Unable to delete folders off external hard drive

[stingray88]

I have a macbook and I am connecting an external hard drive via USB 2.0.

When I want to delete a folder it gives me "error 1407". There is nothing in the folder and it is not protected in any way. It was a folder created by me only a month or so ago. ALL of the folders on my external hard drive are like this. No files are effected with this issue.

Anyone know what to do?

 

[hughvane]

See if this link helps (particularly #1 and then #7 onwards): http://www.ehmac.ca/mac-ipod-help-t...can-t-delete-folders-external-hard-drive.html

From my very brief reading of the thread, you'll probably need to transfer the stuff you want to keep over to your Macbook and then do the external erase and reinstall thing thereafter.

 

[JonnyThunder]

I had this problem with an external drive, formatted as FAT. I just got all the stuff off the drive and reformatted as Mac OS Extended. Haven't seen the issue since.

What is your drive formatted as (as a matter of interest)?

 

[stingray88]

It is formatted in FAT32, but I am not going to reformat it because I want it to be readable fully functional in all operating systems.

I also can not really move everything off the external to anywhere else in order to reformat or erase this drive. Its a 1TB drive with about 700GB of movies on it... don't really have that space available elsewhere...

 

[Zazoh]

Is there a real solution to this issue. I also have a shared drive between Windows and Mac and don't want to format it over?

First real disappointment I've encountered going mac, if this in fact true. It is probably me though. Can I do it from Terminal?