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Level 1

6 points

Copy to external hard drive??

As I try to back up to an external drive, some albums copy over. But some stop in the middle and I get this message:

"The selected items cannot be put into the same location, because at least one of them named p1010030jpg is busy".

If I de-select this photo, I get the same message with another photo in the folder.

Any help is appreciated.

Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Dec 21, 2008 6:15 AM

17 replies

jpapin Author

Level 1

6 points

Jan 19, 2009 6:31 AM in response to Yer_Man

It worked. I was able to move the iPhoto Library after I reformatted. Thank You.

Now, I may have another issue. I can not be sure I have all my pictures in the iPhoto Library from the Pictures icon of my hardrive. In iPhoto, I organized all my pictures in different folders by the year. I also have additional folders by special events. In iPhoto Library on the hardrive, 2 of the years are in folders. There is a folder called "Modified", and it has almost all the years but none of the additional folders grouped by special events. There is an "Originals" folder which has almost all the years (not exactly the same as the "modified" folder), but still none of the additional folders grouped by special events. How can I be sure I have ALL my photos actually in iPhoto Library on the hardrive?

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,456 points

Jan 19, 2009 7:33 AM in response to jpapin

The simplest test to to compare the size of the folder on the internal versus the external. They should be identical.

That said, the organisation in the iPhoto Window is not necessarily the same as the organisation in the iPhoto Library Folder. There are no folders of images corresponding to your Albums. Albums, in fact, are virtual, in reality they are an instruction to the application to display these photos together. This is why a pic can be in 50 albums and take up no extra disk space.

A Note about the iPhoto Library Folder:

In this folder there are various files, which are the Library itself and some ancillary files. Then you have three core folders

ℹ Originals are the photos as they were downloaded from your camera or scanner.

(ii) Modified contains edited pics, shots that you have cropped, rotated or changed in any way.

(iii) Data holds the thumbnails the the app needs to show you the photos in the iPhoto Window.

Remember: iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.

Regards

TD

Copy to external hard drive??