One or more items can't be copied

The operating system is a nightmare.

No, not understanding the operating system is a nightmare.

Please, please can anyone suggest a solution to this ridiculous problem?!

Yes. Use the built-in backup solution, Time Machine. It should work with your NAS, though not officially supported by Apple.

And root user IS there. Just not obvious to access (deliberately).

How to enable the root user

Mac OS X v10.6 and later

1. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences....

2. From the View menu choose Accounts.

3. Click on the lock and authenticate with an administrator account.

4. Click Login Options....

5. Click the "Edit..." or "Join..." button at the bottom right.

6. Click the "Open Directory Utility..." button.

7. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.

8. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.

9. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.

10. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.

How to disable the root user

Mac OS X v10.6 and later

1. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences....

2. From the View menu choose Accounts.

3. Click on the lock and authenticate with an administrator account.

4. Click Login Options....

5. Click the "Edit..." or "Join..." button at the bottom right

6. Click the "Open Directory Utility..." button.

7. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.

8. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.

9. Choose Disable Root User from the Edit menu.

You copied the files incorrectly in the first place. You can't copy files owned by someone else straight into your current user account. Whatever user you used to create the backup is no longer the user that you are using. Therefore, the other user owns those files.

You could try copying from the Backup to the Shared folder in /Users, and then, while logged in as the user you want, copy them into the home folder of that user.

Or, you could use BatChmod to change the ownership and r/w permissions to yourself.

Or, you could use the Terminal to do the same.

While a little dated, this article gives a pretty good overview of file permissions in a unix environment.

Also, depending on the file format of the external drive that you have your files backed up to, you could tell Finder to ignore permissions on that drive. Select it in the Finder, Get Info, and at the bottom in the permissions section there should be a checkbox to ignore ownership on this volume. You may have to click the padlock and authenticate to make the checkbox active. If the checkbox doesn't exist, you can't set that option.

How to enable the root user

That information is of no use to the OP, and he'd probably be better off not knowing it.

You can't copy files owned by someone else straight into your current user account. Whatever user you used to create the backup is no longer the user that you are using. Therefore, the other user owns those files.

From the OP's description, he first copied files from another volume onto his boot volume. In that case, the copies were owned by him. He then tried to back up the boot volume to a NAS and got permission errors. That wouldn't have been caused by his not being the owner of the files that were copied in the first operation. He must have been trying to copy his whole system, including files owned by root, using AFP and the Finder. That won't work, hence the error.

Ok, I'll buy that. I guess I didn't read it that way.

I'm pretty sure the problem is not your Mac but lies within the permissions you have set for the share on your QNAP NAS.

On a NAS you usually have to setup which user(s) are allowed what (read only or read/write) on each share.

When you first access the sdhare from a Windows or MAC OS X computer, you need to specify the correct credentials (user ID and password).

I think that's where the problem lies.

Try to reconnect to the share from your MAC and be sure to enter a User ID and password which you know has read/write access to that share on your NAS.

Kind regards,

Erik

Don't log in as root -- ever.

Where are the files you're trying to copy -- are they in your home folder?

Clearing ACL's via Command Line:

If you think improperly ACL's are cousing the issue, you can with a single command, clear all the ACL's for given file or folder using the "comod" command with -N option.

Terminal:

sudo chmod -N (name of the folder)