Why can't i move files to my external hardrive

I have a mac book, and for some reason i can't move files onto my hardrive? I can use it, watch movies ect. So surely that means that its formatted to be compatible with a mac?

1. Click on it, choose Get Info from the File menu, and check the format.
If it's formatted as NTFS, reformat it as MS-DOS, exFAT, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as desired, or install software such as Paragon NTFS on the computer.
If it's formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, use the Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on it; this may also happen for a flash drive which is about to fail.
If it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, click Authenticate and provide your administrator password, or change the permissions on that specific folder in its Get Info window.
2. No; it just means that Mac OS X can read the format it uses, which includes FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS, all of which were designed with Windows in mind.
(112422)

Similar Messages

Why Can't I Copy Files from an External Hard Drive or SD Card?

Major problem here... Why when I try copying files from an external hard drive or an SD card onto my internal iMac hard drive, it doesn't work? The status bar that pops up, shows that it completes the transfer of the files to 100%; however, when it does in fact finish, the files actually do not appear on my hard drive.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is one of many problems I have been finding with OS X Lion and am very much on the verge of going back to Snow Leopard.
Thank you.

Have u tried the usual? Safe boot. Delete finder plist files? etc. And the drives are formatted for mac yes?

Why can't I move files by dragging any more?

Since I got Mavericks I'm having copying files by dragging them. When I drag a file from one folder to the desktop I get an alias. I have to literally copy the file paste where I want it to go, and then delete the original. This is a text file. Is there a way I can get it to just move the file from one place to another by dragging? I can Option drag a file but then I have to delete the original.

Hi Ken Spiker!
I have an article for you that may help you understand these aspects of Mavericks a little better:
OS X Mavericks: Drag and drop
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14307
Take care, and thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities.
-Braden

Why can't i move files from one folder to another by sliding them?

help. i am trying to move files from one folder to another. but i cant slide them by clicking on a file and sliding it to another place. any suggestions? thank

Go to Finder "Go" menu hold the option key and choose Library. Then go to Preferences trash these files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
Then, restart, or log out and in again.
(You will have to reset a few finder prefs the way you like them.)

I Can No Longer See Files On My External Hardrive

I'm trying to import some files from my external HD into FCP and here's what's happening: I shot some video on HDV and had to import it onto an old iMac via iMovie HD. I saved those files and the iMovie docs onto an external HD (using 314GB on a 1TB HD). The first time I loaded the drive onto my iMac (2009 10.6.8) I saw everything, but once I tried to open one of the two iMovie documents it wouldn't open in iMovie 2008. So I downloaded iMovie HD and was able to open it once. The next time I tried, the file wouldn't open. Then I noticed that the icon for the doc had dissapeared from the Finder, along with a folder that conatined the indivual quicktimes. i know they weren't erased as I stil see that 314 BG of memory are being used, and I can still open one of the two iMovie docs.
There's footage I need to get to that I imported from my the HD camera into iMovie. I would just reimport the tapes into FCP, but the camera was a rental, and I don't have access to a HDV recorder. The whole idea was to import the footage and save it to an ext HD so I could just drop it all right into FCP and start working, but so far this seemingly strightforward task has become a huge headache.
If anyone can help me with this it would be greatly appreciated.

You have some sort of issue with the external drive, I would use a powered USB hub first if it's not self powered.
Next I would be looking at purchasing software to direct recover your files from the 1's and 0's of the bits themselves on the external drive as it appears your directory or something is hosed.
Software that comes to mind is DataRescue $99 which you can download and test first before buying, then send the recovered files to another blank external drive.
Once you've got your files recovered, then your all set to mess around and experiment.
Try to access the files with the program version that originally created them, I'm not all that up to speed on iMovie, but I do know there are issues with using older Apple software versions with newer version altered files.

Why can I not move files in LR from 1 HDD to another

Hi there.
LR 4
I need to move a bunch of pictures located in different sub-folders on Drive C: to my new 2Tb Drive D:
I try to move it in LR via the import function with MOVE. But, they are all greyed out (not selectable) and when I try to move 1-by-1 by right-clicking on a picture, a message is displayed telling me that the picture is already in the catalogue. I know it is already in the catalogue. All I need to do is to move it to another HDD.
How would you do this? I have just thought of deleting all files in the catalogue and import them then, but it just does not feel right.
Your suggestions will be very valueble.

Do you see your new @TB drive D in LR? If yes, create a new folder there as John said. In Grid View on the left side is the folders panel. You create the new folder in the folders panel. Right-click where it says "D:" and select <Create folder inside D:>.
Then still in the folders panel drag-and-drop the folders from your old drive C to the new folder you just created on drive D.
But as John advised make a backup of your catalog first. Go >Edit>Catalog Settings and at the bottom of the General tab select <Every time Lr exits>. Then close Lr and the backup dialog will appear. Choose a location for your backup - maybe your new external drive and create the backup. Lr will close down after that. Re-open Lr and do the move of the folders as described above.
PS: Do NOT use the import function. You said "is it on the right side?" No! that's in the Import dialog. Cancel import and go to Grid View. the folders panel is on the left side there.
Message was edited by: web-weaver

Why can't I move files in Reader.

When I scroll to find the folder to place the file in, reader shut down.

Get the update to Reader 11.2.1 in the App Store.

Why can't I copy files from my external hard drive - error code -50.

I sm trying to back up an external hard drive to a network drive. Some files copy but not all;. SOmetimes a folder seems to have copied but then I see that most of the files inside have not. And sometimes I just get 'An unexpected error has occurred'. Error code - 50.
I need to have a back up copy of the files on this hard drive. How can I stop this happening and copy files properly and securely?
The external hard drive is a LaCie bought from Apple, share formatted FAT32.
The network drive is a WD MyBookLIve Duo which WD tell me should work equally well with any operating system.
Please advise. I need to archive a security copy of this data urgently
John Wood

Have u tried the usual? Safe boot. Delete finder plist files? etc. And the drives are formatted for mac yes?

Whenever I modify a photo in Iphoto it puts it in a "modified" subfolder. Why can't I move this modified file (I changed name) back to the Iphoto main file so I can see it when I open my photos?

Whenever I modify a photo in Iphoto it puts it in a "modified" subfolder. Why can't I move this modified file (I changed and saved file name) back to the Iphoto main file so I can see it when I open my photos?

A good general step for strange issues is to renew the iPhoto preference file - quit iPhoto and go to "your user name" ==> library ==> preferences ==> com.apple.iPhoto.plist and trash it - launch iPhoto which creates a fresh new default preference file and reset any personal preferences you have changed and if you have moved the iPhoto library repoint to it. This may help
This does not affect your photos or any database information (keywords, faces, places, ratings, etc) in any way - they are stored in the iPhoto library - the iPhoto preference file simply controls how iPhoto works - which is why renewing it is a good first step.
If that does not cure it backup up your iPhoto library and rebuild it - depress the option and command keys and launch iphoto and use the options there - exact option depends on teh version you have
And always remember - NEVER make any changes of any sort to the structure or content of the iPhoto library - nothing - no deletions - no name changes - nothing
LN

Why can't I move the "name" column??

This is a question that has been bothering me for a very long time. Why can't I move the "Name" column in the library (or playlist) view away from it's left position? It seems to be locked into place. I can move and arrange artist, album, time, bitrate, track #, etc etc etc to any configuration I so desire, but yet the name column remains eternally glued to the left side of that pane, never to be moved.
The reason I ask, is because when I organize my music, I don't immediately think of track names, I think of artists. Especially in this day of cds I am hard pressed to recall individual song names. At home my albums and cds are filed by artist name, not by song name (physically impossible, obviously). It's a natural tree-like organization... artist->album->song name. I want to configure the library view in iTunes to match this same logical hiearchy but for some reason iTunes will not let me do this one extremly simple thing... argh and double argh!! Is there any reason for this? Is there any way to solve this?

Chad hello,
Everybody here has given you good advice so I will explain why the name column can not be moved...
Your Music library is a data base and a data base has to have at least one totally unique index field for each file... now it can not be the Artist as you can have as many songs as you like by the same artist... same reason for the album, one album can have many songs but the same album name... same for genre etc.
The only thing that can be unique is the song title... If you put the exact same song by the same artist the program will assign a unique name by adding a number in front of the extension for each duplicate .... example
Song Name.mp3
Song Name_1.mp3
Song Name_2.mp3
So when you think about it the song name is the only thing that is different... one album by the same Artist may have more than one track of exactly the same length, size, genre, composer etc. moving through all fields except the name....
Now why can't you move the name column... well all the other fields do not have to be unique so you can move and/or remove these columns but if you could remove the name column you could end up with more than one entry in your library looking exactly the same.... you have to have something that allows you to separate them and that is the unique index field 'Song Name'....it could not work any other way..
hope you can follow all that.... take care... TP

How can I convert .mov files for use with other apps?

When loading movies taken on a friend's digital camera to my PC, the video files were saved as Quicktime .mov files. I am now unable to pull those files into any other software program (I want to put them onto a CD or DVD and play on external players.) How can I convert .mov files to a .wmv or .avi or mpeg?
Thanks - J
RS720G Windows XP

Kodak Digital Camera QuickTime MOV Problems
After battling a number of serious problems with the videos taken by my new Kodak Digital Camera, I decided to write up this page so that anyone searching the web would find out the true answers without as much grief!
I’ve also made some other comments about my experience with the camera, in case anyone was considering buying a Kodak camera in the near future.
I bought the camera just before Christmas 2004 in the US. At the time of writing, it is a pretty good model for domestic use—about 5.2 megapixels, costing about US$400 (or AU$600 back here in Australia). From a company as reputable as Kodak, I expected no problems.
The first disappointing thing was that the spring inside the spring-loaded battery clip, inside the camera, came loose within days. It proved impossible to reattach it without completely dismantling the camera, which (despite my engineering qualifications) I was not willing to do. This would usually have been a warranty item, but Kodak’s warranty does not extend to other countries. I’ve since had to jam cardboard in to keep the battery clip engaged, and have taped the battery bay shut to avoid it opening accidentally when taking the camera out of the case. This works fine with the docking station (an extra AU$100!), but it means I can no longer charge the battery without the docking station (since you need to take it out to charge it). I was not impressed!
The camera takes good photos, and I have no complaint with that. The controls and camera menus are well-designed. The large display is excellent.
The EasyShare software is not as easy to use as it looks, has a habit of crashing, has a web update program that is always running in the background of Windows, and transferring images is nowhere as easy or quick as it should be. I’ve now uninstalled it completely, and simply copy the photos directly from the device. (If the camera memory is nearly full, and you just want to transfer the last few photos, then it’s impossible to use the EasyShare software to browse the camera’s photos without it actually downloading the whole lot through the USB cable—and it takes forever! Copying from the device directly doesn’t hit this bug.)
The capability to take video using the camera was a great attraction when I selected it, and, if it worked properly, it would make it quite a handy little camcorder in its own right. With a 512 MB memory card in it, over an hour of video can be recorded at Video-CD quality (320 x 240 24fps video, 8 kHz audio). It’s not full digital video, but it would still be a pretty good feature for a US$400 camera. If it worked.
The first disappointing thing about taking videos is that the optical zoom cannot be adjusted while the camera is recording. It can only be adjusted between video sequences. I don’t know why this restriction was made in the design.
The real problems, however, start when you try to do anything with the video clips captured by the camera. Kodak has chosen to capture the videos in QuickTime format. This is fine—QuickTime is, technically, excellent—except that there is no simple way to convert QuickTime MOV files to AVI or MPEG or VCD. The Kodak software comes with a QuickTime player, so you can see the video clips on the computer you installed the software on—and they look good. Problem is that you can’t just dump those MOV files onto your Video-CD creator (it will usually want AVI or MPEG files).
It takes some time to realise that Kodak have not even bothered to include any software with the camera that can convert these MOV files to a more useful format. This is a serious PR blunder, and anyone bitten by this is unlikely to go near the Kodak brand ever again.
After some web searching, owners of these cameras generally find that the best (only?) freeware solution to convert MOV to AVI is Bink and Smacker’s RADtools program.
RADtools is amazingly powerful for the price (i.e. free), but it hits two fundamental problems with Kodak Digital Camera MOV video files, that are the fault of the Kodak camera, not RADtools. (I know this because every other MOV converter hits the same problems—except one, as you will see below.)
The first problem is that the sound cannot be converted properly. When you convert any Kodak MOV files, there is an “aliasing” of the sound at the upper frequencies. This is a technical description—you get a whispery, tinny, C3PO type of echo to everything. It really destroys the quality of the video clips (especially bad when I am trying to capture priceless memories of my 4- and 7-year-old sons—I don’t want their voices destroyed for all time).
Every conversion program I tried ended up with the same audio problem. I concluded that it is something strange in the way the Kodak cameras store the MOV files.
Strangely enough, I noticed that the QuickTime player didn’t distort the audio like this. The audio sounds just fine through QuickTime. More on this shortly.
The second, more serious problem is that RADtools could not properly convert some of the video clips at all. (This problem only affected less than 10% of the clips I originally filmed, but most of those clips were very short—less than 20 seconds. It seems that the probability of this problem gets worse, the longer the clip.) RADtools would misreport the number of frames in the clip, and would stretch out a small number of frames of video (in slow motion) to match the length of the audio.
Again, I confirmed that this is a property of some of the MOV files stored by the camera. Other conversion tools also had problems with the same MOV clips.
After more angst, I found a number of websites in which frustrated owners of these Kodak cameras have reported the exact same problems.
It was only then that I discovered that QuickTime itself can convert MOV files to AVI. Believe it or not, it’s built into the QuickTime Player that Kodak supplies, or that you can download free from apple.com. The problem is that you can’t use it unless you pay Apple to upgrade to QuickTime Pro.
After realising that this would probably be the only way to get decent audio for these clips, I paid the AU$59 to Apple Australia to get the licence key that enables the extra “Pro” menu options in QuickTime.
Sure enough, you can “Export” any MOV file to a number of formats, including AVI. And guess what? The audio comes out fine!
So, the first piece of advice I can give is: pay Apple the US$29 (or whatever amount it is in your country) to upgrade QuickTime to QuickTime Pro.
From here, however, there are still a few snags to untangle.
The first is that the default settings for Exporting to AVI don’t give a great result. It defaults to the Cinepak codec, medium quality. This looks terrible compared to the original QuickTime movie. Even on maximum quality, that codec just doesn’t give good results.
I finally found that the best option is to use the Intel Indeo Video 4.4 codec, set on maximum quality. This creates AVI files that are 10 to 20 times larger than the original MOV files, but the quality is there. If (like me) you only want the AVI files so you can dump them into your Video-CD program, then you want to keep the quality as high as possible in this first step. The extra hard disk space is not really a concern. When your VCD program converts the AVI files to MPEG, it will compress them to the usual VCD size.
Now for the biggest snag: those problem MOV files are still a problem, even for QuickTime Pro. Unbelievably, these Kodak cameras are spitting out MOV files which have some sort of technical flaw in their data specifications. QuickTime is able to play them back fine—and that seems to be all that the Kodak engineers really checked. However, if QuickTime Pro tries to export them, then when the progress bar gets to the end, it never finishes. It just keeps going. If you check the output folder with Explorer, and keep hitting F5 to update the file listing, you can see the file getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It never stops.
That this happens even for QuickTime itself (the native format for these files) confirms that the problem is with the software built into these Kodak cameras. It would be nice it they issued a patch or a fix. I couldn’t find one.
Fortunately, there is a “workaround” for this problem. I found it when trolling the net trying to find solutions to all these problems. The workaround is to use QuickTime Pro’s cut and paste facility. Open the problem MOV file, then press Ctrl-A (the standard key combination for “select all”—in this case it selects the entire film clip, as you can see by the grey selection of frames at the bottom of the player). Then hit Ctrl-C (i.e. copy, which in this case copies all the frames, but not the incorrect data structure in the original MOV file). Now hit Ctrl-N (i.e. new, in this case a new MOV file or player). In this new player, press Ctrl-V (i.e. paste). Now you have a new version of the MOV file with the bad data structure exorcised. You can save this under a new name, but make sure you specify “Make movie self-contained”—otherwise, it will simply be a link to the original (bad) MOV file, which you are probably going to delete once you save the exorcised version. (You also cannot overwrite the original file, because it needs to access that to make the “self-contained” movie. You need to give it a slightly different name, save it “self-contained”, then delete the original and rename the new copy back to what you wanted it to be. A pain, I agree, but at least the **** thing works—finally!)
The exorcised MOV file can now be used to Export to AVI format. (I also keep all the MOV files on a separate CD, in case I want to reconvert them to a different format in the future. I figure it’s better keeping the exorcised ones than the haunted ones.)
So I hope that all this answers a few of your questions. No, you weren’t being incredibly stupid.

I suddenly can't watch .mov files with the QuickTime Player x?

I suddenly can't watch .mov files with the QuickTime Player x? There is always the message, i should look after new software! Can you help me?

Handy-dandy cut and paste to the rescue!
you need to install some other stuff to get the full file functionality back.
Here's the list.
Start with QT 7.6.6. - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923
Get Perian, and install it. - http://perian.org
then VLC, - http://videolan.org
DivX - http://divx.com - and the
Flip4Mac package from Telestream - http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac/
A52/AC3 downloader: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21875/a52codec - In this installer package there is an audio A52Codec.component. DO NOT USE IT! Throw it out and use the one that is linked below.
This is what I've put into my system and so far I've gotten every file to run fine, even my oldest videos.
These are codecs you should see.
In System/Library/QuickTime
     AppleIntermediateCodec.component
     AppleMPEG2Codec.component* (*optional if you've bought it)
     DivX Decoder.component
     Flip4Mac WMV Advanced.component
     Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
     Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
In your Home/Library/QuickTime/
     AC3MovieImport.component (you may or may not want this component, in some instances it causes conflicts. In my system, it doesn't. Who knows why? I don't.)
     Perian.component
For AC3 sound that is in most .mkv files, you need the A52Codec.component, this is the one you want, here: https://code.google.com/p/subler/downloads/detail?name=A52Codec.component.zip - unzip the file and put the component into the System/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components
Go back to your Perian settings and in the Audio Output button, set it to 'Multi Channel Sound' - Ignore the message Perian puts up and select it.
By doing a 'Get Info' on your files and where it says 'Open With' - default them to the QuickTime 7 program. Perian no longer will work with QuickTime Player so you must have QT 7.6.6 and set it so it is the default for all the filetypes you use.
It works perfectly with QT7. So far I've gotten ALL my old videos to play.
.avi, .mov (with the AC3 sound), .wmv, .flv, .mp4 and .m4v. all run fine as do all the older formats.
Good luck!
Deb.

Why can I not move songs/playlist from my iPhone5 to my iTunes on new laptop?

why can't I move songs/playlist from my iPhone5 to my iTunes on new laptop?

The sync is one way - computer to iphone. The exception is itunes purchases: File>Devices>Transfer Purchases
Copy everything from your old computer, or your backup copy of your old computer, to your new one.

Why can't I do file sharing between Macintoshes ?

Why can't I do file sharing between two Macintoshes ?
I have 2 Macs in the same room. Both are connected to the same router (wired, not wifi), I have verified their connection by going to the Internet successfully on both machines.
I have disabled all security functions I am aware of. I turned off firewall, turned on file sharing, allowed all users for file sharing.
Yet, when I tried to connect to the other Mac permission is denied. I'm told to contact the network administrator, (that's me). Both machines are running OS 10.9.5.
Strangely, I was able to do “screen sharing” which doesn't solve my problem.
I just want to move files from one Mac to the other.
Is there something I'm missing here?

(Yosemite falsely identifies iMovie HD 06 as not compatible.)
Actually, it is by design; according to their Engineers, they have coded iMovie HD 06 not to launch - that is what I was told after submitting my bug report. So, it still works in Mavericks, but that is as far as it'll go.

HT3523 I can play an .mov file but cannot open it to move it to another drive/disc/etc. When we try to open it, we get a message that says "The movie file for "beanmine.mov" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly."

We can play a .mov file (a full-length film created in final cut pro) but cannot actually open it in QuickTime. We get the error message saying that a file is missing, and the movie can't play properly without the file. The thing is, we can play the film, we just can't open it to move it to another drive. Help?
Also, can the lost file (which was deleted) be recovered from a Mac HD or an external hard drive?
Help!

We can play a .mov file (a full-length film created in final cut pro) but cannot actually open it in QuickTime. We get the error message saying that a file is missing, and the movie can't play properly without the file. The thing is, we can play the film, we just can't open it to move it to another drive. Help?
Sounds like you created a "Reference" file here. I.e., a "Reference" file is a file that tells the player how to play the data contained in a "Resource" file. When you try to open the "Reference" file in the QT Player app, the first thing the player does is check to see if the "Resource" data file is is still available where it is supposed to be. (I.e., moving/deleting the resource file or moving reference file without moving the resource file to maintain the relative path between the two will generate the error message you mentioned.)
Also, can the lost file (which was deleted) be recovered from a Mac HD or an external hard drive?
That depends. Deleting a file does not actually erase the data immediately. Instead, the operating system just tells the system directory that the space containing the movie data is available for reuse if/when needed. As time passes, the chance that some of the data sectors will be re-written by other data continuously increases. To restore the file normally requires use of a special utility that both locates and restores all of the linked sectors containing the "deleted" movie data in their correct order. Other methods of restoring files would depend on the software you routinely have active on your system. For instance, do you use "TimeMachine?" or orther software that automatically backs up your data periodically? If so, then follow the instructions for your particular application to recover a deleted file.

Why can't i move files to my external hardrive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for