Can't copy more files to a USB flash drive?

Have you ever tried to copy files from your AGPS computer to a USB flash drive and got a Windows error message "Could not create the file"? Or ran your Export utility and the files didn't show up on the USB? This doesn't necessarily mean your USB drive is defective or full, but it may need a little work.

This description gets down to some technical details of how these components work, but I am going to try to keep it simple:

Most USB flash drives with storage capacity of 32MB to 2GB come from the factory formatted with FAT (also known as FAT16) file system. This "File Allocation Table" is basically how the drive knows what it is storing and where.

One of the limitations to FAT16 is the maximum of 512 files stored in the root (top level) directory. The number of files is reduced even more if there are any filenames longer than 8 charachters.

Note that it doesn't hurt to keep a lot of your files backed up on a USB drive, but there are a couple things you can do to overcome this limitation:

• Organize: Creating folders on the drive and moving files from the root into the folder helps not only when you want to find something, but there is not a limit to number of files in a subfolder of the drive.
  • If you are storing files because you may need them later, just click File>New>Folder. Enter a folder name, and then move files into that folder. (Highlight files, and then drag them into the folder OR highlight files then Edit>Move to folder> pick folder name.)
• Format to FAT32. FAT32 is a newer file system and will already be the default on some of the 4GB and larger USB flash drives. This should only be done by computer savvy users, as data loss may occur if you are not careful.
  • Copy or move all the files off your USB first:
    • From the root of the USB Edit>Select All
    • Edit>Move to folder>Click desktop, then Make new folder, make sure New folder is highlighted then click move.
  • Go to My Computer and touch the USB drive to highlight it, then click File>Format
  • select FAT32 as the file system and click Start
  • When that is sucessful, move the files back to your USB drive.
    • On the desktop open the "new folder" created earlier.
    • Edit>Select All
    • Edit>Move to folder>Select the USB drive>Move