# Hard Drive Capacity - why does it say it's full, when it really isn't? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 15, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919 "2008-11-15T22:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/1 "2008-11-15T22:55:26Z")
Sorry…. Techie computer question coming… My external hard drive acts like it is almost full, yet the Properties of the drive still shows plenty of space. Gory details: My external drive is a 200GB Maxtor One Touch II. When I look at the Properties of that drive, it indicates: Type: Local Disk File System: FAT32 Used Space: 88.3 GB **Free Space: 101 GB** Capacity: 189 GB Problem: When I now try to copy a file of 7 GB onto that drive, I get an error message saying that there is not enough free space. 😕 How should I tackle this problem? I would expect I could use another 101 GB on that drive. My computer is a Dell purchased in 2006, running XP. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/2 "2008-11-15T22:59:58Z")
Why did you format it as fat32? Fat32 has a file size limit. You’ve got space … the file is too big. ---
**Author:** ![Iamametalrobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@Iamametalrobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamametalrobot)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/3 "2008-11-15T23:20:26Z")
Fat32 has a maximum file size of 2^32 - 1 bytes, or just under 4 GiB. You will have to convert the file system to NTFS - [Here is an article from Microsoft on how to do that.](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881) ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/4 "2008-11-15T23:24:50Z")
This place is great! Thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/5 "2008-11-15T23:27:40Z")
The problem is not free space, but that FAT32 has a file size limit of 4 GB. Either split your file or convert the drive to NTFS or [ExFAT](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa914353.aspx) ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT) is better). I’ve not used ExFAT, so cannot vouch for it. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/6 "2008-11-15T23:32:16Z")
See [here](http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=625852&pid=589412540&st=15&#entry589412540) for adding ExFAT support to Windows XP. ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/7 "2008-11-22T20:18:02Z")
> [@Iamametalrobot](#): > > Fat32 has a maximum file size of 2^32 - 1 bytes, or just under 4 GiB. You will have to convert the file system to NTFS - [Here is an article from Microsoft on how to do that.](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881) OK, one more question… When I attempt to convert my k: drive, using this command: **convert k: /fs:ntfs** it returns this message: **CONVERT is not available for RAW drives.** What’s going on here? The properties of my external k: drive say it’s a FAT32. So why am I getting that message, and what should I do? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-capacity-why-does-it-say-its-full-when-it-really-isnt/472919/8 "2008-11-22T20:29:54Z")
Is part of your external drive unformatted?