Trouble Transferring Larger Files between External Hard Drives

[ccamera]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this site so please bear with me. Some of my comments and questions might be silly, but I'm in desperate need of help :( ....

Being a commercial/wedding videographer, I have multiple external hard drives. One hard drive is acting funny (I think it's on its last leg), so I have started to transfer all my files onto another HD. However, I seen to be having the problem of "error 1309". I know it means that there is a 4GB limit when transferring, but I cannot format the HD I'm transferring to because there is a lot of valuable stuff on there as well....

So long story short....here is my issue....I have now purchased a new Western Digital HD (I needed a new one anyone), but I do not know how to set it up so that I can transfer the larger files off of the dying HD. I've heard things about partitioning, HFS, FAT32, etc....this might as well be gibberish!

I own a Powerbook G4 and the files I'm tranferring range from 1gb to 28gb.
Does anyone have any advice, suggestions, anything, on what I should do with the BRAND NEW hard drive so that I can get all my large jobs onto a safe hard drive (I can't afford to lose years of work, and I feel so completely lost.?

Thanks to all who took the time to read this post and try to help!

Sincerely,
Courtney Camera :)

[JDV]

Presuming you do not need to transfer these files to a PC, format the drive as HFS+ and that should present the fewest problems. The 4GB limit is a limit of the FAT32 file system. NTFS file systems don't have that limit, but they are mounted as read-only by OS X (without further software, at least); similarly, HFS+ isn't automatically recognized by a PC (without further software, again). But if it is going to stay on a Mac, use HFS+ (journaled) as the format and that should be sufficient.

Joe VanZandt

[hayne]

But if it is going to stay on a Mac, use HFS+ (journaled) as the format
To do this, use the "Disk Utility" app and erase the disk, choosing "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format.

[JDV]

Thanks for the elucidation, Hayne. It was a little sloppy on my part--I forgot just how Disk Utility identified that format precisely when I wrote my reply.

Joe VanZandt

[ccamera]

Love you guys!