F17: trying to diagnose problem with external USB drive

[Joe Zeff]

On 07/18/2012 12:18 PM, M. Fioretti wrote:
> the folder that I am backing up contains <25k files total, in lots of
> folders and subfolders, and afaik the max number of files for vfat
> (both 16 and 32) is well above that number

How many of those files/folders are being put in the root directory of 
the drive?  I'm not sure about vfat, but I do know that on a FAT 
filesystem the root directory is limited to one cluster, limiting the 
number of files you can put there.  Directories in subdirectories, 
however, are extendable as needed.  (This is one reason Windows started 
putting all programs in C:\Program Files; every program wanted to create 
its own directory and this way you weren't going to run out of entries.)