Seagate ext HD + XP problem

[une]

I bought a 250GB Seagate USB 2.0 external hard drive to free up my internal HD. XP does not seem to like it. I have copied many small files to the new drive with no problem. However I just tried to copy some large video files to it without success. The external drive has 230GB free. However when I try to copy a 12.4GB file from my system to the external HD, XP tells me there is not enough room and that I should delete files beore trying again. There is plenty of room on th external HD and XP has got it wrong.  The weird thing is that when I right click on the external drive's icon and view it's properties, XP tells me there is 230GB free. How can I solve this problem?

[Calum]

What file system is the external drive?
FAT32, which most drives come formatted as, has a file size limit.
If I were you, I'd reformat it using NTFS - right click on the drive in Windows Explorer, choose Format, then choose NTFS for the file system.
Make sure Quick Format is not checked too.
This will take a while with a large drive, my external 250Gb took around an hour or two.
Hope this helps.