I am backing up my macbook 10.5 to an external harddrive probably formatted for a PC. I was trying to move instead of copy and the folder partially copied then said i did not have permission to move all my files.

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I am backing up my macbook 10.5 to an external harddrive probably formatted for a PC. I was trying to move instead of copy and the folder partially copied then said i did not have permission to move all my files.

I am backing up my macbook 10.5 to an external hard drive probably formatted for windows. it was let me move most of my files. however i tried to move instead of copy a very large folder (60gb) and it transferred most of the files onto the external hard drive then gave me an error message saying i did not have permision to move all the files. i am worred that some were moved and some were not. it is showing all files when i checked for some of them

my question is if i move instead of copy and i get an error message does os x just copy the remaining files instead of moving them?

13" Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.6), boot camp WIn XP SP3

Posted on Nov 8, 2012 7:36 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

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Nov 8, 2012 7:42 AM in response to bryan pettit

Typically when you drag files from one drive to another, Macs copy them, not move them. You usually have to copy them and then delete the originals.

Which files were you trying to back up? If this involved system files or application files then there may have been hidden files, or files with certain permissions set on them.

If you're doing this as a gneral backup I would not use a PC formatted drive since that introduces its own set of issues. I would use a Mac formatted drive and then a cloning tool (Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, others).

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Answer 2

bryan pettit Author

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Nov 8, 2012 7:51 AM in response to Limnos

Ya i will format it after im done with everything. I am upgrading to 10.6 bc 10.5 is no longer updating.

the file i was moving was the equivelent of My Documents from windows. i switched over from windows in 09'.

So since i did the CMD and Drag to move instead of copying and some of the files didn't transfer, do you think OS X just copied what it could? Do you think any files didn't get moved or copied?

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