Copying Files – Error Code 0 11

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Copying Files – Error Code 0

Hey

While moving some large files around the other day I came across a rather funny code that got me confused for quite a while. Every time I tried to copy the file it would throw up an error box saying the file can’t be copied, an “unexpected error has occurred, code 0″. The solution was decisively simple and very easy to overcome. Its due to the FAT32 partitioning system I was copying to. This post is going to explain how you can get around it.

copying files error code 0

FAT32 has a file size limit. You can read more about it on wikipedia. Due to the way the allocation is set, it wont allow files bigger than 4GB. This wasn’t a problem years ago when files didn’t get this big, but with home movies and large files in general this limit can be reached. With normal day to day operations with your Mac you won’t encounter this problem. However it may come across if you are using a FAT drive or USB stick.

There are two ways to get around this problem. The first is to format your destination drive to a different format, for example you can convert it to HFS which can be used by your Mac. You may run into problems if you want to use Windows. Alternatively you can use a plugin such as NTFS-3G to write to NTFS drives, this allows you to write to it on Windows and Mac and have large file sizes. For a table on formats I recommend this one. Formatting drives can be done in Disk Utility in Applications > Utilities. Formatting can be a bit of a pain. The best way is to split the file up using an application.

One method on reducing files sizes is to archive it. Most of the time this wont do much in terms of file size and you still may end up with a large file. The best way then, is to split up the file into smaller chunks. The best method is to use an app called Split&Concat. This app takes a file and splits it up into small chunks of your choosing. You can then put it on a memory stick moving it a different location and then put it back together again. There is similar apps for Windows and I assume Linux.

split and concat

Hopefully you understand the problem that is faced by moving large files. There is different ways to store data, each of these have different limitations and can only be read by certain types of operating system. One file allocation system may be too much to ask. As a result the best way to transfer large files with this limitation is to split them up, or find a different way of moving them.

If you want to leanr more about this sort of thing, but use Terminal instead I reccommend Mac OS X Toolbox or The Mac OS X Command Line from Amazon


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11 Responses to “Copying Files – Error Code 0”

  1. 1

    It may be useful to note that FAT16 has a limit of 2GB (Limit Only by Volume Size). A great chart is here: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

    Comment By Chris Wanja on January 21st, at 12:02 am

  2. 2

    May I ask how to fix the error code 0×8007057: Parameter is incorrect in copying files from computer to psp.

    Comment By ranierreyes on October 31st, at 12:02 pm

  3. 3

    sfjskf May I ask how to fix the error code 0×8007057: Parameter is incorrect in copying files from computer to psp.

    Comment By dfjs on November 24th, at 4:16 am

  4. 4

    Thanx Split & concat worked like a charm..

    Comment By Buddy on November 25th, at 8:59 pm

  5. 5

    Thanks lots, problem solved!

    Comment By Ben on February 26th, at 9:15 am

  6. 6

    OMG, thanks a lot. You dont even know how long I have benn puzzling over this.

    Comment By Peter on March 26th, at 7:43 pm

  7. 7

    hi used split & concat 3.0 it worked great but it made avatar 3d which was a 13.1GB movie into a 4.29GB movie on the hard drive i moved it to ..it worked beautifully up to half way through the movie..Can you please make any helpful suggestions please..i probably stuffed it up..lol

    any help greatly appreciated

    Comment By Mac on June 6th, at 3:34 pm

  8. 8

    thank you for this post and optional solutions.

    i ran into the same problem the other day and my first attempt i thought of was split&concat as well.

    takes quite some time to split larger files and copy them, but works so far.
    however i was unable to put the splited files together again once they were copied to my portable hdd.

    the better solution is NTFS-3G.

    Comment By mx on June 12th, at 4:46 pm

  9. 9

    Using Windows 7 Disk Management, I was able to format a 40GB USB drive and load files over 4GB with ExFAT (16GB max now – though not tested. I tested with 11GB file) AND can use it on MacBook as well. Formatting with Mac Disk Utility did not work on Windows 7 though. Had to be Windows 7 doing the formatting. Thanks for the great post – very helpful…

    Comment By Tom Wolfe on September 14th, at 5:17 pm

  10. 10

    Thanks so much for posting this. Worked perfectly!

    Comment By Paulette Phillips on October 10th, at 7:36 pm

  11. 11

    Okay first off, the NTFS format plugin is bollocks. I used it to reformat a 16 gig USB drive and when I attempted to use it on a Windows machine I got the message that the drive was not formatted. I was confused so I checked what was going on and the upper level format was Mac OS Journaled, and not NTFS or Fat 32 which is a major problem since the only system that the upper level format works on is a Mac. So now I am trying the split and concat to see if that works.

    Comment By John on December 24th, at 6:32 pm

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