Insufficient Space for Backup?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I tried to use the XP backup utility to make a backup file of my Documents
and Settings on an external 30 GByte hard drive.
Total size of the backup was about 15 GByte ie there should have been ample
space.
After about 2.5 GBytes had been transferred I got an error message
"Insufficient Space. Insert Another Disk".
I obviously couldn't insert another disk and it wouldn't resume, so I
aborted the backup.
Tried again with the same result.
When I checked the external disk, it was still 90% empty, as expected.

I then downloaded a trial version of a backup utility which did the backup
with no problem.

My pc hard drive is formatted NTFS, the external drive is FAT 32 (has to be
because I use it for storage from my digital camera).

I don't particularly want to pay for a program that duplicates one of the
utilities in XP.

Couldn't find anything in the MS Knowledge Base.

Any ideas on why the XP backup won't work for me?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

It was definitely displaying about 2.5 GB in the "amount transferred" part
of the backup box. I didn't check the size of the actual file that was
sitting on the external drive - just quickly checked that the drive was
largely empty.
I notice that backing up from XP does seem to create one big file, so if 4
GB is the limit, it won't be possible for me to use my external drive while
it is formatted FAT 32. Even if that isn't what caused the failure, I'll
have to try another method.
thanks for the info.