[Fixed] Can't Save Files to USB Flash Drive

Here, three practical methods are available to help when you can't save files to a USB flash drive, or the flash drive not saving files as it could have, including formatting FAT32 to NTFS, extending volume size and obtaining an access permission.

Are you having problems of saving files to your USB flash drive? Try the following 3 quick and practical fixes to resolve this issue now:

Can't save files to the USB flash drive

"I'm in deep trouble saving files to a SanDisk USB flash drive. My computer recognizes the flash drive but I can't save pictures or documents to it. Ctrl C+V is not working, the 'save' or 'save as' option is not working, even dragging files directly to the flash drive is still not working. What's the problem? How to save files to a USB flash drive as usual?"

Being a removable storage device that is portable, a USB thumb drive, memory stick or floppy disk is designed to store data so that people can take it anywhere and transfer files easily. Since a flash drive that cannot save files is useless, you must spend some effort in finding a troubleshooting method so as to bring it back to life.

3 ways to fix flash drive not saving files properly

Here, three workable methods are available for you when you can't save files to a USB flash drive, or when your flash drive is not saving files as it could have, including formatting FAT32 to NTFS, extending volume size and obtaining access permission.

Fix 1: Convert USB Flash Drive from FAT32 to NTFS Without Formatting

If you are unable to copy or save files to the drive due to the error 'file is too large for destination file system', you should know that the cause of the problem is related to the file system of the device. The common file systems of an external USB drive, USB or memory card are NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT. When your file is larger than 4GB and your flash drive comes with FAT32, you can't save the file there due to the file system's maximum file size is 4GB.

To fix the matter, you can either use Windows Disk Management to format FAT32 to NTFS or use a third-party EaseUS Partition Master Free to convert FAT32 to NTFS directly without erasing data. For data safety, we bly recommend you try the professional solution without data loss.

Download and install EaseUS free partition manager on a Windows computer. Make sure your flash drive has connected to the machine correctly. Then follow the steps below to convert your FAT32 to NTFS.

Step 1. Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer.

Step 2. On Partition Manager, right-click on a FAT32 partition and click "Advanced", select "NTFS to FAT".

Step 3. Click "Proceed" on the pop-up dialog box to continue.

Step 4. Click "Apply" to start the converting process. Wait until the operation process is finished.

Fix 2: Extend volume size when the disk is almost full

Step 1. Shrink partition to free up space to extend partition.

If the hard drive has enough unallocated space to extend the target partition, jump to Step 2, and continue. If not, free up space first:

• At the Partition Manager section, right-click on a partition next to the target partition and select "Resize/Move".
• Drag the partition ends to free up space, leaving enough unallocated space behind the target partition, click "OK".

Step 2. Extend the target partition.

Right-click on the target partition you want to extend and select "Resize/Move".

Drag the target partition handle into the unallocated space to extend partition.

Step 3. Keep all changes.

Click the "Execute Task" button and click "Apply" to keep all changes.

Fix 3: Obtain permission to save files to a specific location

Now we're arriving at the last commonly seen error that will cause the trouble, which is "you don't have permission to save in this location, contact the administrator to obtain permission". This happens a lot when you're trying to save certain Microsoft files.

Step 1: Press the "Windows + R" keys simultaneously and open "Run".

Step 2: Type netplwiz and hit "Enter" to open the "User Accounts" settings box.

Step 3: Select the user account that gives the error message.

Step 4: Click on "Properties" and then "Group Membership", select "Administrator" and click "Apply".

Hope the three approaches we've given can help to solve your trouble in saving a file to a USB flash drive or memory card. If none of the fixes works, it's highly like that your flash drive is write-protected. Try to remove write protection and get rid of the problem "flash drive won't save files".