1 Gigabyte SD card "full" after 467 MB [SOLVED]

[Eric Dunbar]

On 2/10/06, Dave M G <martin at autotelic.com> wrote:
>
> >IIRC the limit of files only applies to the root directory of a
> >FAT12/FAT16 volume.  All other directories can grow dynamically.
> >
> Thanks to all who gave advice. It turns out, as a few of you had
> suggested, the problem was a limit on the number of files.
>
> The SD card in question was formatted on my Palm Pilot, so I don't know
> if that's FAT16 or what, but it's behaving in a FAT16 way as described
> here. I'd reformat it to some file system that was less quirky, except I
> want to be able to play MP3s and OGGs on my Palm, so my Palm T|X is
> calling the shots.
>
> Fortunately, since only the root has this problem, as mentioned above,
> I've moved everything into subdirectory, and that seems to have made the
> entire 1GB available.
>
> Thanks for providing the information that solved this issue.

Perhaps it would be worth filing a bug report with (?) Nautilus? It
would be helpful if Nautilus were to report the problem, and, since
it's an easy problem to solve, suggest a fix.

An appropriate error message might be:

"Warning: The 256(?) file limit for the main level of the FAT16 file
system has been reached on DEVICE XYZ. Please use sub-directories or
delete some files on the main level [1] before trying to copy more
files to DEVICE XYZ."

[1] Or, is root the correct term?

vs.

"You're an idiot." ;-)

Well, ok, so the developers are respectful of the user :-) :-), but
they're not much less cryptic with "Disk full" or "Copy failed".

Eric.