OT: Copying large 30+ gig files in Win2k?

ken c wrote on 4/10/2006, 7:17 AM
Quick problem, whenever I try to copy my 35gig-40gig source avi capture files from one external hard drive to another (and they're on separate firewire cards), I get an error:

cannot copy (filename): insufficient system resources

(happens about 20 gigs through the copy attempt)...

This is in win2k; I have sp4 installed, so that's not a fix, as described at microsoft..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q259837

any ideas on how to workaround, eg backup software that might work?

I'm trying to copy my seminar source avis from the external maxtors to WD externals, so I can sleep better and not worry about losing them if/When the maxtors crap out..

I've got a lot of video editing to do w/Vegas this next few months, 3 seminars worth of work to edit into 7-to-12 DVD courses.. want to back up my source avis first..

I suppose I could try and copy them by daisy chaining them together on the single firewire port on my wife's winXP computer? since it sounds like it's not an issue for winXP .. that's the only thing I can think of offhand, unless there's a copy utility that works out there...

thanks,

ken

ps update: looks like it'll do a 24 gig ok, but not a 37 gig .. go figure...

Comments

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/10/2006, 7:41 AM
Ken,
I have never had a problem doing this when I was running Win2K SP4 and my backup FW drives are daisy chained. If I understand correctly, you are not trying to copy one huge file, rather lots of AVI files that make up the 30-40Gigs, so the MS article is of no help.

Just a thought - do you have enough space on the drive(s) where temp space and paging space are allocated?

HTH,
Tom
ken c wrote on 4/10/2006, 7:45 AM
thanks Tom ... actually no they are single, large avis, eg most are 37 gigs, from where my videographers (imageav.com, great outfit, used them for 3 seminars!) captured from the sony dv tape to external maxtors...

good point re temp space/paging space... no I dont, as my C: drive just has 10 gigs free... that could be causing it ... sounds like I'll have to unplug these drives and walk em downstairs to the wife's xp pc, to copy... that one has plenty of hd space free.... appreciate the tip..

grr .. tried copying a different 37 gig one, took 18 minutes or so, got within 3 mins of completing, then the out of resources message...

maybe if I simply try to render bits of each avi (eg 20 gig chunks) from within vegas to the new drive... kind of splitting/copying at once..

ken
Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/10/2006, 8:50 AM
Ken,
You can get a whole lot of useful performance information out of Task Manager -> Processes tab. In TM, select View -> Select Columns... Add whatever columns to the display you think may help and from there you may be able to pin whether memory (temp, paging etc.) is the culprit.

Tom
ken c wrote on 4/10/2006, 8:53 AM
hey thanks! that's a handy tip, I didn't know you could add columns to taskmgr.exe ... I run it all the time to keep an eye on how much memory everything's using ... that's helpful, eg to add vm size, peak mem usage etc... appreciate it!

I also use the "process explorer" utility from www.sysinternals.com as well, it works great to see threads/mem sizes..

ken
johnmeyer wrote on 4/10/2006, 9:46 AM
Back in the early days of NTFS and the wanning days of FAT32, I ran into problems copying files larger than 2 GB, but less than the max FAT32 4GB. Turns out you couldn't do it from within Windows, but if you opened a command prompt and used the old DOS copy command, it would work. This is a long shot, but it might be a workaround to your existing problem. Just go to the Run box, type CMD and then use the DOS copy command:

copy D:\folder1\filename M:\folder2

(or whatever your names are).
Former user wrote on 4/10/2006, 9:48 AM
This is for Windows NT but it might have some relevence.

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1231/

Dave T2
ken c wrote on 4/10/2006, 1:53 PM
hey thanks.. I'll try that re cmd prompt copies and the other fix ... what I did today, was to just open vegas and render out half of each of the 37gig files at a time, to the new drive, eg "part1.avi" part2.avi, and that worked. so now I have the entire seminar on another external drive (whew! sense of relief) ...

but it would be much better to be able to simply copy the source files from one drive to another... thx for the help & ideas, appreciate it..

ken