The Parameter Is Incorrect Copying Files: How to fix?

The Parameter Is Incorrect Copying Files problem may you have encountered while using Windows computer. Very annoying especially when in hurry condition requires a file to be transferred to flash disk.

In recent times, there are many storage devices, such as hard drive, SSD, external hard drive, USB flash drive, thumb drive, pen drive, SD card and more other removable disks. Suppose that there are some important files saved on your computer, in order to data security, you can choose to copy those files for backup to a USB drive, SD card, or an external hard drive. Or you need to do your work at home, it is necessary to do file copying to another drive and bring it home. Sometimes, you find it is easy to transfer the needful files. However, sometimes you will have a failure when copying files and Windows prompts an error message saying “error copying file or folder. The parameter is incorrect” or “Cannot copy file: The parameter is incorrect“. Look at the figures below.

Once this issue happens to you, you will be wondering: why fail to copy files? How do I fix the parameter is incorrect? Don’t worry. This post will show you some useful ways.

Why The Parameter Is Incorrect Copying Files

When moving a large file to an external hard drive, USB drive or other drives, you probably receive “the parameter is incorrect” error. But if the file is a small file, your device will work well. This is confusing. As a matter of fact, this is because of the limitation of FAT32. As is well known, FAT32 is an old file system which doesn’t support individual file larger than 4GB. Moreover, USB drive adopts FAT32 as a file system by default. Therefore, if error copying file or folder the parameter is incorrect issue appears, it is most likely that your target drive uses FAT32 file system.

Tip:
When copying a file larger than 4GB, another error may occur showing “the file xxx is too large for the destination file system”. If you have this issue, click this post to learn more.

In order to solve cannot copy the parameter is incorrect issue, you need to convert your drive to NTFS which supports single file larger than 4GB or format your disk partition.

How to Fix Parameter Is Incorrect

• Convert FAT32 to NTFS without Data Loss

When referring the conversion from FAT32 to NTFS, some of you will choose Command Prompt. This tool allows you to do this work by “convert n: /fs:ntfs” command. Sometimes it is easy to finish this conversion, but sometimes you will fail and encounter one error “This drive is dirty and cannot be converted…“.

In this case, we suggest that you should use a piece of third-party software to fix incorrect parameter when copying files. Here MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is worthy of being recommended. This free partition manager has won many users’ reputations all over the world. And it is very professional and reliable to convert file system from FAT32 to NTFS without losing data. Here take a USB drive as an example.

1. After launching MiniTool Partition Wizard, please right-click on your USB drive partition, and select “Convert FAT to NTFS” feature (read more about this software).
2. Then in a pop-up window, click “Start” button to begin the process.

   

3. Finally, click “Apply” button to execute this conversion from FAT32 to NTFS.

• Format USB Drive to NTFS

If there are no important files stored on your USB drive, some of you will choose to format it to NTFS. Usually, you can do this work via Windows Explorer, Windows Disk Management or MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

Perhaps you experience another situation: you copy a small file to your drive but parameter is incorrect issue still appears. This is due to the corrupted partition table, insufficient USB power and no enough disk space.

Hope you can solve your issue effectively.