Error code 0 when copying a large file to a Mac OS Extended formatted drive

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Error code 0 when copying a large file to a Mac OS Extended formatted drive

I always back up my photos manually by dragging a folder containing many folders containing many photos into an external drive that I immediately formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) the day I bought it 2 years ago. I now run into a Error Code 0 when I do this. The "mother" folder is 240 GB in size. As I stated, this drive has been formatted for the Mac, so I don't understand why it's (apparently) running into a problem peculiar to FAT32-formatted drives. My iMac has 16 GB of RAM, of which 10 GB was free, the last time I tried to do this.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 27" 3.4 i7

Posted on Jul 31, 2013 10:02 AM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,166 points

Jul 31, 2013 10:40 AM in response to dinosoar

FAT32 has a maximum file size limit of 4 GB, assuming that's the drive type you're copying to. Anything larger than that will cause an error.

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Answer 2

dinosoar Author

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Jul 31, 2013 10:43 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Well, as I already stated twice, the drive has been formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but thanks for your reply.

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,166 points

Jul 31, 2013 10:47 AM in response to dinosoar

Well, you did mention...

so I don't understand why it's (apparently) running into a problem peculiar to FAT32-formatted drives

I kind of had to assume at that point the source drive was the one you formatted as Mac OS Extended two years ago, and the target drive was FAT32. If not, then I'm not sure why you mentioned FAT32 at all.

In that same thinking, error code 0 is directly related to FAT formatted drives.

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Answer 4

dinosoar Author

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Jul 31, 2013 10:50 AM in response to Kurt Lang

No problem. I only brought it up because when I researched the error code, all the discussions centered around the 4 GB limit on FAT drives. Cheers.

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Answer 5

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,166 points

Jul 31, 2013 10:52 AM in response to dinosoar

Ah! If you know for certain both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended, then I'm not sure what could be causing error zero. Other than possibly the source drive has a been block/sector that can't be read, and it's causing the copy to halt.

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Answer 6

dinosoar Author

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25 points

Jul 31, 2013 10:55 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Ooo, I hope not, that doesn't sound good. My workaround has been to copy just the specific internal folders that have been updated, which is a bit tedious but still gets the job done.

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,166 points

Jul 31, 2013 11:27 AM in response to dinosoar

Ooo, I hope not, that doesn't sound good.

No, that would be no fun at all. All hard drives fail one way or the other eventually, though.

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