Copying large file sets to external drives hangs copy process

Hi all,
Goal: to move large media file libraries for iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie to external drives. Will move this drive as a media drive for a new iMac 2013. I am attempting to consolidate many old drives over the years and consolidate to newer and larger drives.
Hardware: moving from a Mac Pro 2010 to variety of USB and other drives for use with a 2013 iMac. The example below is from the boot drive of the Mac Pro. Today, the target drive was a 3 TB Seagate GoFlex ? USB 3 drive formatted as HFS+ Journaled. All drives are this format. I was using the Seagate drive on both the MacPro USB 2 and the iMac USB 3. I also use a NitroAV Firewire and USB hub to connect 3-4 USB and FW drives to the Mac Pro.
OS: Mac OS X 10.9.1 on Mac Pro 2010
Problem: Today--trying to copy large file sets such as iTunes, iPhoto libs, iMovie events from internal Mac drives to external drive(s) will hang the copy process (forever). This seems to mostly happen with very large batches of files: for example, an entire folder of iMovie events, the iTunes library; the iPhoto library. Symptom is that the process starts and then hangs at a variety of different points, never completing the copy. Requires a force quit of Finder and then a hard power reboot of the Mac. Recent examples today were (a) a hang at 3 Gb for a 72 Gb iTunes file; (b) hang at 13 Gb for same 72 Gb iTunes file; (c) hang at 61 Gb for a 290 Gb iPhoto file. In the past, I have had similar drive-copying issues from a variety of USB 2, USB 3 and FW drives (old and new) mostly on the Mac Pro 2010. The libraries and programs seem to run fine with no errors. Small folder copying is rarely an issue. Drives are not making weird noises. Drives were checked for permissions and repairs. Early trip to Genius Bar did not find any hardware issues on the internal drives.
I seem to get these "dropoff" of hard drives unmounting themselves and other drive-copy hangs more often than I should. These drives seem to be ok much of the time but they do drop off here and there.
Attempted solutions today: (1) Turned off all networking on Mac -- Ethernet and WiFi. This appeared to work and allowed the 72 Gb iTunes file to fully copy without an issue. However, on the next several attempts to copy the iPhoto and the hangs returned (at 16 and then 61 Gb) with no additional workarounds. (2) Restart changes the amount of copying per instance but still hangs. (3) Last line of a crash report said "Thunderbolt" but the Mac Pro had no Thunderbolt or Mini Display Port. I did format the Seagate drive on the new iMac that has Thunderbolt. ???
Related threads were slightly different. Any thoughts or solutions would be appreciated. Better copy software than Apple's Finder? I want the new Mac to be clean and thus did not do data migration. Should I do that only for the iPhoto library? I'm stumped.
It seems like more and more people will need to large media file sets to external drives as they load up more and more iPhone movies (my thing) and buy new Macs with smaller Flash storage. Why can't the copy process just "skip" the parts of the thing it can't copy and continue the process? Put an X on the photos/movies that didn't make it?
Thanks -- John

I'm having a similar problem. I'm using a MacBook Pro 2012 with a 500GB SSD as the main drive, 1TB internal drive (removed the optical drive), and also tried running from a Sandisk Ultra 64GB Micro SDXC card with the beta version of Mavericks.
I have a HUGE 1TB Final Cut Pro library that I need to get off my LaCie Thunderbolt drive and moved to a 3TB WD USB 3.0 drive. Every time I've tried to copy it the process would hang at some point, roughly 20% of the way through, then my MacBook would eventually restart on its own. No luck getting the file copied. Now I'm trying to create a disk image using disk utility to get the file from the Thunderbolt drive and saved to the 3TB WD drive. It's been running for half an hour so far and appears that it could take as long a 5 hours to complete.
Doing the copy via disk image was a shot in the dark and I'm not sure how well it will work if I need to actually use the files again. I'll post my results after I see what's happened.

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IMac is not booting - How can I copy my files to an external drive

Hello,
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I tried a couple of things that I found here in the community but nothing worked.
start in safe mode => iMac shuts off after a couple of seconds
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But when I try to get access on the HD with the FireWire Target Disk Mode, I can see the following folders: Applications, Library, System, Users. But the statusbar shows 0 items for each folder and it shows that the HD has 650 GB available. I have the original 1TB HD. When I try to start OS X from an external drive I can see the same folders. I tried Data Rescue 3 to scan my files, but the software stopps with an error.
My TimeMachine backup was not working, so I have no actual backup and need to find a solution to copy my files to an external drive.
Instead of Data Rescue 3, I can use TechTools Pro 6 alternatively.
Would Data Rescue 3 find files if I erase and create a new partition on the HD?
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Have anyone an idea or a tip, how I can copy my files?
I would be more than happy if someone can help me.
Thank you very much for all answers in advance.

The internal drive is failing, or has failed. You may not be able to save the data.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup) or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Copying video files from one external drive to another

Hello! I am very new to Apple and FCP, so please forgive my ignorance. I have looked through the other topics and have not found one that addresses my question, so please forgive me if this has been addressed in the past.
I am working on a project and have all of my video clips saved to a G-Tech G-Raid 320 GB extenal hard drive. I captured much of my footage using "capture now" instead of logging individual clips for various reasons (i.e.: some tape sources did not have timecode), so if I ever have a problem, simply recapturing the footage does not appear to me to be a valid option.
With this weighing heavily on my mind, I thought it would be best to copy the poject to a second G-RAID external hard drive.
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What would be the best way to copy from the one external drive to the other? Will I have to copy the files to my internal hard drive first? And if so, how do I do that? Thanks!!

Crystal,
Please reply to a specific post, not to your orignial one. This keeps the threaded discussion in order.
To see the format for a drive. Open Disk Utility. It is located in your /Applications/Utilities folder.
You should see all your connected drives on the left side of the window. Click on the icon of the drive you want information on. Select the Volume icon, not the Drive icon ( the volume icon is the one under and slightly indented to the right of the drive icon)
Look at the bottom of the window. You'll see an item FORMAT: it should say Mac OS Extended. If it says MS-DOS, you'll need to ERASE the disk. When you do that, you'll have the option of changing the format.
Do not right click and COPY. Simply drag the icon of the folder containing your media files from one disk to the other. It will copy by default.
good luck.
x

Airport Network goes down when copying large files to USB network drive

My apologies if this has been covered before. This is my first post and I am new to the forums.
For several months my wife and I have been using the Airport Extreme 802.11n (Gigabit Ethernet). I use Windows and she uses Leopard. We recently purchased a Western Digital MFL Pro (500GB). If the external drive is connected directly to my PC via USB I can copy to it without any problem. If the external drive is connected to the Airport via USB then if you copy files (generally) over 2GB it takes the whole network down. At that point we have to unplug the Airport wait a few seconds and then plug it back in. It's frustrating because the drive works when connected directly, but not when it's connected to the Airport.
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I've also experienced this problem with my AEBS and an Iomega 500GB MiniMax drive. My Iomega Drive was formatted for HFS+ from the beginning and I've had no problems accessing it from both my Mac and my Windows PC.
I've been monitoring these groups for signs of a solution, I've talked to the geniuses at one of the Apple Stores near me and so far there's no sign of a resolution. I've sent in feedback to Apple but had no response to it so far (don't know if that's usual).
The only suggestion that has been put forward so far is to take my AEBS, Iomega Hard drive and laptop to an Apple Store and demonstrate the problems there in the hope that a solution can be reached.
I've since purchased a 500GB Time Capsule but haven't had a chance to do the same test on that yet, but as far as Time Machine backups go its worked flawlessly so far (touch wood).
Regards,
Jason
Message was edited by: jbroomfi

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.

How do I copy my files from an external drive to my new computer

I had all my music files on my old laptop whose motherboard burned out. I removed the hard drive, and would like to copy my old music files from my old hard drive to the internal hard drive in my new computer. I think I can do this one file at a time but there are like 4000 files so that is impossible

File -> Add folder to library.
Select the topmost folder with the music

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)"
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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

Problem while transferring files within my external drive

Hi!
I hope you can help me with my problem. Here's what happened:
I just copied a bunch of files from my MBA to my external drive and it went flawlessly. Then i tried to copy one file in the external drive to another folder when i was prompted that "the operation can't be completed because an item with the name " " already exists." I was puzzled, so i checked the folder, there's no such file in it. So i dragged the file again to the folder and assumed that it was transferred successfully because the file disappeared from the root folder, but there was no "transferred sound" when it was "moved." I tried with another file, same message. Dragged it again to another folder and i was prompted with an error but the file disappeared from the root folder. So again i assumed it was transferred. A few minutes later i opened the folder again but my file was nonexistent. I tried "unhiding" hidden files using Terminal, and yet it's still nowhere to be found. It is not in the Trash bin either. Is there some way that i could retrieve/recover this file? I fear that it might have been deleted permanently from my external drive! The file is very, very important for my work. Thanks very much to anyone who could help me with this. xx
Some important info:
Device: Macbook Air late 2013
HDD: Toshiba 1 TB (NTFS) -- I have Paragon v10.0.2 installed

Tuxera eh, you went from bad to worse. That program brings new definition to the slang 'iffy'
Did you keep your resident file on your Air's SSD ?
never operate on a single backup #1
secondly, ext. HD are cheaper than dirt, purchase a couple and format them for your Mac, and unless its a necessity, dont use as a constant communication software for NTFS drives.
if you need a HD for PC / Mac, format one on your PC for EXFAT for read /writes / transfers to and from your PC and Mac.

TC and WD500 External drive - Locks up when copying large files

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I have this very same problem.
I tried to copy a 4GB+ folder from the Macbook to the 500GB MyBook attached to my TC and it froze.
Now the the files on the MyBook are invisible when attached to the TC ("0 Items") but are available when the drive is connected directly to the Macbook. I have run disk utility but it hasn't helped. The disk is FAT 32 formatted and the files on the MyBook are still invisible over the network.
When the drive attached to the Macbook directly I can see a 'phantom' file with the same title as the 4GB+ folder I'd tried to copy. This file is "ZERO KB" and it cannot be deleted (error code -43).
Anyone have a clue what is happening here?

Copying large files hangs at "less than a minute"

hi,
When copying large files around my intel mac mini system the Finder appears to freeze just before the end - when the dialog window is telling me that there's "less than a minute" left. It doesn't happen ALL the time, just enough times to be a real nuisance.
Killing the finder doesn't help - I need to power off to regain control of the Finder.
This recently started to happen after I opened up the mac mini to add more memory. Not sure if this is related - everything else seems to be ok. I have a mixture of USB and Firewire external drives - the mac mini is used to hold all my HD camcorder files and process the iMovie rendering to disk.
I'm running the latest version of os x with all the updates.
Any suggestions?
P
Mac Intel Mini Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi,
Hello! It's likely a firmware issue with an external
drive. Check the ext drive's site to see if there's a
firmware upgrade. Tom
Thanks for the reply Tom. I've downloaded a firmware updater from the Lacie site, and I'm apparently uptodate. However, I also have a USB Seagate external drive, but the Seagate site seems to only provide support for Windows. grr.
Is this a known problem with certain drives/firmware?
thanks,
P
Mac Intel Mini Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Copying hangs when copying large files from DVD

I'm having trouble copying large files (>2GB) from DVDs to my built-in hard drive. When I drag the file icon from the DVD window to the desktop, the progress bar pops up almost immediately, and says "0 KB of 2.3 GB copied" and "Estimated time left: 1 minute" -- and then it just sits there, doing nothing. In some cases, after five minutes or so of inactivity, the copy finally begins... but most of the time it never does. Force-Quit doesn't help; the only way out is to do an emergency restart and try again.
This problem began when I upgraded to Tiger, and several members of my office group have been experiencing the same problem on their own computers as well.
I've poked around the forum looking for answers but the only thing I could find that looked related was a conflict between iSight and some third-party external hard drives... but none of us have iSight, and none of us are using third-party external drives, so clearly that's not the issue we'rehaving.
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iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Michael, I occasionally notice anomolous behaviour when files get dragged between volumes. Mostly the copying window shows an accurate and immediate indication of what's going on, but other times it just looks like nothing's happening, the display never changes, yet, it is in fact copying the files over. Now, if you're copying 2gb files from DVD to HD, it's gonna take some time, more than 5 minutes, so I'm wondering how long you've left it before forcing it to quit?

I have been backing up iMovie 08 files to my external drive, but for some reason I can't open these files in iMovie. I used drag and drop to copy them.

I have been backing up iMovie 08 files to my external drive, but for some reason I can't open these files in iMovie. I used drag and drop to copy them.

You really should be doing backups with an actual backup application, especially one that will work automatically, and, if your external HD is large enough, back up your entire system. These can automatically back up only what's changed since the previous backup, and some will keep "archive" copies of things you've changed or deleted, also.
Too many things can go wrong, such as your internal HD failing, and you'll have a major project to reinstall everything.
You already have Time Machine, built-in to OSX. You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial, and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
#27 in the second link mentions some alternatives, too.

Unable to copy very large file to eSATA external HDD

I am trying to copy a VMWare Fusion virtual machine, 57 GB, from my Macbook Pro's laptop hard drive to an external, eSATA hard drive, which is attached through an ExpressPort adapter. VMWare Fusion is not running and the external drive has lots of room. The disk utility finds no problems with either drive. I have excluded both the external disk and the folder on my laptop hard drive that contains my virtual machine from my Time Machihne backups. At about the 42 GB mark, an error message appears:
The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "Windows1-Snapshot6.vmem" could not be read or written. (Error code -36)
After I press OK to remove the dialog, the copy does not continue, and I cannot cancel the copy. I have to force-quit the Finder to make the copy dialog go away before I can attempt the copy again. I've tried rebooting between attempts, still no luck. I have tried a total of 4 times now, exact same result at the exact same place, 42 GB / 57 GB.
Any ideas?

Still no breakthrough from Apple. They're telling me to terminate the VMWare processes before attempting the copy, but had they actually read my description of the problem first, they would have known that I already tried this. Hopefully they'll continue to investigate.
From a correspondence with Tim, a support representative at Apple:
Hi Tim,
Thank you for getting back to me, I got your message. Although it is true that at the time I ran the Capture Data program there were some VMWare-related processes running (PID's 105, 106, 107 and 108), this was not the case when the issue occurred earlier. After initially experiencing the problem, this possibility had occurred to me so I took the time to terminate all VMWare processes using the activity monitor before again attempting to copy the files, including the processes mentioned by your engineering department. I documented this in my posting to apple's forum as follows: (quote is from my post of Feb 19, 2008, 1:28pm, to the thread "Unable to copy very large file to eSATA external HDD", relevant section in >bold print<)
Thanks for the suggestions. I have since tried this operation with 3 different drives through two different interface types. Two of the drives are identical - 3.5" 7200 RPM 1TB Western Digital WD10EACS (WD Caviar SE16) in external hard drive enclosures, and the other is a smaller USB2 100GB Western Digital WD1200U0170-001 external drive. I tried the two 1TB drives through eSATA - ExpressPort and also over USB2. I have tried the 100GB drive only over USB2 since that is the only interface on the drive. In all cases the result is the same. All 3 drives are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
I know the files work on my laptop's hard drive. They are a VMWare virtual machine that works just fine when I use it every day. >Before attempting the copy, I shut down VMWare and terminated all VMWare processes using the Activity Monitor for good measure.< I have tried the copy operation both through the finder and through the Unix command prompt using the drive's mount point of /Volumes/jfinney-ext-3.
Any more ideas?
Furthermore, to prove that there were no file locks present on the affected files, I moved them to a different location on my laptop's HDD and renamed them, which would not have been possible if there had been interference from vmware-related processes. So, that's not it.
Your suggested workaround, to compress the files before copying them to the external drive, may serve as a temporary workaround but it is not a solution. This VM will grow over time to the point where even the compressed version is larger than the 42GB maximum, and compressing and uncompressing the files will take me a lot of time for files of this size. Could you please continue to pursue this issue and identify the underlying cause?
Thank you,
- Jeremy

Can't copy large files to airport extreme USB drive.

Hi Everyone,
I'm positng because I'm unable to copy large files to an AirPort Disk using Moutain Lion. I have the following setup.
AirPort Extreme:
- Firmware version: 7.6.3
- Airport disks secured by password
External Drive:
- Seagate 3TB External Drive connected to Airport Extreme thru USB
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Formated
Computers:
- MacMini(Mid 2010) - MacBookPro 13" Retina
- Both have Mountain Lion with latest updates
Airport Utility:
- Version 6.2
I am using the drive for a backup of .mv4 files. Files up to 4g transfer just fine. Files over 4g will get all the way to the end and throw a -36 error. If I plug it into my mac the files copy just fine. I have googled the issue and get all of these fat32 and win7 issues. Not really relevant from what I can tell.
I have also connected other drives the the Airport formatted the same and get the same problem.

That's not entirely unusual as using that port on the AEBS for backup is an iffy business, especially if you are trying to use Time Machine which is completely unsupported by Apple.
There may well be something wrong with the file you are trying to transfer, hence, the -36 error. I have no solution for you. Generally, there is no suitable solution. If you get the error while trying to copy several files at once, then try doing one file at a time which sometimes works. Archiving may enable you to transfer the archive, but then dearchiving on the destination may not work.
You can check the filename length and look for illegal characters or just rename the file, if possible. And, don't overlook the possibility that the file itself is corrupted even if it does not appear to be so from outward appearances. Lastly or firstly, try transferring the file to the external drive hooked up directly to the computer instead of the AEBS.

How do i copy my files from my external hard drive onto my imac

how do i copy my files from my external hard drive onto my imac

You should be able to 'migrate them' without having to do so during a reinstall, from an external drive. In some cases, you may be able to use TimeMachine software even if the drive had not been used as a backup.
The usual way, though, is to drag & drop copy from one to another (volume or folder) you created in there and have open. Or drag an item on top of the icon of a hard disk drive when it is mounted on the desktop. I'm used to working with open folders and windows, because that works best; and then see if I want to change how things look inside their destination. This helps should I later want to burn them to a DVD and have it correct. And I want to know where they are.
I had more links to some information about importing or migrating data into a Mac from an external, a week ago, but can't find them now. A few good links to pages, but I think I posted what I did find directly to answer someones question about it; and believe the info was in an Apple Support article about TimeMachine, near the lower part of the page with blue words with a disclosure triangle, so you could read more in that page. But I don't believe these two are correct in that TimeMachine (some versions) only allow wireless backup to a drive in a base station unit such as Apple sells, for this. The link I saw simply said how to work around not using the wireless stuff. Maybe it was a dated item, not in these?
See a main general portal to TimeMachine support,
here: http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
Or basics that may not provide optional copy methods:
Mac Basics - Time Machine backs up your mac:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Perhaps a search of Apple Support database (or even ASC discussions?) would yield ideas, and perhaps find what may work for the kind of files you want to copy, and where they can be found & used later. Are the files for specific applications? Or images, music, etc?
Good luck & happy computing!
edited.

Copying large file sets to external drives hangs copy process

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