Can't copy large files to external hard drive

I have a 500gb western digital my book home edition with firewire/usb/esata connections. I want to copy some large video files (1gb and higher) to this external drive but I keep getting this message: "sorry, theoperation could not be completed because an unexpected error occured (error code-1309)."
what is the dealio?

You have to erase the full drive (not the partition) which is why it is better to click on drive icon, then PARTITION tab, and set to new partition(s).
Click on OPTIONS.... below and set it to something other than Master Boot Record.
Click APPLY and then go back and apply the new partition scheme. You can also click SECURITY OPTIONS to zero or do 7-way write erase, but I don't think you actually need to.
Using Disk Utility to format drives should be in "Disk Utility 101". Even the Help menu in Disk Utility has what you need to format, initialize and use all the features. Use the instructions for how to setup a drive for TimeMachine would be excellent also.
http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/timemachine/

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Copy large files to external hard drive

How do I copy files fromone external hard drive to another external hard drive via mac book air

Gregory Taddeo wrote:
How do I copy files fromone external hard drive to another external hard drive via mac book air
If its from one drive TO A BLANK / NEW HD, and its a LOT of files (400+ GB)
then just use Superduper cloning software to copy it all in one click and sit back and let it work
free to use
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/superduperdescription.html

Copying large files to external hard drive won't work

I tried looking for this all over google and here, and i could only find old threads that didn't end up with a clear answer, so i decided to post one of my own for the first time.
Basically, I have folders of music and movies that i'm trying to move over to the external hard drive (2tb WD my book studio using firewire 800) and at one point during the copy, the finder copy window will get stuck and won't move any further. So the copy doesn't go on, and even if i try to cancel it only the beachball starts rolling and finder won't respond until i restart or unplug my external.
The weird thing is that even when I was copying a few folders that weren't too big, around 2gb or so, it did the same thing. BUT when i took 3 individual avi files that were around 3gb it copied fine.
I really don't understand what's going on, and I want to just take the entire folder, let it copy, and go do something else rather than sit here moving file after file.
Does anyone have any idea as to what's happening? I'm not sure whether to blame my imac or my external. external does time machine back ups fine tho.. I have it split into 2 partitions, one for tm and one as a FAT drive. Any help would be great! Thanks!

All right. So let's say your hard drive is named 'WD MyBook' or something like that.
Let's also say the folder you're trying to copy is your Documents folder.
In Terminal, you'd type:
sudo ditto pathToDocuments pathToWDMyBook
Now obviously, those are fake paths and don't actually represent where those things are, but that's to illustrate the syntax you need to use.
Your external drive path will be something like this:
/Volumes/WD\ MyBook
The trick here is that if there's a space in the name of the drive, you need to substitute a "\ " for the space. You can also put single quotes around the whole thing like this: '/Volumes/WD MyBook'
Everything here is case sensitive. You can also drag the icon for the external drive into the Terminal window, and it will paste the path into Terminal for you.
So the full example would turn out to be:
sudo ditto /Users/yourusername/Documents /Volumes/WD\ MyBook
If you wanted to make sure everything went into a specific folder on your external, you'd need to add that to the path you specify. For instance, if you want everything to go into a folder named Backup on your external, the command would then be:
sudo ditto /Users/yourusername/Documents /Volumes/WD\ MyBook/Backup
Either way,
sudo ditto source destination
That's it, just spaces between everything. Like I said before, you don't need the sudo necessarily, depends what you're copying.
I don't know if that makes any sense, I'm a little out of it today. Let me know if you need further clarification on any of that, or let me know what you're copying/where it's going and I can probably help you with the syntax. Or just drag and drop! It's easy.

I can't copy iPhoto to my external hard drive. It will not allow me to drag and drop or copy and paste., I can't copy iPhoto to my external hard drive. It will not allow me to drag and drop or copy and paste.

I can't copy iPhoto to my external hard drive. It will not allow me to drag and drop or copy and paste., I can't copy iPhoto to my external hard drive. It will not allow me to drag and drop or copy and paste.

NTFS is your problem.
iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, exporting, saving edits and sharing the photos.
See this article
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168
for more. Note also the comment:
“Additionally, storing the iPhoto library on a network rather than locally on your computer can also lead to poor performance or data loss.”

Itunes with 10.3x not transferring large files to external hard drive

I have been unable to transfer any large files, basically anything over over two artists or so from old external hard drive for my old windows xp computer to my new external hard drive (both iomega and western digital have been tried) without the transfer cutting out and popping up a message to effect of itunes can not copy or add file to folder...something like that. am i missing something that i need to be doing? ive got about 33,000 items, and the thought of doing them 10-15 at a time really isn't something i want to do. But as of this point, i can't find a way to simply xfer the whole itunes library from the old external to the new one. Thanks for any help.

You can transfer purchased content ONLY! Unfortunately, you have no choice as to what gets transferred. Here are some work arounds
1. Delete off iPod Touch/iPhone/iPod then transfer
2. Transfer all content then delete from computer

Very slow copying of files to external hard drive

Dear all,
I've been finding that my MacBook Pro (a 2007 model running Snow Leopard) is extremely slow to copy files over to an external hard drive. The hard drive is connected via Firewire and is perfectly fine with my (Tiger) desktop G5. When I say slow, I mean that the progress monitor is counting in individual bytes.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Roger

I've tried again with a different cable and the firewire 400 (which is certainly what I'm using) still proves appallingly slow when I'm trying to copy files from my MacBook to the drive. The other way round (External HD to computer) is just fine.
Sounds like a hardware problem. In order to troubleshoot it, you'd need to try a different FW HD. If it did the same thing, it would suggest an issue with the MBP's FW port/bus. If it worked fine, then it would suggest an issue with the first FW HD, likely with the circuitry, as has been surmised before (the HD itself may be just fine, and could be transferred into a different enclosure).
I would try firewire 800, but assume that you can't have a connector which is 800 one end and 400 the other: both HDs are firewire 400 and I want to carry on using them ...
800 is backwards compatible with 400, so you actually can, but it will operate at the 400 speed; in any case, no reason to mess with that here.
One of my HDs, a later model, has a USB connector built in. I tried copying from the MacBook to the HD using the USB and it was very fast.
Sounds like you've narrowed it down to a FW issue, as described above.
I'm wondering whether this is, as one of the other correspondents surmises, an OSX 6.3 problem ...?
I strongly doubt it. I'm on 10.6.3 and have done SuperDuper backups/Time Machine backups/large file transfers, and all have behaved just as they did before 10.6.3. I read all the posts that come through here, and there is no widespread issue (normally, when something like that happens, there will be many posts about it; if fact, there are usually many posts after any major update/upgrade, when people believe the update/upgrade has done something to their machines, but I've been surprised at the low number after 10.6.3, at least here in this forum, and 10.6.3 was a very large update).
Would be very interested to know your informed thoughts.
Some thoughts:
-as mentioned above, try a different FW HD on that same MBP port to determine if the port is operating correctly.
-if the port does function properly, get a new enclosure and install the HD from the FW enclosure (USB enclosures, if you're satisfied with their speed, are very inexpensive, sometimes as low as $10 or so). Check out Macsales, Newegg and Amazon for some ideas/examples, or if you want to see hundreds of them, google it.
-if the port is the issue, you may want to get used to using USB or get a FW800 HD enclosure. Obviously there is no guarantee the FW800 port/bus is functioning properly, but I think the odds would be good.
Message was edited by: tjk

I cannot copy large files from my hard drive

My MacBook Pro 15 is on OS X 10.8.5 (12F37) and I reformatted my external hard drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but cannot copy my virtual machine 53GB file from my hard drive to the external drive.

iheartapple1970 wrote:
he wasn't real clear on exactly what virtual machine he was trying to move so i said that IF it's just a windows partition (not w/ parallels or VM fusion ) then he would need to reformat the drive to the format i suggested for it to move and still be used w/ the mac as well. but thanks for the additional information for those who may not have known it.
If it was a partition it would not be a VM file.
This is what you said:
if you are trying to copy a virtual windows machine
I see no mention of a Windows partition here.
As I said before you should test your suggestions to ensure that they are correct, and you should do that prior to suggesting them, and It would help if you understood the difference between a file and a partition.

Help! Can't copy iPhoto pics to external hard drive anymore

All of a sudden, I can no longer drag pics from iPhoto to my external hard drive. I've done this with no problem for at least six months, and now, can't do it. The hard drive is a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1.5 TB. It has a 3.0 USB cord. No issues up until now. I can still drag music to the external with no issues, but fro some reason, not photos. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The interesting thing is that for the first year I have had the external hard drive, this was my routine:
1. Have iPhoto and External Hard Drive both open
2. Create and name folder on EHD
3. Put cursor on folder of pics on iPhoto I wanted to copy
4. Click, hold, drag, and drop in folder
5. Copying automatically starts and finishes
Now, in order to copy, I have to open the particular folder on iPhoto, select all, copy all, then go to the EHD folder and select paste.
This isn't much more, but I guess I'm wondering what happenend on my EHD or iPhoto to make the "drag and drop" inaccessible all of a sudden?

Can't Copy Large Files To External Drive

This is driving me nuts. I'm running 10.4.11 with an external Newer Tech Ministack 320GB hard drive that's only ten weeks old. Yesterday I downloaded some large (50mb or so) QuickTime files to my desktop, which is to say my internal drive. I then tried to copy them to my external drive, since that's where I keep my movie files since they take up so much room. One copied over without any trouble, but numerous attempts to copy the others result in the process freezing after anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4 of the data has been copied, or else I get the "error 36" message. My first thought was that the external drive was failing, but I can copy small movie files (10mb or so) back and forth between the two drives with no problem. What's the point of having a large external drive if you can't use it for your large files? Repaired permissions on both drives, no improvement.

I have repaired permissions and run disk repair on the internal drive as well. Yes, I've played the clips in their entirety, but I'm going to do it again and look for any hiccups. That's an interesting theory and I want to check it out.
It has occurred to me that a workaround, although it by no means addresses the underlying problem, is to use QuickTime Pro to chop the clips up into several smaller files, copy them to the external drive, and then reassemble them via QuickTime Pro on the external drive.
FWIW, I neglected to mention (although I don't know if it's pertinent or not) that immediately after installing the external drive ten weeks ago I used SuperDuper to clone my entire internal drive onto the external firewire drive. I then erased the movies from the internal drive, which was bumping up against maximum capacity. I am able to boot from the external drive, and I want to retain this capacity should the internal drive (which is, after all, six and a half years old) fail.

Can't find my files on external hard drive

My old computer (iBook G4) recently died, and I extracted the Hard drive from the computer. I got an external enclosure for the hard drive and got it up and running, and it shows up on my MacBook Pro.
My problem is that I can't find the files I really want, which were in the "Users" file. I can get to the Users file, and it says that there is 15GB in the folder, but when I open it there only like two files, and I even checked the hidden folders and they simply weren't there. Any ideas?

I'm guessing it's related to Permissions have you tried repairing them on the old volume ?
Did you try running Migration Assistant to see if it can see the content you want to bring over ?

Error -43: Suddenly can't copy any file to my hard drive.

This error has popped up out of the blue as I've been using the hard drive to store large files for several weeks now. And then tonight, it's suddenly stopped working. Midway through copying a file, it stops, and I get this dialog box:
Here's the specs of the hard drive in question:
Any clue what's going on? Thanks!
Message was edited by: Jeff Ford

HI Jeff,
How much available disk space is there? Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see
Capacity and Available. Make sure you always have a minimum of 10% to 15% free disk space at all times.
First, Quit any open applications/programs. Launch Disk Utility. Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.
Discovered this for Error 43 also. Not sure if it applies. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2039
Carolyn

Imoviehd will not let me transfer large files to external hard drive 3g max

mac pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Select the hard drive in the Finder and choose Get Info from the File menu; if the disk's format is listed as MS-DOS or FAT32, you will need to use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to reformat it in the Mac OS Extended format if you don't need to use it with a PC and want to store files 4GB or larger on it. If you need to use part of it with a PC, follow the instructions in this article.
(19509)

Can't copy large files to a network drive :(

hi,
I am using a powermac G5 (Dual 2 GHz, OS 10.4.7). I am connected to a network which has windows based server i believe. If I try to copy files that are sized over 2 GB to the storage drive, it gives me an error message saying "Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -1309)"
But we have two other Mac's (an imac and a mac pro both using OS 10.4.7). I can copy 4-5 GB files without any trouble.
I need some help... is this problem fixable?? if the other macs are able to copy... what am i doing wrong?
please help... thank you in advance.

Error 1309 is a file bounds error. No real news there... just wanted to clarify.
also, HFS errors seem to run... -1300 to -1305.
Are the working & not working ones connected by the same protocol, (smb, NFS, or...)?
There's also an MS error -1309 with Office 2003, Excell, Word, etc., but may or may not have anything to do with this...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830422

Can't copy my music from external hard drive to new MacBook Pro hard drive. "This operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items."

I already tried going to "Get info" and "apply to enclosed items" but that doesn't work. I can copy over about 2gbs of music into my iTunes library but after that, it stops and I get the error. Please help. Any information that would lead to a solution would be great. Thanks!

Hi..
Best to post your topic in the iTunes for Mac community here.

Why has iTunes seperated a album which I have copied over from my external hard drive into iTunes? How can you pull all the songs back together into one album again?

Why has iTunes seperated a album into indevidual songs, which I have copied over from my external hard drive into iTunes? How can you pull all the songs back together into one album again?

Steve MacGuire a.k.a. turingtest2 - iTunes & iPod Hints & Tips - Grouping Tracks Into Albums - http://www.samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp (older post on Apple Discussions http://discussions.apple.com/message/9910895)
Quick answer: Select all the tracks on the album, File > get info, and either give them all a single "album artist", or check the "compilation" flag (as in https://discussions.apple.com/message/17670085).
If these are from multiple-CD sets you may also need to enter the appropriate information in the disc number fields. If they are not a multiple CD set you still need to make sure the disc number fields are set correctly or all empty.

Can't copy large files to external hard drive

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