Error -36 when transferring to external

I am very frustrated by this problem, which seeemingly came completely out of the blue starting today (i.e., I didnt make any hardware changes or install anything, or even restart since using the drive successfully)
When I try to transfer a file to my external HD (Western Digital MyBook 500 gig) larger than 42 MB (yes, 42 MB no more no less), I get "The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in " ---" could not be read or written (Error code -36). Like I said, files smaller than 42 MB transfer just fine, but even folders that contain more than 42 MB do not transfer. I have tried all kinds of different files, movies, music, folders, etc. I had just transfered 8 gig of TV shows this morning with no problem...
I can transfer any files from the external HD to my macbook, no problem. In addition, I installed a program called Macdrive on my PC (allows PCs to read and write to HFS volumes), and I could write any file of any size to the drive with no problem!
I have tried using disk utility to verify disk and repair disk (it said it didnt need repairs) verify disk permissions and repair disk permissions are both greyed out (I dont know why)
This is a really weird problem... please help.

I have the same issue, it's driving me nuts. My problem happens with any random file and any random file size. Sometimes my external hard drive (Thermaltake) will let me transfer 300mb sometimes only 20mb, it doesn't matter really, at some point the "death" error - 36 always comes up stopping the transfer AND autoejecting itself. I've done a FAT32 format a MAC OS format both from my MAC, also done a format from my PC, nothing seems to work. It does works ok when I transfer files from the external to my Macbook and of course it works fine with the 3 other PC in my house, it just doesn't work with my MAC when I try to transfer files from my internal hardrive to the external...bummer literally!
The internet is full of forums with people who have this exact issue, many of them just failing to be abke to use their external hardrives at all, but unfortunately there's not that many answers or new ones, that might actually help. And of course there's no official say from apple either, I'm pretty sure this is a OS problem, not a hardware one. I assume this because I've tried tons of different things, my macbook is brand new and so is my external hardrive, besides the fact that my external works just fine on a windows machine.
Doomed to trash the external hardrive and lose that money?
HELP
Message was edited by: kiwiandino

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