File splitting

emj · 26/07/14 - 14:50

Hi there,

I was wondering whether anyone could recommend me a good free file splitter? I have several large files which I cannot move to my external HD as they are 'too large for the destination system' (?). I gather I need to split them to move them but I am not clued up on which is the best software for this sort of thing.

Any help would be great, thanks

Stig · 26/07/14 - 14:59

If they are too large for the drive they won't fit however you split them.

However, if you want to split files can use something like WinZip or WinArc.

emj · 26/07/14 - 15:08

Thanks Stig. I perhaps should have clarified in my OP that the external HD has plenty of space to receive at least a few of the files, it's just that the PC seems to see them as too big for transfer. I don't know if that makes any difference or not?

chrisjr · 26/07/14 - 15:18

emj wrote: »

Thanks Stig. I perhaps should have clarified in my OP that the external HD has plenty of space to receive at least a few of the files, it's just that the PC seems to see them as too big for transfer. I don't know if that makes any difference or not?

Are you perhaps trying to copy some large video files (or similar) over to a hard drive formatted using the FAT32 file system? In which case you could hit the file size limit of FAT32 which is 4GB.

By that I mean any single file cannot be larger than 4GB,the total size of all files can be any amount you like provided it's less than the free space on the drive.

emj · 26/07/14 - 15:25

chrisjr wrote: »

Are you perhaps trying to copy some large video files (or similar) over to a hard drive formatted using the FAT32 file system? In which case you could hit the file size limit of FAT32 which is 4GB.

By that I mean any single file cannot be larger than 4GB,the total size of all files can be any amount you like provided it's less than the free space on the drive.

Yes they are video files and over 4gb so that explains it. Is compression the way to go? I don't know if you can reformat a HD but I'd be worried about data erasure!

chrisjr · 26/07/14 - 15:57

emj wrote: »

Yes they are video files and over 4gb so that explains it. Is compression the way to go? I don't know if you can reformat a HD but I'd be worried about data erasure!

Video and audio files don't tend to compress very well. In fact I have known a zipped audio file be bigger than the raw original!

You can re-format hard drives. That will result in the loss of all data on the drive. So make a copy of the content first before formatting it. If you do want to format it just fire up Windows Explorer (the file manager,not to be confused with Internet Explorer), appears as My Computer or Computer on the Start menu.

Find the drive in question, right click on it and select Format from the pop up menu. Make sure NTFS is set as the File System and click OK.You can save time by just doing a Quick Format.

Or you can convert FAT32 to NTFS in theory without data loss. See

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

Although written for Win XP it should work the same under Win 7 (not sure about Win 8 though). But I wouldn't recommend doing it without having a back-up copy of the disk contents just in case.

emj · 26/07/14 - 16:05

Thanks chrisjr, that's really helpful

whoever,hey · 26/07/14 - 16:27

emj wrote: »

Yes they are video files and over 4gb so that explains it. Is compression the way to go? I don't know if you can reformat a HD but I'd be worried about data erasure!

You cant compress video files as they are already compressed. You need to reformat your external hd to a modern file system.

Sambda · 26/07/14 - 19:37

Also HJSplit.

alanwarwic · 26/07/14 - 20:39

As stig said, use WinZip or Winrar and set a maximum file size (2GB ?)

And you might even find that compressed they are below the maximum so end up staying as one file.

emj · 27/07/14 - 11:59

Thank you all

Hey there!

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