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I can't backup my sister's "Pictures' folder and therefore can't install a new drive
- Thread starter zooby
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You could, if the WD backup drive is large enough to hold the entire contents of her hard drive, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the original drive to it. Then test that you can startup from the new clone. If so, install the new SSD, format it, start again from the WD backup clone and clone back to the SSD.
If you could clone directly to the SSD it would skip a step and save a lot of time.
These instructions depend on what OS the old computer is on...
If you could clone directly to the SSD it would skip a step and save a lot of time.
These instructions depend on what OS the old computer is on...
Give it more time. The Finder does not make linear progress when copying an iPhoto library.
The iPhoto library is really a folder that you are prevented from opening. Something about the internal arrangement of files makes it really slow to copy. I think there are lots of zero length or really tiny files. All of these require lots of file system operations, but make very little progress towards the 100GB total.
Try and check the disk for errors. Try another file manager.
That said. I have always used the trial version of Carbon Copy Cloner, when replacing HDD with SDD and it has worked flawless every time. That is of course clone and not a clean install. But perhaps it will be easier to copy the pictures out afterwards, depending where your bottleneck is.
That said. I have always used the trial version of Carbon Copy Cloner, when replacing HDD with SDD and it has worked flawless every time. That is of course clone and not a clean install. But perhaps it will be easier to copy the pictures out afterwards, depending where your bottleneck is.
I had a similar issue, though not specifically for the iPhoto library. You could maybe try zipping the iPhoto library up and then attempt to transfer the file. This solved permission-related errors which caused the transfer to annoyingly stop many hours into the transfer as well as having the added bonus of speeding up transfer speed.
I am wondering if there is any other way - maybe through Time Machine? Should that be faster? Or taking out the drive and using the enclosure? She leaves in three days so I want to make sure I help her out before then.
If you have the ability to put it into an enclosure, that would be a good way to test if the HDD is failing.
Too risky to try to back up? Continuing to attempt to copy files from the drive that is failing will potentially render the drive inoperable. I'd be doing anything I could to get the important files off now.
In the future, I'd recommend that the computer be setup to do regular backups.
CCC should not take 3 days!! 3 hours perhaps. Something is very wrong with the disk. Did you try do repair it as I also suggested? It's done in disk utility.
You could always try copying the file(s) using Terminal and the cp command...
If you want to give this a try just launch Terminal and type man cp which will explain the structuring necessary for the command... I've had relatively good luck with this method.. including some involving failing HDDs.
Alternatively, you could go the "Show Package Contents" method and extract the photos out of the library("Masters" folder).. since that will involve far less copying functions.. though keep in mind you likely will lose all of the photo organization this way.. but at least not the photos.
If you want to give this a try just launch Terminal and type man cp which will explain the structuring necessary for the command... I've had relatively good luck with this method.. including some involving failing HDDs.
Alternatively, you could go the "Show Package Contents" method and extract the photos out of the library("Masters" folder).. since that will involve far less copying functions.. though keep in mind you likely will lose all of the photo organization this way.. but at least not the photos.
The masters folder contains the "original" photo added to the Photos/iPhoto library(s). You should be able to drag the masters file directly.. but check the destination once the copy finishes.
By photo organization I mean.. that if the photos were sorted into albums or any other organization method utilized.. that will be lost.
Dragging the masters file over the Photos.app implies "import photos" to the photos app once you have (re)setup the computer, so importing them into the "new" photos library should be a snap.
Yes. Add -v to track progress (and perhaps see file(s) are causing problems) and -R to make it recursive. The correct paths can be obtained by just drag and dropping the folders from finder into the terminal (copy and paste do the same).
On windows(dos) there was thirdparty copy commands, which was more error resilient and could resume. Never needed it on Mac, so don't know how cp copes and what the alternatives are in that regard.
Seems like your hard drive is starting to fail or something if it's going to take that long :/ If the last Disk Repair you ran was a month ago, try doing one again, leaving it running without using the Mac for other activities. The only other solution I can think of is copying via Terminal as others have suggested which tends to avoid some Finder-related issues, though I don't think it will solve issues with transfer speed.
If she hadn't done any "organization" herself then there's nothing to worry about in that regard.
I would suggest, in cases like this, that the user copy the photos to the external drive in batches. It's possible that particular photo files are corrupted. If one is corrupted it can cause the slowdown or failure of copying the entire group. You'll have more success copying smaller batches and may be able to pinpoint the bad files that way.
OP:
What KIND OF MAC is giving you the problems?
Which model?
Which year made?
If it's a MacBook with an easily-removable drive, do this:
1. Get a NEW drive.
2. Get an external USB3 enclosure (or USB3/SATA dock, or USB3/SATA dongle)
3. Put the new drive into the enclosure, set it up with a NEW COPY of the OS.
4. BOOT FROM the new OS, at the appropriate time see if you can "migrate over" the old apps, accounts, settings, data from the old drive.
This may work, but if the old drive is on the verge of "giving up", then again it may not.
If it DOES NOT WORK, now is the time to swap the drives and get a good, working drive into the MacBook.
Next, connect the OLD drive up via the enclosure or dock.
See if it will mount on the desktop.
If it does, you may have to start doing "manual copies" of various folders to get stuff from it and onto the new drive.
This will take some time, but may be the only method that works with a drive that is badly corrupted.
In that case, you may just have to resign yourself to "leaving some files behind" ...
What KIND OF MAC is giving you the problems?
Which model?
Which year made?
If it's a MacBook with an easily-removable drive, do this:
1. Get a NEW drive.
2. Get an external USB3 enclosure (or USB3/SATA dock, or USB3/SATA dongle)
3. Put the new drive into the enclosure, set it up with a NEW COPY of the OS.
4. BOOT FROM the new OS, at the appropriate time see if you can "migrate over" the old apps, accounts, settings, data from the old drive.
This may work, but if the old drive is on the verge of "giving up", then again it may not.
If it DOES NOT WORK, now is the time to swap the drives and get a good, working drive into the MacBook.
Next, connect the OLD drive up via the enclosure or dock.
See if it will mount on the desktop.
If it does, you may have to start doing "manual copies" of various folders to get stuff from it and onto the new drive.
This will take some time, but may be the only method that works with a drive that is badly corrupted.
In that case, you may just have to resign yourself to "leaving some files behind" ...
so i don't use iPhoto, but i did use aperture for years. so this is how i did it, as aperture also had "vaults".
now i don't remember where the library is stored. I thought is was in Applications>iPhoto - then you right click on the app and select "show contents". within there, you will see a folder called "masters" - but again it has been a few years since i used aperture.
Also, this might help you i am hoping. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6465182
As I said above, the Finder does not make linear progress copying an iPhoto library. I went through something similar with a neighbor's machine: He had two libraries, one about 25GB, and the other about 50GB. The slow part is the first thing that the Finder copies. I think the Finder said something like 7 days remaining. In the end, it only took something like 3 hours. I was copying to a Time Capsule used as a NAS. This might be faster than an external USB drive (1G Ethernet versus 450M USB2.)
If you are willing to lose all organization, there are two folders with images inside the "Show Package Contents" folder: One that has the originals/masters, and another with edited images.