I get the above error "Error copying file or folder" "Path is too deep" when trying to copy files from an external USB2.0 caddy to my array (connected via eSATA). It seems to be an intermittent problem with either the caddy or the array because when I manually copy the single files across it goes fine but when I select a few gigs worth of stuff to copy over it will choose to randomly fail at some point. The failure is accompanied by a Windows "Delayed Write Failed" dialog and a notification of a problem writing to "F:$Mft" (which is in itself a surprise since I'm reading from F, not writing to it. Why would it need to touch the MFT on the drive it's reading from?). I also need to disconnect and reconnect the USB caddy in order for it to be usable again, otherwise it just hangs/crashes Windows Explorer.

I'm using a fully updated Windows XP Pro SP2.

Has anyone else had this problem before or have any advice? I've tried searching on google but there doesn't seem to be a lot of coherent information on the subject. Thanks in advance

How long are these paths actually? Windows XP allows something like 250 characters if i'm not mistaken. I had a similar problem once, and in the end, there was no other solution than to shorten the folder/file names (most of them were ok, that's why manually copying the files worked aswell for me, and it would stop at some random point when selecting them all at once).

None of the paths are anywhere near the 255 character limit.

Quote from amp88 :

None of the paths are anywhere near the 255 character limit.

And when combined? The 255 'MAXPATH' limit isn't per directory AFAIK.



Regards,

Ian

Stupidly, MAXPATH actually *is* 255 for the *entire path* - which could well be your problem (and why I keep my directory names so short and shallow).

255 for a file is more than adequate.
255 for a path is terrible, really.

Quote from JamesF1 :

Stupidly, MAXPATH actually *is* 255 for the *entire path* - which could well be your problem (and why I keep my directory names so short and shallow).

255 for a file is more than adequate.
255 for a path is terrible, really.

Yup, a real PITA. I recently downloaded some photos which came zipped. The dir name inside the archive was ~40 chars, and then subdirs within subdirs within.........., all containing ~30-50 chars and then some filenames reached nearer 80 chars! Pretty sure they didn't need to use sentences for filenames



Regards,

Ian

Ian, I find people who aren't tech savvy love to use folder names like "That Party, Where Jim and Don made out" rather than "2008-01-01 Jim and Don"

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Ian, I find people who aren't tech savvy love to use folder names like "That Party, Where Jim and Don made out" rather than "2008-01-01 Jim and Don"

heh.. seems that way. Here's 1 example of a sentence for a filename that came as part of the aforementioned archive:

'El Capitan as seen from the Merced River, Yosemite National Park, California.jpg'

uGH!



Regards,

Ian

I could imagine that being a spectacular shot though?

None of the combinations of any of the two paths are greater than 255 chars. The longest path on the source is 50 characters and the path I'm copying them to is the same length, so the maximum combination of the 2 paths is going to be 100 characters.

How 'deep' (as in, how many sub-directories) do the file paths go?

Quote from JamesF1 :

How 'deep' (as in, how many sub-directories) do the file paths go?

No more than 3 levels in any case.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

I could imagine that being a spectacular shot though?

Indeed... see attached

(actually had to remove the ', california' part of the filename even to be able to attach it here due to path lengths (doesn't help being located within the 'my docs' path I guess )).


Regards,

Ian

That's my new desktop now

Quote from amp88 :

No more than 3 levels in any case.

Peculiar. What file formats are the source and destination? I'm clutching at straws here, now, as I can't think of any system-level 'feature' or bug that would cause this problem.

Quote from JamesF1 :

Peculiar. What file formats are the source and destination? I'm clutching at straws here, now, as I can't think of any system-level 'feature' or bug that would cause this problem.

They're all videos. Mainly .avi but there are a few mpg and vobs in there too. I'm pretty certain this is Windows reporting the wrong error and disguising the actual cause, just wanted to know if anyone else had had a similar experience. Thanks anyway for your help.

Sorry, was late and my brain wasn't working - what formats are the source and destination *disks*?

Quote from Christofire :

I've only seen the $mft message when hibernating my laptop with a usb hdd attached, then removing the hdd and restarting the laptop. So to me it sounds like your hdd is disconncting. Things to check would be the cable, the usb port (try a different one), are there any known problems with your motherboard?

Hmmm, I think this could be getting nearer the root problem. As I said earlier the problem is accompanied by the USB enclosure hanging or crashing Windows Explorer so this could be it. Ironically I've finished copying all the files from the external drive now, so the problem doesn't really matter. I might throw a few gig back on and connect to a different USB port to see if that makes a difference though.

Both the source and destination drives are NTFS.