Copying Files To An External Hard Drive

[EdmundD]

I have an external hard drive which I have previously successfully used to transfer files from my laptop's internal hard drive.

Now when I try to copy or move a file to the external hard drive my laptop is delivering a message:

"Cannot copy [file name]: Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service".

This message appears regardless of the size of the file. There is plenty of space on both drives.

Any ideas please on what is causing this message to appear?

[SlackAlice]

More details on your laptop please. What O/S and how much memory fitted?
Are any other programs running using up resources at the same time.

External HD connected by usb I assume?

[EdmundD]

Hi SlackAlice. Thanks for the response. O/S is Windows XP. Capacity on my C:\ drive is 232 GB with 175 GB free space. External hard drive is connected via USB. I have tried doing the copy with all other applications closed down but it still delivers the error message. Also it will not allow the copy of a small file to the external hard drive but it will allow a copy of the same file to a CD.

[Old_Geezer]

Silly question I know, but you have enough free space on the external hard drive ? Not registering as 0 bytes or something ?

[EdmundD]

Hi Old_Geezer. The external hard drive capacity is 149 GB with 145 GB free space. So it shouldn't be a memory issue.

[hc4361]

This MAY help:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304101

[snags]

Have a browse through some of these:

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=external+hard+drive+Insufficient+system+resources+exist+to+complete+the+requested+service

[EdmundD]

Thanks Snags. Quite a number of them state the problem as arising in Windows XP so may be an OS issue.