My external hard drive keeps telling me there is no room on it even though there is 300G plus

Can anyone please help me? I've got a PC running windows XP and I needed more storage so I bought a NoTouch 500 GB external hard drive but when i try to copy a file over to it, it tells me there isn't enough room left on it and to use disc clean up, I know there is at least 300GB free space left on it, it doesn't do it all the time but enough to be an annoyance, i was trying to copy a DVD file and I got the, not enough room message but then i coppied 5 or 6 AVi files over no problem and i tried to copy my music folder over and got it again, my PC hard drive is using a NTFS file system but the external HDD is using a FAT32 file system, is that anything to do with it or is FAT 32 always used for external things like memory sticks etc? if anyone could steer me in the right direction as to how I can sort this out I would be very greatful, thank you in advance, wozza.

 

You can try doing a scandisk (with the boxes to fix errors checked) on the external. This will fix any corruption that might be on the drive.

If that doesn't help I would try formatting it to NTFS, that's the only file system I use on my externals drives. It's a problem I never encountered with any of my 6 NTFS formatted externals. NTFS is more reliable when copying very large files.

You can always partition it, one partition fat32 another partition NTFS. This is in case you have a playstation or other device that requires fat32.

 

yes thats a good idea, i didn't check what file it was using until today and i wouldn't have known i could change it anyway but at least i could have found out, hindsight's a wonderful thing, i haven't got enough space on my pc to transfer the files back so i can format it, so i'll probably have to have a clear out but putting a partion in might be an option but i'm not sure how to do it, i can find my way around a pc fairly well so i could do it if i knew how, is it an easy job? there might be a guide on here i can look at but thank you for your help and ideas.

 

http://www.partition-tool.com/ it's free & will up convert to NTFS ,you won't loose data tho it would be better to backup just in case

Ok real simple
1:-install
2:-run program
3:-window will show all drives
4:-find where it says convert by right clik on drive or use buttons at top
5:-select NTFS
6:-Apply then it may restart comp or if drive not locked a little magician will magically convert it in front of your eyes,don't forget to clap when he's finished

6:-i mean clik apply






























ps sorry to burst your bubble there is no little magician

 

Great, thanks for all of your help, you've been a real help, Wozza.