Cannot transfer a 6gb file on a brand new 128 GB SanDisk Ultra USB type-c drive

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1

Hi,

I just bought a 128 GB SanDisk Ultra USB type-c drive. I would like to create a Windows 10 installation usb flash drive. Downloaded the 6gb .iso file on an old windows 7 laptop. I get an error message saying the file is too large!

Could you please help?

2

New flash drives are formatted as exFAT which supports large GB files. What format is your drive?

3

It’s FAT32 out of the box

4

would you have any recommendations if I should format it in exFat or NTFS to make a Windows reinstall?

5

Definitely exFAT.

6

At this point there is no reason to fuss with this stuff manually

Rufus will format and download the correct windows 10/11 iso of your choice, one stop shop for creating boot media.

That being said using 128GB drive for this purpose is a bit wasteful unless you wipe it after.

#SanDiskUserRewards

7

The “file too large” error happens because your new SanDisk flash drive comes formatted in FAT32, which has a strict 4 GB single-file size limit. Even though your drive has 128 GB of total space, it cannot accept your 6 GB .iso file.

If you just want to move the 6 GB file to store it (and not build a bootable installer), you just need to change the drive’s format to NTFS or exFAT; they have no size limits for a single file. Do as follows:

1. On your Windows computer, right-click your SanDisk drive and click Format… Under File system, change it from FAT32 to NTFS or exFAT.

2. Click Start.

Once done, the 4 GB limit is gone, and you can copy the 6 GB file over without any errors.

Read also: FAT32 vs. exFAT/NTFS in Max File Size