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My system's configuration includes P4, 256 MB RAM and 40 GB hard disk. The OS is Windows 2000 with all updates and servicepack4.

I bought a pen drive recently. Most times, when I copy files from my system to my pen drive, the following error message appears.

"Confirm Stream Loss: The file 'readme.pdf' contains more than one data stream. But the destination volume does not support this feature. Some data will not be preserved as a result.

Do you want to proceed anyway? Yes to all, no, cancel."

If I press yes or yes to all, it copies all content to my pen drive. Please suggest a solution.

Suresh.V

This message is an expected and documented Windows behaviour for any non-NTFS volume, including FAT 16, FAT 32. NTFS file systems supports a feature called Alternate data streams (ADS). NTFS files contain one primary stream and, optionally, one or more alternate data streams (ADS). The problem is that 2000/XP comes with no utilities to list any stream other than the primary stream in a file. When viewing a directory with Explorer, or using the dir command in command prompt, the information reported pertains to the primary stream only.

The typical use of the ADS is to hold comments such as the ones you see in the file properties tab, for example, when you are using the Summary tab and add additional information to a file (author, comments etc).

When you copy a file that contains additional streams to a non-NTFS volume, sometimes you will receive a warning with regard to Stream Loss, since FAT volumes do not support these additional data streams. The Information pertaining to ADS will be lost or stripped when transferred to media formatted with FAT file systems but the files themselves will remain intact. This will not affect the contents of the files on your pen drive.

You can use some third-party tool to view the ADS Information. Stream Explorer is one such freeware tool that can be download from http://www.snapfiles.com/get/streamexplorer.html ( size 599KB). For more information about Alternate Data Streams, please refer http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial25.html

Solution by M. Sampath

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