forward slash/ turns into :semi colon

it turns my / into a :

Where exactly is this /?

Welcome to the discussions, paris12.

You want to avoid special characters as much as possible. Look at the URL for this webpage. http://discussions.apple.com -- forward slashes are VERY special characters. So special that you cannot use forward slashes in a website's name. Different programs treat these characters differently, but usually a forward slash cannot be used in a file name. That's why they were changed to colons (rather than just put up an error saying your site can't be published).

The web is picky about characters used in files and URLs. The following gives those to avoid:

Renaming a website or webpage and verboten characters

You can rename a site or page at any time by double-clicking its name in the site organizer and typing the new name.

The page name appears at the top of the visitor's browser.

The site name is included in the website's address (URL):

http://web.mac.com/your account name/ or
http://web.me.com/your account name/

Renamed pages and sites (as well as the site's URL) change online the next time you publish.

IMPORTANT: If you rename a site, previously created links to your site won't work; be sure to notify your visitors, especially your blog or podcast subscribers.

iWeb now converts spaces in site names to "_". Also avoid non-Roman characters; many get converted to numbers when you publish.

*Other characters that aren't recommended for use in website names are*: forward and backward slashes (/ \), brackets ([ ]), tilde (~), exclamation point !, question mark (?), "at" sign (@), number sign (#), dollar sign ($), ampersand (&), asterisk (*), colon (:), equal sign (=), comma (,), and double quotation marks ("). Using these characters may result in names with strange numbers in them.

Apple themselves seems to have created a bunch of filenames with forward slashes in them (Look in Library/Modem Scripts or Library/Printers/PPDs). I'm helping a friend backup her hard drive using a Maxtor One-Touch Mini III, and the Maxtor OneTouch MaxBack backup software chokes on any file with forward slashes in it, including PPDs and Modem Scripts. Though this is more a fault of Maxtor's software, it is extremely annoying that Apple allowed this bad file-naming to happen in the first place. Forward slashes are supposed to be reserved for paths, period.

Instead of renaming dozens of random files, I'm going to install Retrospect and see if that isn't crippled by this egregious oversight.

A curse on all your houses, whomever was responsible!

Your issue is with Maxtor only, not Apple. There is a lot of buzz at MacInTouch.com about problems with the Maxtors. Other HDs and backup applications don't have a problem with those file names.