Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I suddenly cannot drag and drop any files or documents. I cannot drag anything anywhere. I cannot drag into other files. I cannot drag into trash. There is no dragging going on. What do I do?
I have already tried "safe reboot." Nope, didn't help.
Help!!!
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
Hmmm...
| errFSNotAFolder | = -1407, /* Expected a folder, got a file */ |
Was this on the drive, or the flash drive?
The place to see rights & such is by highlighting a file or folder, then doing a Get Info, (CMD-i), on it...
First do your Home folder, is it Locked at the blue arrow? What Rights are shown at the red arrow?
Then do a Get info on the folder or drive you're trying to save to.
Wow. Okay. Did all that. Here's what I found.
First, the User (me). Not locked. Under Sharing & Permissions, it says: "Read & Write."
Next, checked my primary backup thumb drive. No lock was indicated. Under S&P: "You can read and write."
Third, checked the thumb drives I hand out to accounts that has my short movie on it. Again, no lock indicated. Under S&P: "You can read and write."
I double-checked what this computer allowed me to open on the thumb drives. All is okay with opening pdf's, jpeg's and MS Word files/docs.
The copy of my short movie that is on my MacBook opens without a problem. However, the copy on my thumb drive does not open, giving me the error message I listed earlier.
I have checked these thumb drives on other computers and found no issues with the drives. All opens normally on other computers.
What format are the thumb drives, are the movies over 4 GB?
Can you drop files on your home folder & it works?
The movie is Quicktime. The size is 566.3MB.
Cannot drag & drop any files on this computer, even within the home (User) folder.
And the Get Info window on the folder you tried to drop that in say what rights for you?
For the home folder I tried to drop into: Read & Write.
For the thumb drive: "You can read and write."
For the Quicktime movie: "You can read and write."
WEll, this is getting wierder by the moment!???
To find out if it's system wide or user specific, try this...
Open System Preferences>Accounts, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.
Does it work in the new account?
Done. Quicktime movie does not open in alternate admin account. Nor is there any drag & drop or cut & paste in alternate admin account.
Only thing I can figure now is to Reinstall the OS. 😟
Can we assume that the mouse is not at fault?
That's what I was starting to think. Now, as established earlier, this computer does not have all of its data backed up. This was my backup computer ...you know ...the one that wasn't supposed to fail. In any case, since I cannot drag & drop, cut & paste or save to an external drive, I don't know how to back it up at this stage.
I will see if there are critical documents/spread sheets then email them to myself.
Aside from that, when I reinstall the OS, will i definitely lose my data/software, possibly lose it or maybe not lose it?
Hi Klaus1 -
I have never used a mouse with this particular MacBook. Track pad seems fine. Are there ways to test the track pad?
I did not read the whole thread. Did you already do the SMC reset?
Hi LexSchellings,
No, I have not done a SMC reset. Does it risk my data or software? If not, then I'm happy to do it.
W
SMC is a reset of the basic hardware:
"Does it risk my data or software?" No.
Read here how to do it:
support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
I suddenly cannot drag any files anywhere. I cannot drag files into other files. I cannot drag files into trash. There is no dragging going on. What do I do?
