I’ve been trying to transfer a large number of files between a portable Western Digital 250GB hard drive and a secondary drive on another computer via a network. I’m running XP Pro on my laptop.

Smaller files are usually okay, but when I try and transfer some larger ones over 2GB up to 5GB I’ll get the following just about every time.

The text of the error message is:

Cannot copy [FILENAME]: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

I’ve finally gotten the files moved where I need them to be, but the repeated error continues to bother me. I’m hoping my hard drive isn’t failing and going to leave me up a creek later when I’m relying on it for a backup.

A quick search of the error message produced this website with the results which were similar to mine. From the results it sounds like I need to move everything off of it, run CHKDSK /F and CHKDSK /R on it and let it all repair itself.

Post from: EveryJoe

I/O Error When Transferring Files