When recovering data with Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, some users face issues saving the disk image file (.dmg / .img) to a drive formatted with FAT, FAT32, or exFAT.

The Reason

1. FAT-based file systems (FAT, FAT32, exFAT) have file size limitations.
- FAT32 cannot store a single file larger than 4 GB.
- Large image files created during recovery often exceed this limit, especially when scanning bigger drives (500 GB, 1 TB, etc.).

2. macOS itself may throw errors like:
- The file is too large for the volume’s format.”

So, even though the drive has free space, the FAT format cannot handle large image files.

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The Solution

1. Save to an HFS+ or APFS Drive
- Use your Mac’s internal drive or an external drive formatted as HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) or APFS.
- Both support large single files beyond 4 GB.

2. Use NTFS (if available)
- Drives formatted with NTFS (Windows file system) also support large files.
- macOS requires third-party drivers (like Paragon NTFS for Mac) to write to NTFS.

3. Split the Image (if necessary)
- If you must use a FAT-based drive, try saving smaller amounts of data separately.
- However, for complete recovery images, APFS/HFS+ is strongly recommended.

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Best Practice

Always save recovery images and recovered files to a Mac-native file system (APFS/HFS+) drive. Later, if needed, you can copy them to FAT/exFAT drives after recovery is complete.

That’s why Stellar Data Recovery for Mac doesn’t allow saving large image files directly to FAT-based storage—it’s a file system limitation, not a software issue.