Error -50: Files stuck on external hard drive

Hello there! This is my first post. I'm thankful for the opportunity to seek help on a unique issue that I can't seem to solve.


I'm running a 2022 Mac Studio M1 Ultra. I recently purchased a 26TB Seagate external HDD & have been moving files over to it to free up the 16TB Seagate drive for other purposes. I moved the majority of files over, but am now at a standstill. I get error code -50 which says 'The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred.' I've read every forum I could find on this & tried all the steps and nothing has worked up until now. I've ran First Aid in Disk Utility a million times, tried using other software I have (DaisyDisk) to see if I could figure out the issue & nothing has solved the problem.


I tried moving the files off the 26TB hard drive so I could reformat it, but unfortunately, I get the same error code when I try to now move the files off. So, essentially, I'm at a stand still of my files being stuck on this drive & unable to add more to it.


Any support is greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

Mac Studio (2022)

Posted on Feb 2, 2026 1:51 PM

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Error -50: Files stuck on external hard drive

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