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Copying files using Fedora 16 from EXT2 to a NTFS 2TB drive. Discovered that when recursively copying directories of many files, copying stops at file 21842 in each directory... then cp -r moves on to the next directory. No error is given.
Searching the web, found someone else reporting this problem about FAT32 to no avail.
I can create well over 21842 files on the drive on the same system... just can't seem to copy over that number.
This is the command being used:
cp -r /media/BAKKER_UPPER/many_files_here/* /media/NEW_NTFS_HOME/
What's going on here? How do I get my files over onto the NTFS drive?
I am not hitting the upper file limit on number of files in an NTFS directory (unlimited). Nor am I am hitting the max number of files for the drive.. (~4billion). I also have lots of free blocks left on the drive.
jedierikb
Posted 2012-07-15T15:30:38.043
Reputation: 509
How do you know that that is how many files are getting copied? – soandos – 2012-07-15T16:44:27.187
2What's the exact command you're using? – ott-- – 2012-07-15T16:57:31.210
2I have a hunch that you are running into the classic "argument list too long" issue. Are you trying to copy files based on a filename pattern? Or are you copying all files in the directory tree? – iglvzx – 2012-07-15T16:59:43.723
cp -r /media/BAKKER_UPPER/many_files_here/* /media/NEW_NTFS_HOME/ – jedierikb – 2012-07-16T02:46:15.540
5Do it without the wildcard (it's not needed anyways). Shell expansion is going to turn that wildcard into a giant string of source files that will be limited to the number of bytes the shell can accept as an argument, and thus the number of files you can copy. – Garrett – 2012-07-16T05:42:36.020
2@Garrett Why don't you post that as an answer as it is quite likely to be the right answer. – Mokubai – 2012-07-25T07:41:47.313
@Garrett indeed it is / was – jedierikb – 2012-07-25T12:26:11.287
1Done :) (upvotes appreciated!) – Garrett – 2012-07-26T01:29:49.850