Unable to copy more files in a folder

In one of my hardisk folders, I have to store around 80000 files. However, I
am getting an error message - "The directory or file cannot be created" after
copying 19170 files. I saw that the folder size had appoached 0.99 GB (around
10% of the disk size). There is still 4.3 GB free space available on the
drive. I am able to copy files in the other folders in the same drive. In
fact after deleting some of the files from the folder, it allowed me to copy
some more files. This indicates that there is an upper limit to the size of a
folder !!

I am using a Windows XP.

I have a 40 GB HDD. This have been divided in 4 drives with 10 GB each.

Could you please help me?

(It is important for me to store all these files in the same folder. These
files are resume files that are accessed by my application. I cannot make
changes in the application to refer different folders)

Hey there Arun,

There doesn't appear to be any indication of a "number of files" limitation
in Windows XP. But for a test, why don't you try copying the same files to a
different directory in a different partition and see if the result is the
same?

Anyone got a script to generate 20,000 doc files in a folder?