How to force a copy operation to continue

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Level 1

15 points

How to force a copy operation to continue

I'm trying to copy old photos and other files from a bunch of CDs and DVDs onto an external drive with the goal of sorting through them. I'll drag a folder from my DVD onto the external drive, and go do other things while the copying takes place. All too often (quite often in fact) I'll come back and find that the Copy dialog box/progress bar has been replaced with an error message. See images.

Once I click the button, all files that had previously been successfully copied disappear. I also have no idea what the path is of the offending file (many have been renamed to "prev123.jpg" because they're in a folder called Previews, and I have multiple Previews folders in an archive of a website that contained photo albums.

This brings the whole copy process to a screeching halt and I have to manually rummage through files trying to find the offending file. I've managed to retain the files previously copied by toggling "show/hide invisible files" but it's still a laborious process that then involves selecting subfolders several levels deep and doing parallel copy operations.

What I'd like to know is this: Is there a means of forcing the Finder to continue copying once it finds an offending file? That is, once the Finder finds a corrupted file, force it to jump over it and continue from the next file?

I'm comfortable using CLI in the Terminal if that's what it takes. I just don't want to waste time unnecessarily.

Any tips or advice would be really appreciated.

Intel Mac Mini 2.26 (early 2009), Mac OS X (10.7), 23" Cinema Display, 4GB, 120GB SSD, 500GB HDD

Posted on Aug 14, 2011 3:00 PM

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Answer 1

Niel

Community+ 2026

Level 10

743,129 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:02 PM in response to Tod Wicks

Try using the ditto command in the Terminal to perform the copy.

(60049)

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Answer 2

Aug 14, 2011 3:12 PM in response to Tod Wicks

You're trying to solve the wrong problem.

If your discs are bad, use something like ddrescue to make new images of them, then mount the images and copy out of them what you want.

http://tinyapps.org/blog/mac/200808220700_ddrescue_for_leopard.html

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Answer 3

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:17 PM in response to Niel

Thanks. I'm not familiar with ditto but I've looked it up and have tried it. I'm having trouble inserting the source volume into the command:

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:From_CD tod$ ditto [-v] [-V] [-X] /Volumes/Untitled CD ... /Volumes/Snow Leo/Users/Tod/From_CD

ditto: can't get real path for source

Source is a CD called "Untitled CD" and the destination is my external HD called Snow Leo, into a folder called "From_CD" at Snow Leo/Tod/From_CD.

-tod

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Answer 4

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:26 PM in response to Marc Wilson

@ Mark Wilson:

Just looked into this at your suggestion. Unzipped I get a lot of strange (to me) files. Reading the "INSTALL" file I see that a C++ compiler is needed. I have no previous experience with any compiler so this is looking beyond my skill and comfort level. The README file, however, contains detailed instructions but they're still above my head.

FWIW, when copying the files from the CD there seem to be a very small number that are corrupt. That's why I just want to skip over them rather than trying to repair them.

Thanks for your suggestion.

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Answer 5

soehn

Level 2

195 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:30 PM in response to Tod Wicks

How did you type the ditto command?

Try it as follows:

ditto /Volumes/Untitled\ CD /Volumes/Snow\ Leo/Users/Tod/From_CD

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Answer 6

Aug 14, 2011 3:31 PM in response to Tod Wicks

Uh, there IS a binary linked there.

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:35 PM in response to Tod Wicks

Sometimes this kind of error can be resolved just by rebooting. Try that first.

If rebooting doesn't help, you have a drive malfunction.

Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the drive you're copying from (not the volume icon below it.) Check the SMART status at the bottom of the window. If it's anything other than "Verified," replace the drive immediately.

If the SMART status is OK, then run "Verify Disk" (not "Verify Permissions.") If any problems are found, boot from your recovery partition, launch Disk Utility again, and run "Repair Disk."

If Disk Utility is unable to repair the directory damage, you should strongly consider replacing the drive, despite the normal SMART status. If you choose to take the risk of keeping the drive in service, then erase it and restore from backup.

If there is no directory damage, or if Disk Utility repairs the damage successfully, then restore the problem file from your most recent backup.

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Answer 8

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 3:54 PM in response to Marc Wilson

@ Mark Wilson: When I tried to download it I got some message that I had to sign in but nowhere was there any way to sign up. I probably missed something. So I searched the web and found another location, which gave me the TAR file that contained what I described above.

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Answer 9

Tod Wicks Author

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15 points

Aug 14, 2011 4:02 PM in response to soehn

@ soehn:

Well, to be truthful I copied an example from the man page, which was nowhere near what you provided above. I typed that in and Terminal is doing its thing, though the output is showing more errors that I figured would occur. At least Terminal is providing me the paths of the offenders.

It's taking a l-o-o-ng time.

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Answer 10

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 4:10 PM in response to Linc Davis

@ linc davis:

Thanks for the suggestions. I've actually tried copying these directories to three different volumes. The first time was to my internal solid-state device, the second to an external FW drive, and currently to an HDD SATA plugged into the 2nd bay. The Optical Drive is an external USB drive that works fine except for reading some of these files. Since my first attempts yesterday I have successfully copied numerous photos, PDFs and other files. I highly doubt it's any of my drives, but thanks for thinking about it.

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Answer 11

soehn

Level 2

195 points

Aug 14, 2011 4:16 PM in response to Tod Wicks

So at least a part of your files can be rescued.

If you want to try to rescue the rest using ddrescue, there is another possibiltiy to get it.There is a port for it in Macports. To get it install Xcode from the Appstore, install Macports-Package from www.macports.org and open a terminal. Type

sudo port install ddrescue

and you will have version 1.14 installed.

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Answer 12

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 5:04 PM in response to Tod Wicks

@ Marc Wilson:

Sorry, I spoke too soon. I read the info on that site a little more carefully and found that there was a link to a binary. Trouble is, it does nothing when I double-click it.

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Answer 13

Aug 14, 2011 5:30 PM in response to Tod Wicks

Tod Wicks wrote:

@ Marc Wilson:

Sorry, I spoke too soon. I read the info on that site a little more carefully and found that there was a link to a binary. Trouble is, it does nothing when I double-click it.

Because it's a command-line application. There are examples there, too.

It's no huhu if you don't want to do it that way... to me, it's much easier to just use ddrescue or the equivalent to just peel the disc to get back to a known state, then just mount the image and take what I want.

But that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

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Answer 14

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 6:18 PM in response to Marc Wilson

@ Marc Wilson:

Please don't misunderstand me; I do appreciate your points and I understand what you hope that I'll learn. I'm willing to listen and try.

As to the binary being a CL app, I am also not familiar with this. Looking on google I found the "open" command, tried it and it appears to be doing its job with my CD:

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:Downloads tod$ open ddrescue /Volumes/Untitled\ CD /Volumes/Snow\ Leo/Users/Tod/From_CD

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:Downloads tod$

But there doesn't seem to be any feedback or progress indication.

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Answer 15

Tod Wicks Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 14, 2011 6:57 PM in response to soehn

soehn wrote:

So at least a part of your files can be rescued.

If you want to try to rescue the rest using ddrescue, there is another possibiltiy to get it.There is a port for it in Macports. To get it install Xcode from the Appstore, install Macports-Package from www.macports.org and open a terminal. Type

sudo port install ddrescue

and you will have version 1.14 installed.

Okay, I've done this and I get a "Unix executable file" called "ddrescue" in my /bin directory. In Terminal I typed:

open ddrescue /Volumes/Untitled\ CD /Volumes/Snow\ Leo/Users/Tod/From_CD

and got this response:

The file /Users/tod/ddrescue does not exist.

Creating an alias of the ddrescue file in my home directory, then typing in

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:~ tod$ open ddrescue /Volumes/Untitled\ CD /Volumes/Snow\ Leo/Users/Tod/From_CD

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:~ tod$ The file /Users/tod/ddrescue does not exist.

another Terminal window popped up with these messages:

Mini2009s-Mac-mini:~ tod$ /opt/local/bin/ddrescue ; exit;

ddrescue: Both input and output files must be specified.

Try `/opt/local/bin/ddrescue --help' for more information.

logout

[Process completed]

plus this appeared on my Desktop:

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