I am unable to copy files from my macbook pro to my external hard disk.

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I am unable to copy files from my macbook pro to my external hard disk.

I am unable to copy files from my macbook pro to my external hard disk. I tried to copy a movie 800mb in size to my EDD and it shows the loading box and it says zero kb loaded out of 800mb and sometimes it loads a a few kb of the file, then after a while it ejects my hard disk and gives a message saying you should have ejected it properly. and it sometimes gives this message

"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “....” can’t be read or written.

(Error code -36)".

This happens with a range of files if they are more than a few mb in size, so I am pretty sure its not the file problem. It also occurs sometimes when i try to copy from my EDD to my mac.

I have tried everything. I formatted my EDD to MS-DOS (FAT) format because i need to use it with mac and windows. I tried resetting The SMC and the PRAM and NVRAM. I tried verify and disk repair on disk utility. But the same thing happens over again and it is really frustrating. The problem doesnt happen with my PC.

My EDD is an Apollo 320GB hard drive from Imation.

Also are there any particular EDD brands that may not have this issue with MACs and can be used on mac and PC?

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 15, 2011 5:44 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Ross

Level 6

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Jul 15, 2011 5:47 AM in response to Aaisha

Try repairing your permissions on both of your hard drives.

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Answer 2

Aaisha Author

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Jul 15, 2011 6:08 AM in response to Eric Ross

Thanks for your reply. I repaired disk permissions on my mac hard drive. My EDD did not give me the option to repair disc permissions on disk utility so i just did another verify and disk repair. Unfortunately, it did not work and Im having the same problem copyingn files

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Answer 3

Eric Ross

Level 6

11,807 points

Jul 15, 2011 6:16 AM in response to Aaisha

Try to copy a different file, because the 800mb file could have an issue going on.

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Answer 4

Aaisha Author

Level 1

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Jul 15, 2011 6:20 AM in response to Eric Ross

Yes i have tried many files. If it is greater than about 8mb it wont copy. It either copies nothing or it copies 8.4mb and stops then the disc ejects itself

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Answer 5

Aaisha Author

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Jul 15, 2011 6:23 AM in response to Aaisha

I should mention that a while back it would work sometimes and it would allow me to copy files and i could copy five movies at once and it would only eject sometimes. now it wont work at all.

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Answer 6

Eric Ross

Level 6

11,807 points

Jul 15, 2011 6:37 AM in response to Aaisha

I think it is the format of the external hard drive, exFAT would work better if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7.

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Answer 7

Aaisha Author

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Jul 15, 2011 7:30 AM in response to Eric Ross

i tried it in the exFAT format and it gave me the same problem so i reverted to MS-DOS because i need to use it on windows XP

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Answer 8

Sudeepvv

Level 1

5 points

Sep 13, 2011 1:49 PM in response to Aaisha

I am also having the same issue with my MAC. I think this is a common issue with MAC OS. I even formatted my EDD in all possible formats avalaible 😟 still I didn't get a positive result.

The EDD is having the right permission and I tried repairing it, as per the system tools there is no issue with the EDD / the read right access.

Please anyone could help me with this issue?

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Answer 9

Apr 25, 2012 10:45 PM in response to Aaisha

I'm having the exact same problem... i tried with several files and they stop at 8.4 MB or less. I'm copying from a lion osx 10.7 to a network drive on a Tiger 10.4.9. I can copy from the tiger to the lion but not from the lion to the tiger.

HELP!!!

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Answer 10

Aaisha Author

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Apr 26, 2012 2:07 AM in response to Aaisha

Hey guys,

So this is follow up from my debarkle with the EDD. I found out my problem with copying files from Mac to EDD and vice versa was a result of a not so good EDD ( i had an apollo hard drive from imation) that was not very compatible with macs. So i did my research and found out that the best hard drives were Western Digital and Seagate. I bought the newest western digital EDD 1TB and formated it to FAT32 and guess what...no problems so far. The only problem is that FAT32 format doesn't copy files larger than about 4 gigs so i couldnt copy a movie from my brothers computer onto my EDD that was 1080p. You could probably resolve that by partitioning a small part of your hard drive in ExFAT? but yeah, hopefully that helped guys.

Aaisha

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