Q: An unexpected error occurred (error code -50) when saving to ext HD.

Hello,

enum {

  paramErr                      = -50,  /*error in user parameter list*/

Not too helpful by itself, but can mean an unacceptable character in a filename like...

? / \\ < > " | > *

when copying to a FAT32 formatted drive or using SMB for file transfer. Can also be a Permissions problem, usually on the receiving end, & in the old days could happen if a file had forks...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20831

If using Time Machine...

Error -50...

http://pondini.org/TM/C10.html

Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?

http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

I can't imagine anything TMwise not covered.

Hmmm, what brand/model enclosures & drives?

Are those "Green" drives?

I'm having the same issues saving a project or exporting from Final Cut Pro to an external drive. This drive is a G-Tech 2TB drive connected by FW800 (this drive also has the new USB3.0 port).

It also won't let me click-and-drag files to the drive anymore, but it will still let me read files and run projects from it. That made me think it was a permissions issue, and I tried applying Read and Write permissions to all items via cmd-i, which were already active. That didn't work, and neither did Disk Utility. This drive also has the curious habit of spinning down after 1-2 minutes of idling despite the Energy Saver panel selection "Put the hard disks to sleep when not in use" being unchecked. Not sure if the issues are related.

Anyone have some insight on the error "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)"?

I had this problem as well, and the only solution I've discovered is simple, but annoying.  In System Preferences - Energy Saver, I had to enable OS X to put Hard Drives to sleep when possible (Checked the box).

The problem stemmed from my external drive spinning itself down after 5 minutes idle.  Without allowing OS X to put my internal drive to sleep when possible, OS X was not playing well with my asleep external drive (as it doesn't expect drives to be asleep, I guess).  Once asleep, my external drive became Read Only, as I could open files etc., but not copy, move, or delete files (No Writes).  I couldn't even unmount the volume without "unplugging" the USB cable, triggering an error message.

With the Hard Drive asleep option enabled, OS X now plays well with my external drive.  I wish I could disable that drive from sleeping, but obviously cannot (without "manually" preventing sleep through continued use, I guess).

As I run 10.8.2 on a 2.7Ghz/16Gb/768Gb Retina MBP, the performance hit due to enabling the HD sleep option is likely minimal (though I haven't actually investigated the issue), but still....

I guess if it becomes noticeable, I'll go back to pulling the cord on my external drive, but I don't want to damage it.

Hope this works for those with a similar problem.

I was having the same problem. I could not save anything ta any of my external HD´s. I could on save to online based strorage such as Dropbox.  I tried different solutions suggested in different discussions. This seemed to be a widespread problem. One person was talking about changing SATA cables he used.  I decided to try changing my fire wire cable, and voilà, everything was working as normal again!

Thanks, pip13.  I just bought a new iomega 2TB drive and hooked it up, experienced this same error -50 right out of the box.  Seemed like the drive was read only.  I saw your post, and decided to try connecting the new drive to my iMac using the firewire cable that came with it from the factory, rather than the cable I initially used for connecting it, which was a cable from an older drive.  That solved the problem!

This issue is maddening. I have two RAID enclosures, one from Rosewill and another from Vantech that both have this issue. I'm going to try running them both as JBOD and letting OSX do the RAID in software to see if that fixes anything.

Apple really needs to address this. Given the work around they offer below it seems they have no idea how to fix this.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20831

So far so good with the new method. I've simply set the enclosures to mount the drives as separate disks. I then used Disk Utility to configure the RAID volumes. I'm sure there's a performance hit, but at least it works this way.

Well that partially worked. In my Vantech enclosure this worked like a charm. I have 2x 2tb drives in there and I'm using Disk Utility to RAID them at RAID 1. On my Rosewill R2-JBOD I had initially tried to use their hardware RAID 0 solution with 2x 3tb drives which resulted in the -50 error. I then switched the enclosure to just mount the drives separately and used Disk Utility to RAID 0 them. This worked for a while and then I got the dreaded -50 error again. After a little research I found that this enclosure only takes drives up to 2tb so that may be the issue. I've got a couple 2tb drives laying around so I'll try those in there tonight and see what I get.

If you're using the R2-JBOD this may be the cause and depending on where this limitation sits it may be the issues for other devices that use the same RAID controller or chipset as well.

I had a similar problem, error -50 when trying to create new files within a 3TB G-drive on firewire connection.  It was being treated like read only and would not eject.

I changed my energy saver mode to computer sleep 15 minutes (from never), and checked the box to have the hard drives turn off when possible.  I also replaced the firewire cable.  I don't know which solved the problem, but it's fixed now.