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File name issues on hard drive

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tendeg Posted messages 4 Status Member -  
brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -

Hello!

Having several computers, I've gotten into the habit for a few years of working on an external hard drive so that I can plug it into any machine and pick up my work where I left off. I switched to this system after countless bugs with Drives.

Recently, I was working part-time on a desktop PC running Windows 10, and part-time on a MacBook. I never had any issues, and I had a large number of files on my hard drive with very long names; this didn't pose any problems for saving or opening them. I am a teacher, and a file name could for example be "6- Activity sheet No.6 - The Knights in Medieval Times (yellow belt)".

However, I recently sold my MacBook and got myself a new laptop running Windows. But now, my hard drive won’t accept file names longer than 32 characters, which had never been a problem before.

So I made a backup of my hard drive and reformatted it; for some reason I don't understand, it had switched to exFAT (although it had always been NTFS). To my great surprise, this did not solve the problem at all. I transferred my files back from the backup (while keeping the backup, of course) to my hard drive.

Where a (very) big problem arises is that now, not only can I no longer create new files with long names, but I can no longer modify those that already existed (like renaming them, for example), nor even open them! It shows me a message like "An error occurred while opening the document. The path does not exist." This happens whether I try to open them from my hard drive on any computer, or even if I try to open them from my computer with the backup!

However, and this reassures me a little, it seems that the content of my files is not corrupted and hasn't vanished; these are .docx or .pdf files and they still range from 500Ko to 1.5Mo, which is their normal size.

Does anyone have an idea what the problem is and how to solve it? I have several years of inaccessible work, and let’s just say I’m a bit anxious...

Many thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to read this message,

Tennessee

1 answer

  1.
    brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 179
     

    Hello,

    Whatever you say, this type of naming is not a good idea.

    The normal limit is 256 characters, including the path and excluding special characters. Remember that neither accents (remove them, never mind) nor spaces (replace them, for example, with a hyphen) are a good idea, and I also doubt the "exponent" of n°.

    That being said, when it’s just about length, it can be increased.

    https://www.autodesk.com/fr/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/FRA/The-Windows-10-default-path-length-limitation-MAX-PATH-is-256-characters.html

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    1. tendeg Posted messages 4 Status Member
       

      Good evening!

      Thank you for this quick response.

      I will indeed consider naming my files more briefly.

      Can I take from your response that by doing this, my files should be openable again? Because right now, I can't even rename them in order to open them...

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      1. brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 179 > tendeg Posted messages 4 Status Member
         

        Start by modifying the register; I'm not sure it will be sufficient once "the damage is done."

        If that's not the case, we will have no choice but to rename outside of Windows, using a DOS console (it's a bit of hell due to the restrictions inherent to DOS itself) or more conveniently using a lightweight Linux Live USB (for example, Puppy).

        If there are a lot of them to consider later, we can to some extent do batch processing in Batch (for example, even if it's not formally blocking under usual circumstances, replacing all spaces with a hyphen).

        For reference, the characters and extensions are formally prohibited.

        https://windows8facile.fr/liste-noms-caracteres-interdits-windows/

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      2. tendeg Posted messages 4 Status Member > brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        Thank you very much for your feedback.

        I performed the manipulation. It didn't allow me to open the files, but it did let me shorten the names of the folders leading to them to shorten the access path and... miracle, I can open and modify them again.

        There are indeed a few hundred files to rename and shorten, but I know what I'll be spending my next free hours on...

        Thanks again immensely!

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      3. brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 179 > brucine Posted messages 24933 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        If the subfolders are of the matryoshka type, we can also try initially to save space by briefly renaming these subfolders and copy-pasting them closer to the root of the drive.

        The default Windows system is a pain in itself,
        C:\Users\xxx\Documents\MonDossier takes up much more space than
        E:\MonDossier where E is an external drive or a data partition specially created to host them.

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