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please help with "unexpected error" with external hard drive

O

oriolesfan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 2, 2012
8
0
Hello,
I recently bought a new iMac, the smallest size of the 27" screens. I have put lightroom and copied the catalog and everything worked fine when using my external drive (that was formatted for a PC). Finally I discovered that I wasn't able to delete or move the external drive files when using the iMac. I read that it was because it was formatted in NTSF. I have formatted the external to the journaled mac (OS? I can't remember exactly now). I did not choose the case sensitive choice.

Anyways, before I cleared the external I put all the folders with photos on the new iMac desktop(temporarily). I then start to copy the photos back on to the external drive. It copies for a while, and then it will stop and say "can't copy this file, it is in use now(wording might not be exact, but that is the basic message). This stops the entire batch of folders that I was copying, even though it only mentions the one photo being in use. Then, if I try to copy anything to the external, I get the message (an unexpected error has occurred code 50).

I have tried reformatting the external three times and staring over, each time it copies to near the same spot, and the problem starts again. If I reboot the computer, that has allowed me to copy a few photos (maybe 20-100) and then the problem starts again. When I go to the external and look at info, it says read and write a the bottom of that window. Sorry to make the post so long, maybe having all the info will help. Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to answer!
 
oriolesfan said:
Hello,
I recently bought a new iMac, the smallest size of the 27" screens.
Click to expand...

Is that something other than 27" :confused:

It sounds like a file you copied to your internal HD ended up as either read-only, or with the permissions set incorrectly. Try to isolate the offending file and opening up read/write permissions before you copy it. I don't think the problem is with your external drive.
 
I'm copying about 40,000 photos. The last two times it has started with the problem, was using the same folder from August 13, which contains around 1900 photos. Once it gets the unexpected error, I am unable to copy anything, even different folders. This is the 27" iMac, 2.7 I5 with os x version 10.7.2

thanks for the reply!
 
Start copying in smaller batches. If the batch you're copying has the offending file, then copy a smaller subset of that batch - and so on until you find the bad file.

Another possible way of doing this is to simply change all the files' permissions, I don't know of a way to do this quickly without using terminal, however.
 
Once the problem starts, I am unable to copy any files though. I just rebooted, started copying a different group of folders and it happened again, saying one file was in use and it could not copy. Once you get that message, and more attempts at copying anything, even one file, will give you the unexpected error 50 message. Rebooting allows you to copy a few files, and then it starts all over again, regardless of what you are copying.

In the beginning, after formatting the drive, I was able to copy around 200 GB of photos before the 1st message came up. After reformatting the drive, again I could copy a lot of files before the 1st message came up again. thanks!
 
I looked at the link you gave but I'm not sure how you do this. I've searched the topic too, but I'm still not sure how to do this. I went to terminal, but how do I know what to put in for the path. It is an external drive so I'm not sure what else to put in.
 
oriolesfan said:
I went to terminal, but how do I know what to put in for the path. It is an external drive so I'm not sure what else to put in.
Click to expand...

oriolesfan said:
Anyways, before I cleared the external I put all the folders with photos on the new iMac desktop(temporarily). I then start to copy the photos back on to the external drive.
Click to expand...

Which is it?

Navigate in terminal to the source files (the ones you're trying to copy) and run the dot_clean command on that folder. So if you're copying files from your Desktop to your external, then you'll run dot_clean on that folder. It's most likely /~username/Desktop/whatever.
 
It seems what ever I type in, it says there is no such directory or place. I'm guessing the user name is just the name on the computer? Anywhere I can find the exact name? I am typing in dot_clean /~myname/Desktop/MainPhotos
 
oriolesfan said:
It seems what ever I type in, it says there is no such directory or place. I'm guessing the user name is just the name on the computer? Anywhere I can find the exact name? I am typing in dot_clean /~myname/Desktop/MainPhotos
Click to expand...

It's whatever your login name is. If you're in doubt, check it at the command prompt.
 
I typed in the info, then typed dot_clean and this is the next line that I got:

usage: dot_clean [-fmnpsv] [--keep=[mostrecent|dotbar|native]] [directory ...]

I have no idea what I'm doing really.
 
Tomorrow said:
Isn't Desktop capitalized?
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to matter, though as far as I can remember, it matters somewhere else (maybe with volumes or so, calderone will know better).
2012_02_03_pA1_Terminal_CDdesktop.png
 
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