Folder names shortened (renamed)?

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Folder names shortened (renamed)?

Hi,

I recently purchased a 13" macbook pro and am having a problem with several random folders on an external hard drive being renamed to shorter directory titles. Now i know for a fact that it doesn't have anything to do with character length, because the folders being affected are random, and not of a specific title length, and are renamed to look like so:

BEC7A2~1, BOC020~1

This is the case for about 6 or 7 random folders on my external drive and I would like to know if there is any way to fix this, and yes I have already tried renaming them (to what they were before) and it just reverts back to "BEC7A2~1". I am wondering if this is a bug, or anything I can fix, thanks for any help!

**
Oh and might I add, that If I (by repeatedly renaming) eventually get the folder to stay at the name that I want it to be at, another folder will randomly rename to capital letters and ~ and a number. This is very frustrating and I assume it is a bug or something.

Message was edited by: xneila

Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Mar 2, 2010 3:08 PM

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Answer 1

xneila Author

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Mar 5, 2010 6:24 PM in response to xneila

can anyone give me any info about this problem? its very random and i'm sure its a bug or something, thanks.

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Answer 2

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Mar 5, 2010 6:53 PM in response to xneila

xnelia --
This is very puzzling!
What application made these files?
I mean, is there just one application that turns into these files, or several different apps?
Like Word, PDF, InDesign, Excel files???

Or are they all made under different apps?

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Answer 3

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Mar 5, 2010 7:21 PM in response to xneila

xnella: I've never heard of anything like this, but I've put out a call for reinforcements, so I hope someone with a clue will stop by.

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Answer 4

xneila Author

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Mar 5, 2010 7:30 PM in response to TildeBee

thanks for the replies,

they are all music folders with mp3 files, and the actual folders that get renamed are in two sub directories, the root folder being titled 'mp3' and the other sub-directorys are genre of sorts. What is most puzzling is that when i plug in the external drive into a windows laptop, the folders are not affected, and upon plugging the drive BACK into my macbook pro, the folders are all how the originally were named, all except one.

Still this is a very frustrating issue because when i add a new folder to any of these sub directories while running the macbook, that seems to be "too long," the folders are renamed to how i mentioned above "BOC020~1". My question that now remains is how long can a folder and/or whole path title be without it being affected, and why or how are only random folders being affected, and not all.

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

56,692 points

Mar 5, 2010 7:49 PM in response to xneila

If you are using that drive with Windows, it must be in a Windows-compatible format. Than means there are more restrictions on how you can name the files. You can install NTFS on your Mac and then re-format the drive as NTFS and that should help.

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Answer 6

xneila Author

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Mar 5, 2010 7:53 PM in response to etresoft

so you're telling me that my macbook needs to be NTFS, as does the external drive? Because at this point, the macbook is default, so I don't really want to mess with a brand new configuration, and the external is FAT32, which is what i was told would be more compatible with mac os. So does it all boil down to compatibility between operating systems or is this issue deeper than just that? thanks for the help.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Mar 5, 2010 8:09 PM in response to xneila

Well, you have to use shorter Filenames, no files over 4 GB in Size. none of these characters in a name...

"/\*?|:

One option is MacDrive for your PCs... allows them to Read/Write HFS+...

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

More options...

NTFS-3G Stable Read/Write Driver...

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

MacFUSE: Full Read-Write NTFS for Mac OS X, Among Others...

http://www.osnews.com/story/16930

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Answer 8

etresoft

Level 9

56,692 points

Mar 5, 2010 8:17 PM in response to xneila

xneila wrote:
so you're telling me that my macbook needs to be NTFS, as does the external drive?

No. Just the external drive, because you share it with Windows and want to use fancy file names.

Because at this point, the macbook is default, so I don't really want to mess with a brand new configuration, and the external is FAT32, which is what i was told would be more compatible with mac os. So does it all boil down to compatibility between operating systems or is this issue deeper than just that?

FAT32 isn't all that compatible. If you make sure to use fairly short file names without special characters, it should be fine regardless.

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Answer 9

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Mar 5, 2010 8:18 PM in response to xneila

No, etresoft isn't saying the drive inside your MBP needs to be formatted NTFS. If your external drive were reformatted NTFS, you wouldn't be stuck with the stringent file naming constraints that FAT32 imposes, but your Mac would only be able to read it, not write anything to it. The remedy for that, which etresoft suggested and BDAqua has seconded, is installing the freeware NTFS-3G file system driver, which enables a Mac to write to an NTFS-formatted disk.

I suspected this problem had something to do with the format of the external drive, but I've never seen such arbitrary-looking filenames forced by FAT32. In my own experience, the names have just been truncated, not completely garbled.

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Answer 10

xneila Author

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Mar 5, 2010 8:23 PM in response to xneila

i appreciate all of the replies and help first off. i now understand that either i need to reformat my external to ntfs in order for these renamings of folders to not take place, thus leaving me not able to write to the drive, or just simply using very short directory names.

but the issue remains that the folders being affected were random, and not all (that were longer than should be) were affected.

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Mar 5, 2010 9:45 PM in response to xneila

thus leaving me not able to write to the drive,

But I provided links to make your Mac be able to write to NTFS volunes, it already can read them.

Or the Link so your PCs can Read & Write Mac's HFS+.

but the issue remains that the folders being affected were random, and not all (that were longer than should be) were affected. were they longer than 8+3 for the extension, and all Caps A-Z +0 through 9?

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Answer 12

xneila Author

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Mar 6, 2010 2:54 PM in response to BDAqua

now i see that it seems that there must be a maximum number of "long length" folder names there can be in a directory, because if i add a new folder to a sub-dir with more characters than "acceptable," and get the name to stay, another random folder will rename to its hashed name such as i mentioned before with caps and the (~) symbol plus a number.
thanks everyone who responded and tried to help, but it seems i need to format this drive to get it to stop doing these random actions.

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