Error Msgs: iPhone cannot be synced..disk could not be read from or written

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - pass the word. If you have issues at all trying to sync your iPhone to your Mac please make sure you connect the cable directly to its USB port. DO NOT connect the sync cable to your keyboard. And in a huge revelation to myself - DO NOT connect your sync cable to a USB hub which in turn is connect to your Mac, even if the hub is powered by A/C. I thought for sure my two week old iPhone was defective by getting errors from iTunes saying "iPhone . . . cannot be synced. The disk could not be read or written to", "Attempting to copy to disk failed". The best one was when I thought I might need to restore my iPhone and getting "Could not be restored unknown error occured (OXE800006B). I would suggest to Mac to place a suggestion in the error messages to check if your cable is directly connected to your Mac. It might save some headaches. My phone works fine now!
Message was edited by: mtsellers

Good to hear of your success, and a good post. Using Mac keyboard usb ports and hubs is definitely not to be advised.
Phil

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How can i fix this for my iPhone4? "attempting to copy to the disk "iPhone" failed because the disk could not be read from or written to. "

i keep gettign this message when trying to drag music in itunes.
attempting to copy to the disk "iPhone" failed because the disk could not be read from or written to.

Can apply to iPhone as well > 'Disk cannot be read from or written to' when syncing iPod or 'Firmware update failure' error when updating or restoring iPod
If you are using a Windows based computer > iTunes for Windows: Gathering and using iTunes Diagnostics
Ignore: To repair an iPod disk—Restore the iPod or iPod shuffle using the latest version of iTunes.

Please help! iPod won't sync: "Disk could not be read from or written to."

I am at the end of my rope with the endless problems I've been having with iTunes and my iPod ever since the iTunes update which included Gapless Playback (a feature which now invariably crashes my entire computer unless I disable it quickly enough). My latest problem has now made my iPod completely useless because I cannot sync it with my music library. Every time it tries to update the songs, it either crashes or I get the error message "Disk could not be read from or written to." I have tried restoring my iPod, which seemed to work, except that after the restore function seemingly completed I still have the flashing Do Not Disconnect screen on my iPod (after about 30 minutes). I already tried synching my iPod while this was going on and I got the same disk error message. Please, please, can anyone tell me what on earth is going on? I've NEVER had problems like this and all of a sudden it seems like everything about iTunes is a complete disaster.

I had the same problem after I moved my library from my PC to my new iMac. It would not sync properly. After a day of thinking about it, researching it, and trying things like starring at the screen to see what song it failed on as it ran the auto sync (a suggestion posted on this site), a light bulb went off. Switch it to manual! If you manually manage the songs that sync it is easy to discover what songs fail. When auto sync is managing it, it jumps all over the place when synchronizing, but if you manually grab say 500 +/- songs at a time, it goes in alphabetical order, and you can see where it fails. It will be the track(s) immediately following the the last track that made it on the iPod. The songs that were corrupted for me played fine in iTunes, but would not transfer to the iPod, and they worked when I was syncing with my PC. Hmmm? I hope this helps.

Moving library to external hard drive and get the error "Copying files failed. The disk could not be read from or written to"

Hello,
I'm moving my library to an external hard drive.
I've made sure to use the 'Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized' option when pointing to the new library location.
I select 'File'->'Library'->'Organize Library', I select to 'Consolidate Files', click 'OK' and get ther error message "Copying files failed. The disk could not be read from or written to".
I've read elsewhere that there may be a corrupted file that I need to sequester somehow and perhaps add it back however I'm not certain how I can locate that file because the status window doesn't indicate which file it's attempting to transfer when the error appears.
Any tips?
Thank you,
Greg H
iTunes 10.6.3

OK I figured it out!
It was a dodgy file....I sorted the file folders by date, and as it turned out within the "compilations" folder there was a CD where only about half the tracks seemed to have been copied over. Could not have identified this simply from the time indicated on the finder folder sort, because there were several CDs copied over in the that same minute.
I went back to the original itunes folder, deleted all the files from that CD in itunes, then also deleted all those files from the original disk and the target disk.
Tried the "consolidate library" again, and it completed nicely. 200megs of music and videos.
Very happy to solve this problem after 3 weeks.

Error "COPYING MUSIC FAILED. The disk could not be read from or written to"

After following the procedurest to move the iTunes music, the computer started whirring away, happily copying and consolidating all the song files to the new target folder.
After copying 68gigs of 130gigs perfectly, it stopped dead and the following iTunes error message appeared:
"COPYING MUSIC FAILED. THE DISK COULD NOT BE READ FROM OR WRITTEN TO"
I am copying to an external LaCie 500g hard disk, and the current music file is split between folders on the laptop and folders and a 2nd external LaCie Hard disk. It did not appear to have any problems copying and consolidating files from both locations, until the error message showed up.
How can I solve this?
I really need to consolidate this music file.
macbook pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

OK I figured it out!
It was a dodgy file....I sorted the file folders by date, and as it turned out within the "compilations" folder there was a CD where only about half the tracks seemed to have been copied over. Could not have identified this simply from the time indicated on the finder folder sort, because there were several CDs copied over in the that same minute.
I went back to the original itunes folder, deleted all the files from that CD in itunes, then also deleted all those files from the original disk and the target disk.
Tried the "consolidate library" again, and it completed nicely. 200megs of music and videos.
Very happy to solve this problem after 3 weeks.

When attempting to sync an iPhone or iPod I am getting an error: "Attempting to copy to the disk "iPhone" failed. The disk could not be read from or written to."

Any help with this issue is greatly appreciated!

I'm having exactly the same problem.
iTunes will sync contacts, and calendars, etc to the iphone but no music to the iphone or my ipod.
In addition I have imported tracks not playing properly (they play for a couple of seconds, then skip to next track).
Major nightmare, I use my ipod for work.

"disk could not be read from or written to" Sync fails

I have several songs that not only will not sync to the ipad, but rather than just skimping the songs, the sync process stops. The only work around is to remove the offending songs from iTunes.
These include songs that I purchased through iTunes.
Two errors are generated:
First is the "disk could not be read from or written to" error, and then second dialog indicates that file could not be reade or written.
Each of the song files plays fine in iTunes and each syncs fine to iPods and iPhone.
Anyone else getting this or have any ideas about a solution.

I'm a little confused that this problem hasn't received more attention. Basically the sync feature is broken and I am unable to complete my sync of my music from iTunes. And I leave for a month trip next week and was hopeful to have it all loaded. Anyone out there got a solution?

Copying Music failed. The disk could not be read from or written to.

I just added a server to my home network. It's called "DELLSEVER" and is networked via TCP/IP on a Windows Network. I can copy files to and from it no problem. I created a shared folder on the server with public read/write access and no password called "Music".
I wanted to move my iTunes music folder (~110GB) to the server's Music folder.
I followed the instruction found on this forum and went into iTunes(6.0.4.2) preferences -> Advenced -> Itunes Music folder location -> clicked Change -> selected the directory from the available list -> clicked ok.
Under "iTunes Music folder location" it now says "\\DELLSERVER\Music\iTunes", and clicked ok to close the preferences.
I then clicked Advanced -> Consolidate Library -> Consolidate.
I then get the error "Copying Music failed. The disk could not be read from or written to."
I then tried to manually copy my library from dragging the folded from my PC to the server. That worked fine, but I can't get iTunes to use the server's copy of the music, it keeps going back to my PC's copy.
Please help. I've only got about 30 Meg left on my PC's drive with iTunes and need to relocate my music to the server's drives.
And if it matters, I am Administrator on both my PC and the server.
I also tried de-authorizing my PC just in case. Made no difference.

Thanks Katrina. Mapping the folder to a drive letter allowed iTunes to start copying the music across.
Unfortuntely iTunes didn't notice that I manually copied the files across earlier, so it's overwriting them. I'm about two hours into the transfer with about another hour to go, but it looks like it's going to work.
Windows XP Pro

The IPhone cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to. THis appears after everything has synced but Photos. If you delete all the photos, the IPhone syncs fine.

So heres my problem... If I try to sync my iPhone or IPad to our computer I get an error that reads "The IPhone cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to." The error comes at the start of syncing the photos. I have removed the photos from my iPhone it syncs fine, so the problem has to be with the photo library, RIGHT? The problem is iI have never had this issue before. I have my iTunes and iPhoto on a external hard drive and this has been fine in the past, but now i can not even view my photos on my iTV... ANY HELP???

Since you noticed this problem, have you shut down (powered off) and restarted your iMac?
iPhoto does the syncing for photos. Are you able to run iPhoto manually (start it up from the Dock) and access your photo library?

"The iPhone cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to." Any clue what that is due to. Everything but photos seem to sync fine.

when syncing, I get an error message stating: "The iPhone cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to." Any clue what that is due to. Everything but photos seem to sync fine.

I had the same problem when trying to sync my new ilPhone 4s and a fairly new iPad 2. I couldn't find anything in the forum about it. So, since my 4s was new, I called support and luckily I got a CSR with some knowledge. He at first thought it would be tough to fix but after thinking a minute he found the fix. The fix is:
Click on finder, Go, Home, Pictures, then click on iPod photo cache and drag it to trash. Now try syncing again. It worked on both of mine. No problems since.

Error msg when syncing ipad "The disk could not be read from or written to" when loading photos. Does anyone have any idea how to fix?

? I get an Error msg when syncing ipad "The disk could not be read from or written to" when loading photos. Does anyone have any idea how to fix?

You have posted in the Mac forum for problems & questions usting the iTunes store. You will probably find more help in the following forum.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=800

The iPad "My iPad" cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to.

Since updating iTunes to 10.5 (running on OS X 10.6.8) I get this error message at the end of syncing for 2 different iPhones and an iPad 2:
The iPad "My iPad" cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to.
Everything was fine before, and the sync seems to still be happening. The disk is actually readable and writable, and not full. The ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup folder write date is getting updated.
The system log says:
Oct 28 21:29:45 Home-Mac iTunesHelper[399]: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x7fff70182cc0): Device 'AMDevice 0x10022aa60 {UDID = 1a75e9685b623865acad0792f078ac9000608044, device ID = 4, location ID = 0xfa400000, product ID = 0x129f}' attached.
Oct 28 21:29:45 Home-Mac iTunes[396]: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0xb0839000): Device 'AMDevice 0x3340390 {UDID = 1a75e9685b623865acad0792f078ac9000608044, device ID = 4, location ID = 0xfa400000, product ID = 0x129f}' attached.
Oct 28 21:30:05 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: 2011-10-28 21:30:05.557 AppleMobileBackup[6494:903] WARNING: Backing up 1a75e9685b623865acad0792f078ac9000608044
Oct 28 21:31:52 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Child with pid 6494 exited normally
Oct 28 21:54:37 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Waiter has started running...
Oct 28 21:54:37 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Waiter is done running
Oct 28 22:26:11 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Waiter has started running...
Oct 28 22:26:11 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Waiter is done running
Oct 28 22:26:11 Home-Mac [0x0-0x35035].com.apple.iTunes[396]: Child with pid 6668 exited normally
Is this anything to worry about?
--Scott

I am having the same problem with an older black and white 40 gig ipod. I had a new hard drive installed and using my Power Mac G5 running 10.4.9, where I keep the music library, I am unable to install more than 2 gigs of music. I have done the restore and it does not help. I get the same error message everytime. I was successful in syncing a new 80 gig minutes later!
Any suggestions?

Error when syncing iPod: The disk could not be read from or written to!!

I have an iPod mini which worked fine on my Windows XP.
Recently got Windows Vista and I downloaded iTunes and my put my music in the library.
When I plugged my iPod into the Vista, it said it was syncing all the songs to my iPod.
After about 3 hours, whilst syncing the last song a notice came up saying, 'Attempting to copy to the disk failed. The disk could not be read from or written to.'
I restored my iPod and reinstalled iTunes but the same thing happend.
I decided to plug my iPod back into the Windows XP, where I've had no problems. When I did this and started snycing all the songs, I got the notice come up again.
'Attempting to copy to the disk failed. The disk could not be read from or written to.'
I haven't been able to use my iPod now for about 5 weeks because I cannot solve the problem so any help will be much appreciated!
Thanks

You have posted in the Mac forum for problems & questions usting the iTunes store. You will probably find more help in the following forum.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=800

9.1.1 sync problems: "The disk could not be read from or written to."

Using OSX 10.6.3 and upgraded to iTunes 9.1.1. Once I did, I keep getting the following error message: "Attempting to copy to the disk [my ipod] failed. The disk could not be read from or written to." This is followed by another error message: "iTunes could not copy {name of file} to the iPod {iPod name} because the file could not be read or written."
I tried deleting the files mentioned in the error message, but then the message returns with the name of a different file. At this rate, I'll be deleting all my files!
I tried checking everything on the Knowledge Base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1207
I tried restoring my iPod (twice), but it didn't help.
All my software is up to date. I haven't added any new software since I upgraded iTunes.
NOW...when I try to sync my iPhone, I get the same error message.
What's going on, and can anyone help?
This is very annoying since I can't sync my iPhone which I need or my iPod which I would like.

ArizonaDAK wrote:
"iTunes could not copy {name of file} to the iPod {iPod name} because the file could not be read or written."
check if you have read & write permissions for your iTunes music folder. in finder, right-click on it and +get info+. unlock the little padlock (you may have to enter your admin password) and change the permission settings. next, click on the little gear-shaped icon and +apply to enclosed items+ like so
you may also give everyone read & write access. if this doesn't help, try the same on your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music folder).
if that make no difference, try reinstalling iTunes. click here and follow the instructions. next, download a fresh copy from here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/.
you might also try to _*remove and reinstall the Apple Mobile Device Service*_
JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

2G Shuffle error "disk could not be read from or written to"

Just recieved a 2G as a gift. First sync went fine. Songs transferred without issue. Wanted to change some settings and re-sync with new songs and got the error message "disk could not be read from or written to".
Have tried on an XP64 and a Windows 2000 machine with same error. I can sync from an XP Pro Laptop fine. All three are using the same driver (USBSTOR.sys).
Need some help trouble shooting this issue. The XP64 is my main computer and is the one I would like to solve this issue on. I also have a 30GB iPod that syncs on the XP64 machine with no problems.

I don't think the Apple store folks will be able to do anything because the issue is not with every computer.
The fact that I have a computer that can sync with the Shuffle without errors tells me there is an issue with the other 2 machines. As I cannot use the Laptop as my primary library I would like to solve the issue.
I still suspect either iTunes itself or the driver. If anyone else has any suggestions please share them.

The ipod cannot be synched. the disk could not be read from or written to?

So I've done everything possible to try to get my touch to sync all my songs from my itunes library at once and nothing is working. So sadly i spent the entire day plugging and unpluggin the usb cord because at most i could put 30 songs on my touch before it came up with the error "the ipod cannot be synched. The disk could not be read from or written to." this is very frustrating as i have many videos i purchased on itunes with anticipation of putting them on my touch but if i try to do so at most it downloads half then it pops up with the same error. If anyone of y'all can help, that would be greatly appreciated i'm slowly but surely giving up on the touch all together even though i love it this error to it is very time consuming and annoying.

Same problem. With an iPod Touch.
This began after I accidently pulled out the USB before it was fully ejected. (I hit eject, and the icon vanished from iTunes, so I THOUGHT I was okay...) But I got the error. And since then, I've got the error you speak of. Mine may be a tad off.
When I drag a song from iTunes or the Finder into the iPod it copies fine but then the error pops up.
But now it's fixed, and I'm not sure why. And I'm hoping it doesn't come back.
I remember I went into the iPod Touch itself. Went to...
Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings
After that, I got back to the window from iTunes asking if I want to manually manage songs. I unchecked the box next to the choice of letting iTunes do it automatically.
But Even after that, I had the synching problem.
So I went into the main iPod Touch tab in iTunes. Under options the "Manually manage music and videos" box WAS CHECKED. I decided to uncheck it. Maybe the iPod was observing 'Opposite Day'. I know my cellphone does. On my cellphone, when I choose to play videos without sound, it plays WITH sound. So, I dunno...
Anyway, after I UNCHECKED "Manually manage music and videos" I ejected the iPod and reconnected it. And I plugged the USB into another port. Guess what? It didn't automatically synch. And when I added music on my own from either iTunes or the Finder, it worked well too. The weirdest thing... when I went to have a look at the box next to "Manually manage music and videos" - it had been checked again, without my doing.
UPDATE: And as I began typing that last sentence - THE ERROR CAME BACK. So.. NEVERMIND! I'm still stuck and angry!
*UPDATE II:* The error happened again after a song I was listing to in iTunes from the Touch ended. Once it ended, the error popped up and music stopped playing. I tried dragging a new song from iTunes into the Touch and it wouldn't let me. I unplugged and then plugged the iPod back in, and dragged songs again. So far it works... SO FAR. So far no errors. I tried deleting a song from the Touch and also no problem.
*UPDATE III:* I did a test. I added album artwork to songs that had none, already inside my Touch. It took a bit longer than it would have on my computer, but all tracks on the album got the art work, and the error message has yet to display since I did so.
*UPDATE IV* I've only been adding up to 10 songs at a time, worried that it would freeze. This time I added 31 songs, and they all imported - no error messages. Currently I'm worried that if I play a song from my Touch through iTunes the message will return. I'm too afraid to do it deliberately. I know I was able to do so with no problem with my 2nd Gen 10GB iPod I've had for years. That was working with my computer as of 3 days ago!
Message was edited by: Daniel Brown

Error Msgs: iPhone cannot be synced..disk could not be read from or written

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