I've had trouble copying files larger than 2GB even between two drives on the same IDE connector in the same computer. Are you running Windows 98 or ME on either computer? FAT32 seems to have trouble with large transfers. If this is indeed the problem you're having, you're probably stuck.

If both machines are formatted with NTFS then you shouldn't be experiencing this problem, but you can probably drive to the store, purchase 100Mbps network cards and a hub, bring them home, install them, and copy the file long before the wireless cards have even started copying ;) If you have firewire in both computers you can connect them for a 1394 based TCP/IP network that runs at 400Mbps. The other benefit of firewire is that if copying still doesn't work, you could Print a DV file from one computer and capture it on the other.

I actually do have FireWire on both stations. Would this be a lot faster ??
and excuse my ignorance.. but what is this 'print a DV' file ??

A couple of things:

1. There are a few ways this can be moved. A main dependancy is whether or not this file has become corrupt. And when I say corrupt, I'm mean lacking the proper header info. The header tells the OS how long(large) the file is. Of course if this is missing, the OS thinks it goes on forever, and returns the error. You can check this pretty easily by opening it up with WMP. Does it indicate the length of the video? Does it let you jump to any section? If yes, you're in the ballpark. If not, not to worry, just a different technique. I will skip for now, since I doubt it is corrupt.

2. HeHe is right. Unless you really want to do wireless, which would take
a long time, actually, only 2-3 hours, but still. I think you would much rather temporarily connecting the laptop directly to your router via an ethernet patch cable. It will communicate 8x faster, total time is around 20-30min., You'd probably be transferring at 4-9MB/sec as opposed to <1MB/sec. Easiest way to do this with the least complications is to shut down your laptop. Connect the ethernet, and reboot. I'm assuming you do have some type of NIC which is not wireless either built in, or in a PCMCIA card. I'd avoid the firewire, direct connect, because there wouldn't be a significant increase in speed, and it could require installing special software. (Exception if both computers are on XP - then it's fairly simple)

For copying files over 2Gigs in win98/se I always had problems with Windows Explorer. I would get similar messages. Download Windows Commander from:

http://www.ghisler.com/index.htm

Its shareware, but will serve your purpose. It has the ability (don't ask me how) to do the heavy lifting, that windows explorer can't with files over 2GB. I don't usually recommend shareware, but under the circumstances, I can't think of better way....and you might like it.

Lastly. I would suggest Pulling the file rather than pushing it. In other words. accessing the file by using your desktop and grabbing the AVI file using WINDOWS COMMANDER and copying it somewhere on your desktop computer, rather than Pushing, which would be done by using the laptop to "Push" it to the Desktop. Either way should work.

As always, there is not just "ONE WAY" to do it, so if this info helps, use it. if not toss it.

***I have no idea what printing a DV file means either***

Jeffy82@aol.com

If I were you, I would split the file. You can use WinRAR or WinACE and do a segmented ZIP file with 50MB each segment (for example). Use the option "no compression", so that the process is quick.
It will be much easier to move the 40 files of 50MB each, and then restore the 4GB mammoth in the destiny.

Yep,

That will work too. I remember using that as a work around a few times myself.

jeffy82@aol.com

What Cheinworks means by Print a DV file is to Print to Tape. Except, instead of printing to tape you are capturing the signal on the other unit. If I understand your original problems, this may not be possible since you are having problems with the SoFo products on your system. However, if Vegas is working here is what I think you need to do in a nutshell.

1) Hook both systems up with a DV to DV firewire cable. This is different than the miniDV to DV cable that you use to go from your camera to the PC.
2) Have both systems up and running with both in Vegas.
3) Start VidCap on the destination system.
4) Start Print to Tape tool in Vegas on the source system.
5) When the prerender is completed, start the print process on the source and the capture on the destination. I think you have to do everyting manually.

I would try this as a last resort. Others have given good tips for transferring the file normally.

Ahhh, ok
that makes sense.
SoFo isn't working on my desk top...yet that's where I have to store my files because of space.

And I can only capture on my laptop..
I just thought.. another thing I can try and do is save as/render..to the desktop. It may take a while . .but I'll set it to go while I'm at work..

So until Dazzle & SoFo can figure out what happened ( and it REALLY messed up my computers) I'll have to capture on laptop, store files on Desktop and do work on laptop...save to desktop so I can print to CD.

Oh the fun.....

Another option is to take the hard drive with the big file out of it's machine and put it in the machine you want ot transfer the file to. The time it'll take you to move the drive will be partially made up by the fact that the in-machine file transfer might only take you a couple of minutes with an ATA 100/133 controller card.

This also will give you the option of transferring all your data files to the other machine so you can wipe the drive, reinstall the OS & get SoFo stuff to work again.

- Jon

Being the type that likes to "get my hands dirty".....I like Shredders idea the best.
I've done this more than once.....twice.

You'll probably spend a day configuring(figuring out)a 1394 network with 2 diff. OS's. Half a day just buying / installing the ethernet cards....etc.

Look into a firewire drive in the future.......if you think you might need to share media between multiple firewire equipped PC's.
I now use my 80GB xternal drive for swapping files between 98SE and XP PC's. Currently........as a test.....I have one half NTFS and the other FAT32.
What I need to do is get XP on both machines.

Pat

Guys,
Keep in mind, he's trying to move the file from a laptop. So unless he has one of those $7.00 2.5" to 3.5" ide converters (I have a few, they come in handy), he won't be able to plug it into a standard 40pin IDE Ribbon in his desktop.

Jeffy82

Pat,

Thanks for the 'vote of confidence'.

If you want a way to access your NTFS drive on Win98, you can use the "NTFS for Win98" file system driver from System Internals.

You can get more info from http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/ntfsdospro.asp -- It wasn't that expensive when I got it, but if you get it for work & you need it now it may not be a big deal.

I used it in the past for the same reason (editing on a win 98 box but need NTFS to get around the 4GB FAT32 file limit. I was even able to capture to the drive with no dropped frames, so the driver's pretty efficient.

They even have NTFS for DOS, Fat32 for NT & a ton of other really killer utils.

Check out SysInternal's freeware site http://www.sysinternals.com/

With this you may not need to upgrade your 2nd box to XP so soon...

- Jon

I almost dont want to say this becasue I want to keep this post going.... lot of good info here and if not now..soemtiem soon I will use MOST of what's here.

What I did was just do a SAVE AS/RENDER to my desktop. Took while I guess.. I ran some errands and plan on doing the rest while I sleep/work.

forgoing that... I would have tried a firewire link next since I have firewire on both PCs.

What I thinnk I'm going to do is get a firewire Hard drive. I found an 100 gb drive for $177. and I can really sue the space. Plus.. it makes me a lot more mobile.

But PLEASE lets keep the dialogue going and I'll update on where I am in all of this.

I'm fairly positive its due to +4 gig file size.

Just ran into this problem myself tonight.
First thing i thought was just to use a shredder to split the file into smaller chunks then reassemble on the drive i'm transferring to.

But.. Don't think there are any shredder programs out there for win98 that can even handle a 4gig+ file size.... wait a second, how did Vegas even get to create a 4gig + file size on my Win98 FAT32 system in the first place????

Well, I dont know if I said this in my previous post... but one way I found aroun it (long way all beit) was to just render as to the new drive.