External drive - can't move files, only copy

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External drive - can't move files, only copy

Hi all,

I recently bought a 3 TB Western Digital My Book for Mac in order to back up my 2008 MacBook Pro. The drive came already formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and I've since backed up everything (via manual drag-and-drop backup).

However, when I try to move any of these files or folders on the external drive, I'm only allowed to make copies instead of simply dragging and dropping. For instance, I tried to move my Music folder into another folder on the external drive -- and instead of it simply dropping in, I get the "Preparing to copy..." pop-up. Then when I go to delete the now-duplicated file or folder I've just created, it asks for my password ("Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this.).

I've done some research on these boards, which pointed to changing permissions under the Get Info tab -- but those are all set to "Read & Write." I also read people's suggestion to check the box next to "Ignore ownership on this volume" -- but that didn't change anything. The only odd thing is that if I unmount the external drive and then re-mount it, the checkbox next to "Ignore ownership..." defaults back to being unchecked.

I've also run a Verify Disk on the external drive, which came out OK. Any help on this would be appreciated!

Posted on Apr 10, 2013 8:24 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 10, 2013 8:58 PM in response to Clay520

That all sounds like normal OSX behavior. What is it that you are trying to accomplish? If you are just doing a backup, then why do you need to delete the original folder?

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Answer 2

Clay520 Author

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Apr 10, 2013 10:10 PM in response to Flying Pelican

I wasn't really trying to accomplish anything substantial. I performed the backup because my MacBook's hard drive failed and had to be replaced -- so this is my only copy of all of my files. I've just never had folders/files on an external drive act this way -- and my worry is that something is off with either the drive or the backup itself (a test run by the Western Digital utilities program stopped at 90% for some reason).

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Answer 3

Apr 13, 2013 8:27 AM in response to Clay520

Moving files from one drive to another always copies them in OSX. You can delete the original later if you want. Deleting those large folders associated with the system, such as "Music" or "Documents" always requires a password.

It's best when backing up an entire drive to clone the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper, rather than drag and drop, if possible, to keep most permissions issues from happening.

There is another method you can use if you plan to start over with a new internal drive, where in System Preferences, you can delete your user account, choosing to save the user account data as a disk image. That method might require that it copies everything to the same internal boot drive, but if you have room and it is working, you can copy that to an external drive once it is finished. That also prevents permissions issues if you need to migrate everything back to a new user account on a new drive.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

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Apr 13, 2013 12:01 PM in response to Clay520

Trying to clarify. You are trying to move the files on the external hard drive, not from the computer to the external drive. Is that correct?

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