Copied 500 GB of data from my family history files onto a 2.0 TB Toshiba USB3.0 Portable HD M/N TD8320. Staples was closing them out for $67.I've been collecting family history pictures/data since 1994... I've transferred and backedup photo files from Six computers over the years... onto Western Digital... onto Seagate and onto DVD's of various kinds without issues.Yesterday I copied and transferred all of my history from a Seagate HD to this Toshiba HD and out of 200,000+ files almost 1400 files did not transfer because the file names were too long.Some of these photo's that did not transfer are in more than one file named exactly the same way (under different people)...and some would transfer and some would not.The reject pop up said to try a shorter path.The Toshiba is plugged into a powered 3.0 hub that is connected directly to the back of my windows 7 Prof ASUS desktop.What gives?and btw...in the past four years I've had 3 Western Digital HD drives fail...so I've switched to Seagate and in the last 2 months had 2 Seagate HD's fail. One Seagate had the rattle of death and the other would run (I could feel the vibration that it was running) but the light wouldn't go on and my computer didn't "see" it. These are HD's that I alternate backups to. Now I don't know what to go to and what to trust.

The long file name error refers to the entire path name, including folder names. If that whole string exceeds 255 characters, it's too long. I'm guessing that in the copying process you added a folder at the top of the directory tree that pushed it over the limit - maybe just by one or two characters. Checking the obvious - make sure the drive is formatted with NTFS. If it's in FAT32 or some such, it'll max out when the FAT table gets full, whether or not the drive is full.I've had good luck with both Western Digital and Seagate, less with Toshiba, and have about a half-dozen 1gb and 2gb units running right now. Intersting that the Toshiba laptop I'm using now came with a Seagate hard drive, not one of Toshiba's own.If all those drives have failed on the same USB I/O card or hub, I'd get a new card or hub by a different manufacturer.al

And if it is NTFS and you are using Windows OS, it could be the OS that has the limitation and not the HD. If so, try RoboCopy by typing RoboCopy into the Start > Search. Yours will likely say RoboCopyRoboCopy.exe. This is distributed and supported by MS but separate from Windows Explorer, which has the file name length limit.

Thanks for the tip on robocopy. I'd forgotten about that command line stuff. Now to write some batch files!al

Thank you, AllegroD for responding to my question, too. I've never heard of that RoboCopy thing at all before.

Portable Hard Drive - rejects long file names | Good Sam Community

AllegroD
Nomad
May 27, 2015
Another thing you can do is plug it in, go to My Computer (or This PC), right click, Manage. On the Computer Management window, go to disk management, locate the drive and look for hidden partitions (many do this now) and remove them. Then realocate as a simple volume with all drive space to that volume. Now format and you can enjoy the entire drive.
aslakson
Explorer
May 27, 2015
Step one with a new hard drive: FORMAT! Gets rid of all that crapware.

al
sue_t
Explorer
May 23, 2015
Interesting, I have five WD external hard drives - 3 My Book Essentials and 2 My Passports.

They've been through various degrees of abuse as they are my backups for the desktop so they get to travel with me when we're away. I simply tuck them into a shelf in the RV. One of the My Book Essentials has been dropped too, with no ill effects.

My only complaint is the pre-loaded software that wants to do my job.
AllegroD
Nomad
May 23, 2015
It is a pleasure to help and pass on what I have learned. Like Windows is not always as helpful as DOS.
louiskathy
Explorer
May 20, 2015
Thank you, AllegroD for responding to my question, too. I've never heard of that RoboCopy thing at all before.
aslakson
Explorer
May 19, 2015
Thanks for the tip on robocopy. I'd forgotten about that command line stuff. Now to write some batch files!

al
AllegroD
Nomad
May 19, 2015
And if it is NTFS and you are using Windows OS, it could be the OS that has the limitation and not the HD. If so, try RoboCopy by typing RoboCopy into the Start > Search. Yours will likely say RoboCopyRoboCopy.exe. This is distributed and supported by MS but separate from Windows Explorer, which has the file name length limit.
louiskathy
Explorer
May 19, 2015
Thank you!
aslakson
Explorer
May 19, 2015
The long file name error refers to the entire path name, including folder names. If that whole string exceeds 255 characters, it's too long. I'm guessing that in the copying process you added a folder at the top of the directory tree that pushed it over the limit - maybe just by one or two characters.

Checking the obvious - make sure the drive is formatted with NTFS. If it's in FAT32 or some such, it'll max out when the FAT table gets full, whether or not the drive is full.

I've had good luck with both Western Digital and Seagate, less with Toshiba, and have about a half-dozen 1gb and 2gb units running right now. Intersting that the Toshiba laptop I'm using now came with a Seagate hard drive, not one of Toshiba's own.

If all those drives have failed on the same USB I/O card or hub, I'd get a new card or hub by a different manufacturer.

al

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Portable Hard Drive - rejects long file names

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