Trying to back up my PC files prior to re-installing Windows to try and speed up my PC. Followed the instructions from Microsoft and used the Backup Utility I've already got installed. It got so far and stopped at 4GB (estimated total 7GB) saying if my destination folder (plug-in 160GB Freecom hard drive) was formatted with FAT32 then no more than 4GB could be formatted??

I've just checked and the Freecom thing is, in fact, FAT32. So how can I get a hard drive that isn't FAT32 and what does it even mean? I'm not up on IT stuff really…

cheers

It's the technical bit of how hard drives store the data (bit more than that but that's all you need to know). Fat32 is a fairly old way of doing it, when hard drives were much smaller. Nowadays most drives use NTFS. The problem with FAT32 is the maximum file size is 4GB (approx). I'm guessing the backup program is dumping all your stuff as one big file on your backup drice, but can't because of the size limit.

Solution: reformat your backup as a NTFS drive. (NOTE: This will erase everything on it, use with care, etc etc).

What Rich says.

As long as you don't need to keep everything that's on your external hard-drive, you can format it as NTFS using Windows Explorer – bring up a win. explorer window & click "D" (as example – use whatever letter your external hard-drive comes up as).
From the options, select Format. In File System, select NTFS. Also select the Quick Format tickbox. Then click OK.

THIS WILL WIPE ANYTHING ON THAT DRIVE, so make sure you've got the originals elsewhere first.

You can then use the backup utility as desired.

or set up your backup programme to run 2 or 3 separate jobs, each doing part of your stuff (unless you're doing a proper disc image thingy)