Knowledge Base

Newly Formatted Drive Does Not Support Long Filenames

Article ID: 134560

Article Last Modified on 11/15/2006

Microsoft Windows 95

This article was previously published under Q134560

SYMPTOMS

When you use the Fdisk program to configure a new, secondary disk drive, restart the computer, and then use the Format program to format the new disk drive, when you copy files to the new drive, you receive the following message

   Select File Name

   The destination does not support long file names. Please enter a name
   for this file.

   Original path:  C:\LongFileName.Extention

   To folder:      <new drive>

   New name:       longfile.ext

where <new drive> is the drive letter of the newly formatted drive.

CAUSE

When Windows 95 starts, it creates a cache of information about the capabilities of each drive, including whether it supports long filenames. When the Format program finishes, the information in the cache is not updated; therefore, Windows 95 reads the previously cached information that indicates that the new drive does not support long filenames.

RESOLUTION

To copy files with long filenames to the newly formatted drive, do one of the following:

Restart the computer.

-or-
Double-click My computer, and then on the View menu, click Refresh.

MORE INFORMATION

In addition to the message above, other symptoms you may see are as follows:

When you create a new folder, it only accepts an MS-DOS 8.3 filename.
When you drag a file with a long filename to the new drive, the long filename is changed to an MS-DOS 8.3 filename.
When you attempt to copy files across a network from one mapped drive to another (where both networked computers are running Windows 95), you receive the following error message:
The destination does not support long file names. Please enter a name for this file.

To resolve these symptoms, use a resolution listed above.

Keywords: kbdiskmemory KB134560