Stubborn folders in FAT32 drive won't budge...

I'm having similar access issues.

Not sure if it's a Finder bug of some kind or an issue with MAc OS FAT32 handling.

I've been trying to copy some old files across from internal drives on a PC I can't boot (several drives not just the boot disk), and either get permissions errors or Finder hangs with spinning beach ball of death.

FAT32 folders occasionally have a lock icon on them, but I can;t see they contain anything I would have protected/encrypted, and sometimes I can copy all files within, sometimes not.

All rather bizarre and inconsistent.

Tried both my windows credentials and Mac OS admin credentials when dialogue asks for them but to no avail.

I'd say 95% of stuff is copying ok, with identical numbers of files copied and bytes used for storage, though some folders do not quite match in terms of bytes on disk for same no of files - wondering if this suggests some file table corruption on teh FAT32 drive, but I plan to salavage as much as possible first before running any utilities on them.

AC

if something is locked and won't "budge" on a FAT formatted drive the ONLY way to get rid of it is from windows (well, you can also completely reformat the drive, but that's a bit extreme). FAT file system doesn't understand unix permissions, ACLs, flags etc, so if something is locked there then it's locked for good when accessed from OS X.

See if anything here helps:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1526

..." FAT file system doesn't understand unix permissions, ACLs, flags etc,"...

Just curious...

I keep my flash drive formatted FAT32 for the rare occasions I need to attach it to a Windows computer, and it seems to support ' arch', ' uchg' and ' hidden' flags at least. The behaviour isn't quite the same. for example the ' hidden' flag doesn't actually hide the item in OS X while it is on the FAT drive, but setting and unsetting flags is possible, and if the files are copied from the FAT volume to an HFS+ volume while preserving flags (eg. with ' ditto'), they behave as expected once on the HFS+ volume. The above flags can be set and unset from OS X. All of this happens in the absence of "AppleDouble" files on the FAT volume.

So, can you elaborate on the statement that FAT file system doesn't understand flags? I have seen this issue come up a number of times on this site so I don't doubt that there is something going on and am curious about exactly what it is, eg. what actual flag is involved, how to set it from Windows so I can try tinkering with it, etc...

ok, I was wrong and you are right: FAT does support some (but not all) flags. according to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileAllocation_Table#Directorytable
it supports hidden, read only and archive flags. the read only flag corresponds to the immutable flag but it seems that OS X can have problems with these flags due to the differences in the way HFS+ and FAT store those flags. I've seen plenty of posts and had a first hand experience when a read only flag set in windows was completely impossible to remove in os x. I spent a LOT of time trying to do it once and gave up eventually. Interestingly, I just tried it again with a FAT formatted thumb drive and I had no problems setting a read only flag in windows and removing it from OS X! conversely, I can set a uchg flag in OSX, it then shows up as a read only flag in windows and can be removed there without any issues. so I don't know what exactly is going on here.

P.S. I had the same experience with the hidden flag as you I can set it but it has no effect on finder. again, this is most likely due to some glitches in the way OS X interprets FAT flags.

Some of the files/folders with locks applied on their icons I've found can be unlocked using Get Info, but oddly it's not usually these that giv me problems when copying the files.

Just 'salavaged' another FAT32 drive and everything copied without a hitch.

Strange.

..." had a first hand experience when a read only flag set in windows was completely impossible to remove in os x. I spent a LOT of time trying to do it once and gave up eventually."...

..." Some of the files/folders with locks applied on their icons I've found can be unlocked using Get Info, but oddly it's not usually these that giv me problems when copying the files."...

Hmm, looks like an interesting puzzle -- I'm really curious about what's going on. Like I said, I rarely have occasion to use Windows so haven't seen this problem myself. Hopefully someone reading this thread can identify steps to reproduce the issue(s)...