hi, i am trying to back-up some data to an external hdd. i keeping getting the following message when i drag my data to the hdd "you cannot copy the item "Icon" because the name is too long or includes characters that the disk cannot display." i have never had this problem before. i have re-named the files to various different things but still no luck e.g. ****.doc *** ***.doc what are valid characters? any help would be great thanks,
few questioned first before i can answer your question. exactly how are you trying copy the files and what specific files are you trying to copy? Also, are you using custom icons? What filesystem is your external disk FAT32, HFS+, etc?
i am copying the files by dragging them to the external hdd. i have a mixture of files. some of the files simply transfer then the 'error' appears. documents and images seem to transfer fine i think. the files i am having trouble with are the files linked to my imovie projects and other video work. i do not know what custom icons are. the file system works on both osx and windows. thanks,
my guess is you are using FAT32 filesystem, and your are using HFS+ on your mac which have different file naming conventions. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/fat32_file_system.asp