Why do I get errors when copying/pasting a lot of files?

[Hal Itosis]

This is the drive on my 13" MBP
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Okay then... shoot. [that "file already exists" error sure resembles a case-sensitive issue.]

This is the usually hard drive 160gb
Format: MS-DOS (FAT32)

This is the other extra drive 250gb
Format: MS-DOS (FAT32)

Some other external drive 60gb
Format: MS-DOS (FAT32)

Wow, i guess you do a lot of work across platforms. Any chance you might erase one of those and devote it to your Mac only? [something tells me that using Time Machine is still on your "To-Do" list.]


Back to the issue then, i wonder if a folder_sync utility (such as ChronoSync) might either be able to complete the copying, or perhaps produce more informative error messages. [someone also suggested Terminal earlier... in which case cp, ditto and rsync are all good commands to know.]

One last shot to look at your HD for clues about its format, etc.
This Terminal command will print some stuff for us to consider:

diskutil info /

 

[Imola Ghost]

This is the terminal readout for my internal MBP hard drive.

Last login: Tue Mar 23 12:25:45 on console
MY NAME-MacBook-Pro:~ SUSIE Q$ diskutil info /
Device Identifier: disk0s2
Device Node: /dev/disk0s2
Part Of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: MacIntosh HD

Volume Name: MacIntosh HD
Escaped with Unicode: MacIntosh%FF%FE%20%00HD

Mounted: Yes
Mount Point: /
Escaped with Unicode: /

File System: Journaled HFS+
Type: hfs
Name: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Journal: Journal size 40960 KB at offset 0xe8e000
Owners: Enabled

Partition Type: Apple_HFS
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Volume UUID: 2FC173BE-446A-3F66-AA78-299BBA328F8C

Total Size: 499.8 GB (499763888128 Bytes) (exactly 976101344 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space: 199.2 GB (199173558272 Bytes) (exactly 389010856 512-Byte-Blocks)

Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: No
Ejectable: No

Whole: No
Internal: Yes

MY NAME-MacBook-Pro:~ SUSIE Q$

 

[Hal Itosis]

That all looks fine.

Listen, i'm going to suggest ChronoSync again. In addition to the 2 reasons given above, there is another more compelling perhaps. If you're going to be updating these music files (editing old ones or adding new ones or deleting boring ones, etc.) you are eventually going to want to have some way of syncing all (or part) of the music on HD to this external FAT-USB which goes in your vehicle. ChronoSync will expedite such updates by only copying changes. As you know (or will certainly discover any minute now) Mac OSX does not offer any "directory merge" feature built into Finder. So seriously, get the ChronoSync demo (or any other such utility that comes highly recommended) and start tooling around with it now. Doing so will reap rewards in time.

Also, if you haven't looked into Time Machine then do so. It will not work with FAT natively... so you'll need to reformat one of those USBs —or alternatively, we can create an HFS+ disk image and copy that over to the FAT-USB. [i haven't actually tried that, but i do have a Time Capsule, and it's the same principle.]

 

[r0k]

I have had this problem a lot. I would pop in the SD card from one of my digicams and create a new folder on my Linux based network drive then copy all the photos. It would go for a few seconds and then complain that the item was in use. I found out it was a timing related issue. OS X prepares to copy a large batch of files by creating a bunch of 0 length files with the same name and then replacing them one by one with the real data. What would happen is the network drive would choke and refuse to let a file get replaced randomly from time to time. I solved this by connecting a usb drive and formatting it for OS X. Now when I copy the files from SD card to the usb drive, I never get these errors. Then I pick entire folders and copy them to the network drive and I no longer get these issues. Perhaps the timing issue is a combination of the SD cards I have been using and the network drive.

An earlier poster suggested you use sudo. Sudo is the most dangerous thing you can ever do on a Unix machine (including OS X). It is telling the computer you know what you are doing and accept the consequences and "don't ask me any questions if this seems to be going wrong." An example of a legit reason to use sudo is you are trying to repair a problem with your OS in an area of the system that is not supposed to be user writable such as the /etc/hosts file. While I like the ditto command, I think sudo is overkill in this situation. To use ditto, you must get to a terminal prompt or "command line". It is the same as a DOS prompt on windows or a bash prompt in Linux. Be very careful in terminal. You can get a lot done quickly. This also means you can do a lot of damage quickly. Watch the spelling of things and get in the habit of letting OS X auto-complete file and directory names for you as it will reduce errors. Of course you must type out the new directory name since it doesn't exist yet but the old directory name should be auto completed for you once enough letters are typed in for OS X to recognize it. So in your case you do the following. (when you see {tab} hit tab for auto-complete)

1 open terminal
2 type
cd /V{tab}/Sa{tab}
3 verify that you see (or whatever your drive is called)...
cd /Volumes/Sandisk
4 hit enter
ditto fromdir /V{tab}/Ot{tab}/newfromdir
5 verify that you see...
ditto fromdir /Volumes/Otherdisk/newfromdir
6 hit enter

Again, I don't think you need sudo unless you start seeing a lot of permission errors. Just remember that sudo is like using a sledgehammer to force the OS to ignore all errors and "just do" something.

 

[BobZune]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10840785� has the solution (appears to be a bug that is going to be fixed).

[In terminal type

dot_clean -m ~

then you should be able to copy everything from your home (~) directory. For non-home folders, see the link and translate the path to the right one.]

 

[jimpixx]

Error 36 Problem Solved...

Watch this video and follow his instructions. This was driving me crazy transferring over a large folder with tons of media files and now it works great!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC3O-3ymVEE

 

[Hal Itosis]

This was driving me crazy transferring over a large folder with tons of media files and now it works great!

Are you using 10.6.3 or which? -- 'cause (supposedly) 10.6.3 fixed that problem.

(BTW, the dot_clean solution was put forth in the post by BobZune, but his link seems messed up. He was probably pointing at one of these: Finder Error code -36 or Error Code -36).


[edit] FWIW, the first mention of error "-36" in this thread is yours jimpixx. Seems the OP was experiencing something different.

 

[BobZune]

Thanks for the correction - yes, I think was the 2nd link you posted, Hal Itosis. All probably overcome by events by now.

 

[REALISTICALY]

I've been trying to copy and paste some files on to a external hard drive. My MBP will calculate the amount and then start copying and pasting but will come back with errors shortly after it began.

I got the exact same problem with el-capitan , dont note most of the answers here they al noobes and they believe any standard support QA's . If you have installed an application that gives you read and write access remove that app its causing the OSX to give nonsense errors. Like cannot copy because filename already excist. If this does not work empty your bin. Dont believe those ******** terminals commands ur not living in the 70's anymore Apple is designed to be user friendly.