Can't copy folder to hard drive. Why?

I can't copy a folder from an external drive to the hard drive!
A message comes up: "The operation can't be completed because an item with the
name ".DS_Store" already exists."
What does this mean and what do I have to in order to be able copy the folder?
Have been using Macs for many years and have never come across this issue before.
Thanks,
iHope

Looks like Wikipedia discusses this file:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.DS_Store
Perhaps you are logged in as a regular user and some permissions on that file are preventing you from over writing it. Maybe a different account has full permissions over the existing .DS_Store file.
You could try creating a new Top level Folder and copy into this new folder.
Or you could log into an Administrator account and using the Terminal App delete the .DS_Store file at the comand prompt.
You could also try deleting the .DS_Store file from the Folder on the external drive,
using the Terminal App would be the easiest
to delete a file that is invisible to the Finder App.
example:
prompt> cd /Volumes/System/Drop/
prompt> ls -al .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--@ 1 user wheel 12292 Dec 27 16:12 .DS_Store
prompt> rm .DS_Store

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