What do I do when files disappear on external drives?

The other day I opened my external hard drive (1TB and says it has 500GB left) only to find all my files on it gone! I can sometimes see some of them and I know the info is still on the drive cause I can see the size of the drive but I cant get it back no matter what program I scan it with! It will always say that it is in use as well, even though nothing is using it at all. Something about the .DS file. Any help?

I have scanned it with:
TechTool Pro 6,
Disk Utility,
Data Rescue 3,
Data Rescue II,
Disk Doctor,
Disk Expert,
MacScan 2,
But Thats All I know how to use. I am downloading Diskwarrior right now, so let me know if you have any other thoughts until I run it.

Similar Messages

Deleted Files disappeared from external drive but space is still occupied ( iMac )

Hello all...
I have this problem.
Whenever I delete items from my external hard drive, using iMac (running mavericks), the files disappear from the drive window but their space will be still occupied. if i format the drive using my mac, everything will disappear & the whole drive capacity would be available for use.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Luk

Unless you empty the trash while the external is attached, the files will remain in the trash. You will gain back your space after you empty it.

Adobe Bridge shuts down when I try to access files on my external drive. Have been using the drive for months with no problems.

Adobe Bridge shuts down when I try to access files on my external drive. Have been using the drive for several months with no problems.

Due to the current unavailability of clairvoyants and mind-readers in the forum, we respectfully request you supply sensible, complete details.
A lot more information about your hardware and software is needed.
BOILERPLATE TEXT:
If you give complete and detailed information about your setup and the issue at hand,
such as your platform (Mac or Win),
exact versions of your OS, of Photoshop (not just "CC", but something like CC2014.v.2.2) and of Bridge,
your settings in Photoshop > Preference > Performance
the type of file you were working on,
machine specs, such as total installed RAM, scratch file HDs, total available HD space, video card specs, including total VRAM installed,
what troubleshooting steps you have taken so far,
what error message(s) you receive,
if having issues opening raw files also the exact camera make and model that generated them,
if you're having printing issues, indicate the exact make and model of your printer, paper size, image dimensions in pixels (so many pixels wide by so many pixels high). if going through a RIP, specify that too.
a screen shot of your settings or of the image could be very helpful too,
etc.,
someone may be able to help you (not necessarily this poster, who is not a Windows user).
Please read this FAQ for advice on how to ask your questions correctly for quicker and better answers:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Thanks!

I'm a new MAC user and I'm trying to transfer my iTunes music files to my Mac, however when I attach the external drive that contains the music files, they aren't visible on the MAC (but they are visible on my old PC). How do I get my music loaded?

I'm a new MAC user and I'm trying to transfer my iTunes music files to my Mac, however when I attach the external drive that contains the music files, the music files aren't visible on the MAC (but they are visible on my old PC). How do I get my music transferred? I have already exported the purchased music from the iTunes library, but I have thousands of songs from my private CD collection that I had previously loaded through iTunes.

Paragon Software has the most reliable NTFS driver for Mac
tips on importing and organizing, transferring from Windows etc
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes
http://www.ilounge.com

HT2237 I am trying to delete unwanted files from an external drive and am getting error code -50. What do I need to do to clear this and delete the files?

Can someone tell me how to clear this error. I am trying to delete unwanted files from an external drive and get error code -50. How do I clear this so I can delete these files? Thanks.

Re: Error Code-50 when trying to copy or delete files on external hard drive

30GB of space disappears on External Drive after failed DMG copy via USB

I have a 298.1 GB external Western Digital hard drive connected to my iMac by a USB 2.0 cable. It is formatted in NTFS-3G so I can use it with both my PC and Mac. Yesterday in Disk Utility I created a 50GB 256-bit encrypted DMG and told Disk Utility to save it on a folder in my external drive. It got to about 20GB and then my house's power went out. A few hours later when the power came back on, I turned on my computer, and the available space on my external hard drive went down from about 100GB to 68.21GB.
The first thing I thought was that the DMG transfer ended prematurely so I should just find and delete the incomplete DMG from the hard drive. So I went to the folder I saved it in and it was not there. I checked all the folders and I couldn't find any DMG in there. Then I went to the root of the external drive and used Get Info to find the space each folder took up. It adds up to 194.12 GB. So I subtracted 194.12 from 298.1 and got 103.98. If I'm supposed to have 103.98 GB, why do I only have 68.21 GB available? I double and triple checked the size of everything on the disk and I still should have about 30GB more than I do. The 30GB just disappeared.
I tried verifying the disk in Disk Utility and got:
2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400: Verifying volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
Starting verification tool: 2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-v" "/dev/disk1s1"
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Invoking user: MP
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Entering function Verify.
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** No NTFS file system checks have been implemented yet.
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** Reporting that the volume is fine without checking anything.
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Reporting that the volume is fine, even though that may not be the case (no fs checks performed).
2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Returning from function Verify.
Verifying tool completed: 2009-06-14 11:12:42 -0400
So it appears that it's only telling me that it's fine without even checking. I then tried repair disk and got the error message:
2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400: Verify and Repair volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
Starting repair tool: 2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-y" "/dev/disk1s1"
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Invoking user: MP
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Entering function Repair...
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Marking volume to be checked at next Windows boot.
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] "/usr/local/bin/ntfsfix" "" currently disabled.
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix has been disabled because of volume corruption issues.
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** If you still want to try fixing your volume, use /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix from the command line...
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Returning from function Repair with FSUR_INVAL.
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Disk Utility stopped repairing “SHADUSMEDIA” because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
I tried restarting my iMac and disconnected and reconnecting the cable and that didn't work. I plugged it into my PC and it still says that all the files on my external drive add up to 194.12 GB. Which still means I should have 103.98 GB of free space instead of 68.21 GB.
So I'm stumped now and not quite sure what to do. Here is the information about the external drive from Disk Utility:
Name : SHADUSMEDIA
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk1s1
Mount Point : /Volumes/SHADUSMEDIA
File System : Windows NT Filesystem (NTFS-3G)
Connection Bus : USB
Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 298.1 GB (320,070,288,384 Bytes)
Free Space : 68.3 GB (73,348,239,360 Bytes)
Used : 229.8 GB (246,722,048,512 Bytes)
Number of Files : 145,472
Number of Folders : 0
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : No
Can Repair Permissions : No
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : No
Supports Journaling : No
Journaled : No
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 1
You can see on there it says I've used 229.8 GB, when I've actually only used 194.12 GB. Here are the specs from System Profiler for my iMac:
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09
SMC Version: 1.8f2
Serial Number: QP6450GKVUX
I'm running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6. If you need any more information just ask, I'd really like to get my 30GB back. Thanks in advance.

Can anyone help?

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.

.DS_store won't let me move files from one external drive to another

I am trying to move some music files from one external harddrive to another. They are both connected to my mac mini.
In the "from" harddrive I have a folder with a bunch of music files in it and it also has a new file in it called DS_store. When I open this folder and select all, it naturally selects all of my music files and this DS_store file. When I try to drag all of this to the "destination" harddrive I open the folder that I want to drag them to which already has some music and it has the DS_store file too, it won't let me drag the files to it   It says something like there is already a DS_store file there. So I tried deleting that file from each external drive and it just reappears.
If I create an empty folder in the destination drive, I can drag all of the files to it. The problem is I want the new files to be in the same folder with the older files.
In addition there are a few other ghost type files that have shown up too.
Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.

If you're copying from a FAT-formatted volume, do as below.
Back up all data.
Select the text on the line below by dragging across it. Don't include the blank space at the end of the line. Only the text should be highlighted.
dot_clean -m
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Now switch to the Finder and and select the icon of the FAT volume. Drag into the Terminal window. More text will be added to what you entered.
Click in the Terminal window to activate it, then press return.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear. Then quit Terminal and try the copy again.

Moving Lossless files to an external drive

How do I move Apple Lossless files to an external drive & still have iTunes know about them?
When I started ripping my CD collection I encoded them with Apple Lossless. Then I converted each track to AAC.
Why? Well, on the basis that I wanted to have a high quality version of each track (you never know when it might be useful). Of course, I wanted the AAC version for my iPod.
Now my internal drive is getting full so I want to be able to move all the Lossless files to my Lacie Drive BUT not loose them from my iTunes library.
Any help and advice would be very much appreciated.

I think I've figured out how to do what you want. Here are some steps. The following assume that you don't use the "part of a compilation" option or don't care if this option gets reset.
1. Move all of your music to the external drive. To do this:
1.a. Open iTunes preferences, Advanced panel. Make sure "copy music into itunes library" and "keep itunes library organized" are checked.
1.b. Still in iTunes preferences, change the location of your iTunes Music Library (under Advanced) to the folder on the external drive where you will eventually want to store all of your lossless files.
1.c. Choose Advanced|Consolidate library, and wait while iTunes copies all of your music to the external drive.
2. In iTunes, select all of your lossy files (i.e. the files you want on your internal drive). Press Command-I to get info about these songs and then check the "Part of a Compilation" option. Press "ok". (iTunes may take some time to complete this step.)
3. In iTunes, select all of your lossless files, and un-check the "Part of a Compilation" option.
4. Re-open iTunes preferences, and change your iTunes library location back to the place (probably on your internal drive) where you'd like to keep your lossy files. If it asks you something about copying files to be consistent with your options, choose "no".
5. Now, open finder and find the folder you specified in step 1. Open it and the "iTunes Library" folder inside it. You should now have a folder for every artist in your iTunes library. There should also be a folder entitled "Compilations". Drag this folder into the "Library" icon in your iTunes window. Wait while iTunes copies all of your lossy songs back onto your internal drive.
6. If the "Compilations" folder you dragged in step 5 still exists, you should be able to delete it, as all of its contents should now be in a similar "compilations" folder in the folder you specified in step 4. (Check this before deleting, though!!!)
You're done. All of your lossless files are on the external drive. All of your lossy files are on the internal drive and you shouldn't have lost your ratings, etc. (At least, these steps worked for me, using the latest version of iTunes.) You can even change the "part of a compilation" settings as much as you please.
Good luck!

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

Hello,
my iMac (late 2009 model, OS X 10.7.4) is not booting anymore. The iMac stopps booting at the Apple logo and the spinning gear.
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
start with safe boot (Shift-Command-V) => I'll get a couple of error messages, e.g. disk0s2: I/O error. SATA WARNING: Enable Drive PHY PM failed
reset the NVRAM/PRAM => no change
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?
What I found out so far, it looks like a corrupted file system.
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.

How do I open files from an external drive? It's plugged into the second slot to the end.

How do I open files from an external drive? It's plugged into the second slot to the end. Did I plug it into the right place and how do I find the drive when trying to attach a file in an email?

Files on an external hard drive open just like files on the internal drive - but I get the idea that you are having a problem just finding and seeing those files. Is that correct?
What operating system is running on your MacBook?

CS5.5 crashes when connecting to an external drive

I'm using the blackmagic preset and Premiere Pro CS5.5 for the MAC and it is crashing.
It was working at first but when ever I try to import any file from my external drive it crashes.
I just have to click on the drive to search and it crashes.
Now it also crashes when trying to make a new project. Every time I click the external drive to save the new project there, bam! It crashes.
I also noticed when edditing prores files that when ever I added an effect to a video file, it started looking off. Weird colors, lines through the image.
CS5.5 is updated, so is my video card as far as I can tell.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
Please help!

And now when I try to save a project to my MAC HD it says "The scratch disks are right protected or unavailable. To open this project, the right disks will be set to your documents folder" When I continue... it crashes.
The error then is... "Could not create project file!"
I'm not sure what's going on??

I have my iTunes Library on and external hard drive. I have a new computer and want to use iTunes and KEEP my files on the external drive.

My iTunes library is on an external hard drive, and I was able to access / add to the library from my windows laptop.
I now have a new laptop, and want to be able to KEEP the library on the external drive while being able to use iTunes from the new laptop.
I have selected "choose library" in iTunes, and have chosen the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.
My media populates in iTunes on the new laptop version of iTunes, but when I click on a song iTunes says that it cannot locate the song.
Your help is kindly appreciated!

Thanks. Were the settings shown in your last screenshot in force when you added the song that's shown on being on the C: drive? It is also possible that at some point you ran iTunes with the external drive disconnected, in which case it will have defaulted to the library on the C: drive, or that you've run iTunes without explicitly selecting the library on the E: drive. To make sure the latter is the case, hold down SHIFT while starting iTunes, then when you get this prompt:
click on Choose Library..., navigate to the location of your current iTunes Library.itl file, and click Open.
Part of your issue may that its not obvious where that current database file is located. The folder layout on your E: drive isn't the one that's most easily managed - so its possible that the database file could be in:
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes 1
I suggest that a lot of your issues can be addressed by reshaping your library into the reliable "portable" layout as described in tt2's Make a split library portable user tip. Comparing your screenshot with the equivalent on my system (where I have a "well-formed" library on an external drive):
where:
there is just one iTunes folder with everything used by iTunes inside it
all media is held within subfolders of the iTunes Media folder
The way you have yours set up, where the iTunes Media Folder location is set to E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes rather than E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes Media is probably why some of your media is not being located correctly - the extent to which iTunes can correctly resolve locations is, to an extent, reliant on the folders for the different media kinds (Music, Audiobooks, etc.) being inside the iTunes Media media folder. One common misunderstanding (not helped at all by Apple's documentation!) is that the iTunes Media Folder location setting in Edit > Preferences > Advanced does not tell iTunes where to find anything; rather it determines where iTunes will put new additions to your Library, in conjunction with the Copy files to iTunes Media folder ... flag:
I would definitely take the time to work through the steps to bring your library into the "portable" shape - there may be few remaining issues with broken links when that's complete but this will be much easier to fix if your library is in a more standard structure.

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.

When copying folder to external drive, "An older item named.." appears even when the dates are the same

When I am manually backing up folders from Macbook Pro Mountain Lion to an external drive, the dates for folders are being misread? It will say "An older item named.." every time. I checked the dates and times and they are the same on Mountain Lion and the External drive for the files and the folders. It should send me back a message saying "An item named “” already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the one you’re moving?"
When I try to move an individual file to the external drive and the dates are the same, I get the correct message - "an item named "" already exists..." so the issue is only with the folders.
I have only had this issue since the update to OS 10.8. Any Suggestions? thanks

The modification date of a file is stored internally in seconds. The Finder rounds off to the nearest minute. If the age of two files differs by less than 30 seconds, they'll seem to have the same modification date in the Finder.

What do I do when files disappear on external drives?

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