Frustrating problem trying to copy files from Win7 to XP

[Peter Foldes]

I've had a Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit) computer for over a year
now. SP1 has been applied. I also have an XP Home SP3 32 bit machine
that I've had for years with both wired to a Netgear router.

Did you say that your XP is the Home version ???? I would serious look at that.

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[Paul]

Definitely not random. I can count on it failing every time.
Primarily it happens with video files, but I think that's because of
their file sizes, ranging from 50MB to 4GB. But I just tried to copy
a folder containing 67 files for a total of 1.1GB, and it failed, too.
The largest file in that folder is 55MB, the smallest is 421KB. Hope
this helps.

The only thing "magic" about 50MB, is that happens to be the value
of files that Windows 7 won't defragment. When the defragmenter is
running, it ignores files larger than 50MB. No other resource
of that size, comes to mind. And presumably, if you were running
out of some memory or cache resource, 50MB wouldn't be a limiting
value there. (Your system likely has a lot more memory than that.)

To make sure this isn't related to file type, you could create some
files of known size and content. For example, if you want a file
made of nothing but zeros, you can use "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

In windows 7, type "cmd" into the Start thing, then right click and
select "Run as Administrator". That elevates the command window,
so there are fewer problems getting executables to run properly. While
it's not the best way to run the command window, it beats having to
figure out what broke when you run it as an ordinary user account.

Then type the dd command, like this.

dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=C:\downloads\mytestfile.bin bs=1048576 count=50

That will make a 50meg file to play with. And it won't be a movie, as
any attempts to probe it, find only 0's. You can change the file extension,
as you see fit.

There is also a built-in utility called "fsutil". The only problem with
this, is it may not actually write out to 50MB worth of storage space.
"dd" doesn't do that, and will create an "honest" file using exactly
50MB of space stored on real disk sectors. FSutil looks like it is
working, but the command "comes back too fast" and that's how
you can tell it's using a trick like "sparse". I think if you
save the output of this thing on a FAT32 partition, it makes
honest files there, but not on NTFS.

fsutil file createnew C:\downloads\mytestfile.bin 52428800

So that's why I'm recommending a third party utility for the job,
as fsutil is a little too clever for its own good. If the command
had an option to turn sparse on and off, then it would be a
prime candidate for the job.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Joe]

I've had a Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit) computer for over a year now.
SP1 has been applied. I also have an XP Home SP3 32 bit machine that
I've had for years with both wired to a Netgear router.

The problem I'm having is an inability to copy large files from Win7 to
XP. Win7 sees the XP machine (and vice versa). On 7, I can browse the
shared folder on XP and on XP I can browse the shared folder on 7.
But when I try to copy large files (50MB or more?) from 7 to XP (either
using 7 to copy them to XP or using XP to copy them from 7), it seems to
start fine, but the speed keeps dropping until it times out after a few
minutes without copying anything. Copying files from XP to 7 is no
problem., no matter which machine is doing the copying or the file size.
I also have an Ubuntu 10.04 machine that's rarely on, but it can see
both machines, too. Sharing a network printer has not been a problem,
either. I've switched router ports around and even tried a temporary
replacement router with no improvement.

Everything is set up with the same workgroup name. I'm not using
Homegroups. I used to have a 98SE machine connected to the network
(that's the one that now has Ubuntu) and never had any problems with
sharing and copying with it. Internet connection is rock solid on all
machines.

As an aside, I'm also having the same problem copying large files from
Win7 to an external USB drive. Works fine when I hook the drive up
using eSATA. I initially thought this was strictly a networking issue,
but with essentially the same problem cropping up with a USB drive
connected to the 7 machine, I think the problem is in 7.

FWIW, my Win7 network settings are:

Work network Network discovery: On File & Printer sharing: On Public
folder sharing: On Media sharing: On File sharing connections: 128 bit
Password protect sharing: On Homegroup connections; Allow Windows to
manage...

Any advice as to what needs to be checked/changed?

Thanks!

On the Win7 machine try removing Remote Differential Compression. I've
seen this fix transfer issues from Win7, mostly with Win2K machines
though.

 

[Char Jackson]

I'm going to guess here. There is probably a limit on the way the
bridge board handles drives. I have used many external drives in my
former life (volunteer job) and generally there is some maximum limit
imposed by the bridge board. I know, for instance, the firewire to PATA
bridge boards, from Granite Digital, which we used, DO have a file
maximum. That didn't cause us a problem because we used FAT32. These
were used for video editing and our video editing software captured only
in FAT32.

FAT32 isn't a video capture format, it's a filesystem format. What
were you trying to say?

 

[Art Todesco]

FAT32 isn't a video capture format, it's a filesystem format. What
were you trying to say?

I probably should have said FAT32 compatible files, not larger than 2
gig. (I think). That would give about 14 minutes of video. We used a
FAT32 file system as the video editing program captured only using FAT32
hard drives. We also used a hardware capture box that connected via
firewire to a firewire hard drive that had to be formated as FAT32. It
handled longer videos by making multiple seamless clip files that had to
be stacked up in the editing software.

 

[Steve Hayes]

Yes. Works fine. That's why I believe it to be a network issue.

When my XP laptop was stolen I replaced it with a Windows 7 one, and have
never been able to get networking to work. I use a flash drive with a
batchfile to transfer important files, and for very frequently used ones I use
Dropbox.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

Yes. Works fine. That's why I believe it to be a network issue.

It is almost certainly a network problem. If you search the web you
will find many references to Win 7 & XP network issues along with many
potential solutions. I have never found a solution that works!

Steve

 

[Char Jackson]

I probably should have said FAT32 compatible files, not larger than 2
gig. (I think).

The actual max is 1 byte less than 4GB.

That would give about 14 minutes of video. We used a
FAT32 file system as the video editing program captured only using FAT32
hard drives.

Very interesting. The operating system is supposed to serve as an
abstraction layer between applications and the filesystem. I wonder
three things: how does the video application know which filesystem is
in use, why does it need to know this, and what is the name of this
program (so I can be sure to avoid it)?

We also used a hardware capture box that connected via
firewire to a firewire hard drive that had to be formated as FAT32. It
handled longer videos by making multiple seamless clip files that had to
be stacked up in the editing software.

Clips are a typical way to handle that situation.

 

[Art Todesco]

The actual max is 1 byte less than 4GB.


Very interesting. The operating system is supposed to serve as an
abstraction layer between applications and the filesystem. I wonder
three things: how does the video application know which filesystem is
in use, why does it need to know this, and what is the name of this
program (so I can be sure to avoid it)?

Don't really know. I know that with the hardware capture box you had to
put a FAT32 drive via FW. If you put an NTFS drive (again via FW) it
would put one file of 4 gigs and then say the disk is full. The
hardware even had a built in formating tool, so you could quickly format
a connect hard drive. I think the same or similar thing happened with
the editing system but I can't remember.

 

[Twayne]

In

I've had a Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit) computer for
over a year now. SP1 has been applied. I also have an
XP Home SP3 32 bit machine that I've had for years with
both wired to a Netgear router.

The problem I'm having is an inability to copy large
files from Win7 to XP. Win7 sees the XP machine (and
vice versa). On 7, I can browse the shared folder on XP
and on XP I can browse the shared folder on 7. But when I
try to copy large files (50MB or more?) from 7 to XP
(either using 7 to copy them to XP or using XP to copy
them from 7), it seems to start fine, but the speed keeps
dropping until it times out after a few minutes without
copying anything. Copying files from XP to 7 is no
problem., no matter which machine is doing the copying or
the file size. I also have an Ubuntu 10.04 machine
that's rarely on, but it can see both machines, too.
Sharing a network printer has not been a problem, either.
I've switched router ports around and even tried a
temporary replacement router with no improvement.

Everything is set up with the same workgroup name. I'm
not using Homegroups. I used to have a 98SE machine
connected to the network (that's the one that now has
Ubuntu) and never had any problems with sharing and
copying with it. Internet connection is rock solid on
all machines.

As an aside, I'm also having the same problem copying
large files from Win7 to an external USB drive. Works
fine when I hook the drive up using eSATA. I initially
thought this was strictly a networking issue, but with
essentially the same problem cropping up with a USB drive
connected to the 7 machine, I think the problem is in 7.

FWIW, my Win7 network settings are:

Work network
Network discovery: On
File & Printer sharing: On
Public folder sharing: On
Media sharing: On
File sharing connections: 128 bit
Password protect sharing: On
Homegroup connections; Allow Windows to manage...

Any advice as to what needs to be checked/changed?

Thanks!

I assume you can successfully do smaller files? Have you found a min/max
size that works/doesn't work?

Make of PC, OS and RAM amount?

Have you looked at the version of your BIOS/CMOS System Settings or at least
made a trip through them to be sure you aren't limited to files of xx.x Gig
or some such things for up/down loads? It might be possibly caused by a
limitation on the non-win 7 machine.

I'm grabbing at straws, I know, it's the only thing I can think of right now
that you haven't tried.

Also, from your list, it appears that homegroup may indeed be set up
somehow. I don't have an "allow windows to manage" option on my win 7
laptop, fully up to date. Or rather, not that I can find, at least.

Is there any possibility your firewall may have a size or time limitation?
Mine does and I have it set for no attachments and 500 Meg max filesize.

Anyway...maybe some food for thought.
Interesting problem; it'll be good to see what fixes it.

Luck,

Twayne`

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The actual max is 1 byte less than 4GB.

Actually, some *programs* did have a limit of 2 GB - 1 byte.

I assume it was a result of coding in signed integers instead of
unsigned...

 

[Char Jackson]

Actually, some *programs* did have a limit of 2 GB - 1 byte.

I assume it was a result of coding in signed integers instead of
unsigned...

Actually, I was obviously referring to the FAT32 file size limit, not
to any specific program limit. ;-)

 

[Yousuf Khan]

My mistake. I didn't realize it was flip-flopping the drive order in
the list. But when copying the files, it does show .02 to .03 for
drive D (the drive I'm trying to copy from). The column entitled
"Image" says the program is "System." Now here's the rub. The file
it's currently trying to copy using Windows Explorer is 715MB. But
the Read column hovers in the low 200MB range, as does Total. The
Write column is a flat ZERO. I've tried to copy large files from the
other drives. Same results. Looks like it's accessing the files, but
just can't transmit it over the network. Also, I have two IDE drives
in the XP machine, and it fails writing to either drive.

Well, that means that the drives aren't particularly stressed by the
operation. "System" is the right process to do the copying.

You mentioned that you don't have Homegroups turned on. I would suggest
turning it on, and getting it to work with XP rather than avoiding
Homegroups. It's looking like as if it's having trouble gaining
permission to write to external network mounts.

I have four SATA drives in the 7 machine. I can copy between any of
them at lightening speed with no problems.

Yet, you still have trouble copying to a USB drive which is locally
attached too? When you use the USB drive do you turn it on after the
system has booted, or beforehand? Does it make a difference for copying
files to the USB drive?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The only thing "magic" about 50MB, is that happens to be the value
of files that Windows 7 won't defragment. When the defragmenter is
running, it ignores files larger than 50MB. No other resource
of that size, comes to mind. And presumably, if you were running
out of some memory or cache resource, 50MB wouldn't be a limiting
value there. (Your system likely has a lot more memory than that.)

To make sure this isn't related to file type, you could create some
files of known size and content. For example, if you want a file
made of nothing but zeros, you can use "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

Or he could simply copy and rename some existing large files to any
other extension.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

They do..

On the XP machine, are you attempting to copy the files to a specific
shared directory that's the same all of the time, or have you tried to
copy to various different shared directories on the XP? What directory
structure is the XP share located under? Specifically, is it located
under your "My Documents" or similar "My {Whatever}" folder?

Also when you share out the folder under XP, did you use the Sharing
Wizard, or did you do it manually?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Char Jackson]

You mentioned that you don't have Homegroups turned on. I would suggest
turning it on, and getting it to work with XP rather than avoiding
Homegroups.

Homegroups is a feature that's not supported by XP. The OP is right to
turn it off in this case.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Homegroups is a feature that's not supported by XP. The OP is right to
turn it off in this case.

I've got Homegroups turned on my desktop, and yet I can network with an
XP laptop just fine.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I've got Homegroups turned on my desktop, and yet I can network with
an XP laptop just fine.

Near as I can tell you are both right - XP doesn't support Homegroups,
but having it enabled in Windows 7 doesn't help or hinder networking
with XP...

--
Zaphod

Arthur Dent, speaking to Trillian about Zaphod:
"So, two heads is what does it for a girl?"
"...Anything else he's got two of?"

 

[Nil]

Near as I can tell you are both right - XP doesn't support
Homegroups, but having it enabled in Windows 7 doesn't help or
hinder networking with XP...

I found some tutorials about how you can supposedly jump through a
bunch of hoops in order to fully network Win7 and XP computers while
Homegroups is enabled, so it seems it can be done. The conventional
wisdom, though, is to turn off Homegroups in this scenario, as it just
complicates things. I followed that advice early on; my home network
has XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Linux computers on it, and with
Homegroups disabled, everything is visible and available. I may turn
Homegroups back on one of these days to see what happens, but with it
off everything was easy to set up and works perfectly reliably.

 

[Char Jackson]

Near as I can tell you are both right - XP doesn't support Homegroups,
but having it enabled in Windows 7 doesn't help or hinder networking
with XP...

I agree with this post.