Can't copy Internal HDD to External HDD

fatmarley

fatmarley

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Matt
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I'm trying to copy 1tb of data from an internal drive to an external 3tb USB 2.0 one. I've done it before but now it just stops when it get to a certain file. I downloaded the free version of Macrium Reflect to try and clone the drive but all I get is "The target disk has an incompatible sector size for this operation. Please choose a different disk.". I googled it and found this thread - LINK
Is there anything I can do other than buying another hard drive? Maybe remove the usb drive and instal it in my pc? There must be some way around the problem.
 
If your BIOS is set to MBR (Master Boot Record) instead of GPT (GUID Partitrion Table) then you may be hitting a BIOS imposed cap. Especially if your machine is Circa or Pre 2011. Ensure your machine can support GPT.

Also, Ensure that your drive is formatted as a GPT drive, or the full sector map of the drive may not be writeable.
 
DiggerDave said:
If your BIOS is set to MBR (Master Boot Record) instead of GPT (GUID Partitrion Table) then you may be hitting a BIOS imposed cap. Especially if your machine is Circa or Pre 2011. Ensure your machine can support GPT.

Also, Ensure that your drive is formatted as a GPT drive, or the full sector map of the drive may not be writeable.
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Well I have a number of external drives (Seagate 2, 3 and 4 TB) also used on Win7 64 bit and they are all readable up to their limit and they are all formatted to NTFS so this shouldn't be a problem.

Do your drives show the full 3TB (or about 2.72GB because of the difference between how a manufacturer and your PC count the size)?

If they do I would say click on "Properties">tools>error-checking and choose to let Windows fix file system errors (Not for bad sectors at first as this will take ages on a 3TB drive).

Also have you tried copying over the files or folders seperately because that way you could bypass the bad file or folder and get most of the data onto your 3TB drive.

This is a common problem when copying files because as soon as Windows encounters a bad file it just stops the whole copying process - which is a real pain!
 
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:agree: think the upper limit for MBR is 2.2 TB (If memory serves), anything above this, and then you may have issues involving MBR.
 
DiggerDave said:
:agree: think the upper limit for MBR is 2.2 TB (If memory serves), anything above this, and then you may have issues involving MBR.
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That's only a problem if you are trying to use a larger drive to install the OS on but not if it's an external HDD using USB2 or 3.

I have drives of up to 4 TB and USB 2 and 3 has no problems with them.
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some good advice above, am sure you'll get it sorted (y)

I dont use more than 1tb drives, they're a pain to backup as it is, I cant imagine what its like trying to manage 2tb or even 3tbs.
 
Carlh said:
some good advice above, am sure you'll get it sorted (y)

I dont use more than 1tb drives, they're a pain to backup as it is, I cant imagine what its like trying to manage 2tb or even 3tbs.
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No problem at all, and the good thing about external HDDs is that once files have been backed up to them they can be disconnected so they're not continually running as they are in a PC.
 
It looks like the internal 1.5tb hard drive was faulty. Windows said it was about to break and that I needed to backup my files, so I did.

I think the damage may have been caused by power cuts (we've had quite a few lately). I now have everything backed up to the 3tb drive that I fitted inside my PC and I only lost four photos that weren't any good anyway.

I've just received a APC UPS (£145) to stop this happening in the future. I could have bought a much cheaper UPS (£50) but I was told APC are much more reliable and worth the extra.
 
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