Using windows backup utility

Hey i'm trying to backup my computer using XP's backup utility but for some reason it will never finish the backup. I'm backing up to an external HD and every time I run the program afer about 20 min an erroe pops up and says "you have either run out of space or the backup file is too large for the disk. Note: if this disk is formatted with FAT32 the max size possible for the backup is limited to 4 GB. The backup operation will stop. Now the HD i'm copying to is bigger than the original so I know it is not too small and it is also not FAT32 it is NTFS. can anyone help me make this work right?

It is possible you have hidden files an your hard drive that you do not see. Right click the drive in My Computer and click Properties. Make sure your drive is formatted with NTFS and that there is enough space to store your backup. See picture. (Don't worry about other tabs. My system is running Vista so there may be a slight visual difference, but this should help anyway.) If this doesn't work, try a third party backup program. There are free ones all over the web. Look around. You are bound to find one.

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After I clicked properties I realized that it is Fat32 so I tried to format it but it keeps saying windows cannot format the drive quit any **** utilities or other programs that are using this drive and try again.

I think I got it. I started ending precesses in the task manager until I got the format to go.

As long as youhave the space, and it's formatted as NTFS (see picture above) it should work. Also, you can convert the file system without formatting by opening command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) and type "Convert x: /FS:nfts" where x: is the corresponding drive's letter. I'd like to know if it helps.

Yep it looks like I got it working now thanks for the help

You're welcome.