Can't transfer files to External Hard Drive - This is not the typical Ext. HD Questio

[mgt17ga]

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro and an older (5 year old) Western Digital external hard drive. I have always used this hard drive for both mac and windows. Recently, however, whenever I go to transfer a file from the mac to the WD hard drive, the little transfer window pops up and it appears to initiate the transfer. However, it never fully starts it. It appears to "get stuck" in that initiating stage, showing zero of 3.16 gb transferred and shows an unknown transfer time. This happens no matter how long I leave it open. Again, I have used this external hard drive with my macs for the past 5 years without any problems until now. I haven't moved or modified the WD hard drive, so I am not sure what happened or how to solve this problem. Any suggestions??

I appreciate any help you can give me!!

Have a great day!

 

[balamw]

Can you tell us what file system is used on the HDD?

What does it do in Windows? Have you run CHKDSK on it?

B

 

[mgt17ga]

Yes, sorry. Guess I should have mentioned that. The file system is FAT32. And in windows, it works fine. It allows me to transfer and access any file. No, I have not run CHKDSK on it. I will do that now. Please forgive my ignorance, but will CHKDSK erase any of the files on the HD?

Thank you again.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Please forgive my ignorance, but will CHKDSK erase any of the files on the HD?

Thank you again.

No, as it checks the disk, not delete it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHKDSK#Windows_NT-based_CHKDSK

Do you have a backup of that HDD? Maybe it is corrupted, partition map/table wise or it is nearing its end of life.

 

[heisenberg123]

just off the top of my head is 3GB the size limit for Mac to write to FAT32 or am i mis remembering

 

[balamw]

just off the top of my head is 3GB the size limit for Mac to write to FAT32 or am i mis remembering

Should be 4 GB max for any OS for FAT32.

B

 

[mgt17ga]

Thank you for your response. I do have a back up, but that hd is not formatted for mac (otherwise I would just use that one).

Okay, I have run chkdsk and it came back with no errors (sent back to desktop). Any other suggestions?

Thanks again for the help!

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just off the top of my head is 3GB the size limit for Mac to write to FAT32 or am i mis remembering

It's 4Gb I believe. But either way, the same thing happens for any file size (even those less than 1MB).

 

[heisenberg123]

Should be 4 GB max for any OS for FAT32.

B

Thank you for your response. I do have a back up, but that hd is not formatted for mac (otherwise I would just use that one).

Okay, I have run chkdsk and it came back with no errors (sent back to desktop). Any other suggestions?

Thanks again for the help!

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It's 4Gb I believe. But either way, the same thing happens for any file size (even those less than 1MB).

thanks for clarifying

 

[balamw]

What does it do for smaller files?

Same thing?

B

 

[mgt17ga]

What does it do for smaller files?

Same thing?

Yes, same thing...Stalls at the beginning of the transfer and doesn't advance or complete it.

Another note, I just tried to use disk utility to repair the hd, and it did the same thing. The progress bar stayed in the "preparing" stage (not the solid bar, but the moving bar effect) and it listed the files scanned as "0".

 

[balamw]

Have you looked at the Console.app output. Is there any clue there?

B

 

[mgt17ga]

Have you looked at the Console.app output.

No, where do I find that or how do I do that? Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

No, where do I find that or how do I do that? Thanks.

Console.app is in your /Applications/Utilities folder. Or you can Command-spacebar, then type Console.app and press enter.

 

[mgt17ga]

Okay, I ran the console app and am attaching two screenshots of the file reports here. I am not all that tech savvy, so please let me know if a red flag should have gone up from these reports.

Thanks again!