With large video files routinely exceeding those size limits, attempting to copy one from a hard drive to FAT-formatted media will cause this problem if the file is large enough. Unfortunately, under those two file systems, the largest a single file can be is 2GB/4GB respectively, even if the media overall can store more data.

The most common cause of this sort of error message is making a conversion from NTFS file system, which is the default format for hard drives under any Windows going back to Windows XP, to a portable media like a USB stick that came pre-formatted from the factory with the FAT16 or FAT32 file system. This problem occurs when you try to copy or move a file larger than 2 GB and 4 GB to an external hard disk or USB flash drive which was formatted using FAT/FAT16 and FAT32 file system respectively due to the internal structure of file system limitations. How to Fix “The File is Too Large for the Destination File System” ErrorYou get only to click the Cancel button to stop the operation. The file is too large for the destination file system. Windows show the following error message when copy or move the large files from computer to a USB drive or external hard disk although there was sufficient free storage space on the destination disk drive:

Too large for destination file system