VDI File VERR_FILE_TOO_BIG for Virtual Disk Image on SD Card

[yorktown]

I have two 16GB SD cards. I use an Asus EEE 4G on Linux Debian.

One SD card had the WinXP.vdi virtual disk image file set to 2.5 GB . Its now at the point where there is no more space in WIndows.

From what I read in the forums, its best to create another VDI file and migrate the information on the old VDI file over.

So, using the other blank 16GB SD card I want to create a VDI file that is 12 GB on the blank SD card. This way I will have no problems.

Using "Create New Virtual Disk" I select the location of the SD card (drive F:), name the file (media/F:/WInXP2.vdi) and select Finish.

I get an error:

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Failed to create the virtual hard disk image /media/F:/WinXP2.vdi

Failed to create the virtual hard disk image /media/F:/WinXP2.vdi
VERR_FILE_TOO_BIG

I try this for....

10GB --> too big
8GB --> too big
6GB --> too big
4GB --> too big

at 3 GB it works.

But I don't get it...Its a 16 GB card!

Someone please explain.

Marc

[Sasquatch]

The problem is the file system on the card. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems for more info about this matter. Your SD card is formatted as FAT or FAT32. That file system cannot handle files larger than 4 GB.

[AlGaN]

Hi yorktown,

I had the same error while cloning of one of my vdi images on a linux partition that had a file size limit because of too low block size (within ext3 file system you have different max file sizes depending of the block size the file system has been generated).

So my guess is: Check the file system's max file size, for FAT it's always 4 GB I think, for ext3 you have to check block size with

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sudo dumpe2fs /devsdaX | grep "Block size"

where

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sdaX

defines your partition on the card. For max file sizes check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

HtH,
AlGaN

Oh sorry, too late , ok, same answer second time

[yorktown]

I couldn't get the info in Linux. I checked it in Windows using chkdsk . Here's what I got:



So now what do I do? How do I reformat the drive? And to what sizes?

[AlGaN]

Hi yorktown,

as it seems, your file system is FAT32, so that means it's limited to max 4 GB file size. You've got 2 choices to get bigger files:

1. You run VB under Windows, so you have to use NTFS file system, I don't know the max file size from NTFS but I think it's in the terabyte area...
Problem: Difficult access from linux (you could use the ntfs3g driver though I haven't tested that with VB VMs yet)

2. You run VB from Linux. So you have to use a linux filesystem like ext3, you have to reformat your SD cards with ext3 e.g.

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mkfs.ext3 -i 2048 -b 2048 -m 2 /dev/sdXy

makes ext3 file system on device

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sdXy

(you have to insert your device name here) with block size of 2 KB, meaning max file size of 256 GB.

HtH,
AlGaN

[yorktown]

I am running a Linux Debian (modified) for the ASUS eee

Here's what I got when I entered the mkfs.ext3 command:

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bash: mkfs.ext3: command not found

I have a MACBook, an Asus with a modified version of Linux, and Windows XP.

What else can I do to reformat the disk with NTFS using the specs you gave?

Marc

[TerryE]

You almost certainly won't be able to use NTFS with eee Linux, so don't bother looking. A VDI always has an overhead of 4bytes per Mb + 512 bytes, which works out at 16986 bytes for a 4Gb partition. So use the VboxManage createvdi to create two 4095Mb partitions. Copy your existing XP system to the first and once you've got your XP working add the second to your VM, then mount it and format it as your XP D drive. Move your My documents etc to the D drive and Use XP TweakUI to move the links in the registry.

At least this gives you an effective 8Gb XP VM.

Is your original XP image FAT32 or NTFS? You will need to copy the system from one device to the other. I don't know how you intend to do this but one option is to add a Clonezilla-LiveCD ISO to your VM then boot from this to do the copy but make sure you have the blank 4Gb VDI as hd0 and the old 2.5Gb VDI as hd1 when you do this copy.

[yorktown]

Would it be easier to create it with a MAC? Mac does NTFS.

What would I need to specify there?

Thanks

[AlGaN]

Hi yorktown,

maybe I misunderstood you here. I thought you wanted to create a new virtual disk image file with > 4 GB to have a (virtual) partition for Windows XP with > 4 GB space. I did not talk about the file system in the VM, that doesn't matter really, although I'd recommend NTFS for Windows. If you specify fixed size in the dialog of VB that creates a new vdi image, you have to ensure your underlying file system being capable to handle files > 4 GB.

So if you want to format your SD card with a linux file system like ext3, you have to make this with the command mkfs.ext3, you have to be root to do this, of course.

On my system (Kubuntu 8.04) the file system package is called

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e2fsprogs

, so maybe you have to install it on your machine first...
Be sure, though, to specify appropriate block/inode size with the parameters I explained, so the new file system is being able to handle large files. For a file of max. 12 GB, block size of 1 KB (-i 1024) should be sufficient.

HtH,
AlGaN

[TerryE]

Yes you can use any system which supports NTFS (the MS OSs, some Linux systems, MacOS) to format the USB with NTFS. But to are missing an important point here: any Eee Linux won't be able to read it (including the VB host application). You have two broad options sudo apt-get install e2fsprogs as AlGaN suggests, or stick with FAT and use 2 x 4095Mb VDIs to run your VM.

[yorktown]

Terry and AGAiN,

Forgive me for being thick, but why will the Asus EEE not be able to read a NTFS USB stick formatted by a MAC?

[yorktown]

AGAiN - Yes.. I have a blank 16GB SD card.

I want to format that card, and migrate the 2.5GB WinXP.VDI file on the other card to it, so that the WinXP file is now 12 GB or 16GB or a size much larger than the 2.5 GB.

[TerryE]

Eee Linux is a cut-down Debian configuration with some pre-installed custom drivers for the Eee hardware. You can access devices with any filesystem that is prebuilt into the kernel or any FUSE file-system if the kernel includes the FUSE extensions. Installing extra file-systems such as NTFS typically involve rebuilding the kernel and to do this you need the build-essential tools, so things are getting complicated, and the footprint demands on your rather capacity limited root file-system are growing somewhat, eh? This is "geek user" stuff, but I suspect that you don't fall into this category because if you were then you wouldn't need to ask the Qs that you have. So your three options are:

• Use FAT32. This gives you interoperability over Eee Linux, MacOS and XP, but you are limited to 12Gb (3x4095Mb VDIs as your C,D,E drives) for your guest system.
• Use Ext3. This gives you interoperability over Eee Linux and MacOS. This is described in http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:format_sd.
• Use NTFS. As discussed above. Note that the Eee kB article describes how to format your SD using Ext3 but doesn't even mention NTFS. A bit of a hint, eh?