Google for the many reasons why this is, and while I could state a few reasons myself, it's really up to the user to make up his/her own mind. Please read up from THIS search page. There are a ton of hits on the subject.

Note that the 4GB limit only applies to an "individual" file that actually exceeds 4gb... such as your ISO file. If you had a folder that contained many files and in total exceeded 4GBs, you could still transfer it... providing no individual file exceeds 4GB. However, for something like ISO's, or Disk Images... you're stuck if you're in FAT32.

[Joeturf]

Thank you both, the flash drive was indeed on FAT32 and I ended up converting it to NTFS.