Folders on external SD turned into unix executable files

For whatever reason, the Mac is no longer recognizing the folders as folders.

(I think the card reader may have been faulty and disconnected disrupting the transfer process)

It's bad for any drive to become disconnected during a write operation, or sometimes just being improperly dismounted. The file table may now be damaged, which could explain why the folders are now being treated as an unknown file type.

I have tried changing the file extensions, using terminal (though not 100% sure I did that correctly)

Ugh. No telling what you did trying to change or add file extensions to what's supposed to be a folder.

although I have not tried any photo recovery software yet, that will be my final step if there is no other way to troubleshoot this.

That may be your only option at this point. Especially if the chip is the only place these pictures exist. Do what you can to retrieve them, then reformat the chip in the camera.

If you are using Paragon/Tuxera verify your drivers are up to date:

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

Folders turned into Unix Executable File on my external HD

I'm going to sound like Siri … "I found this on the web:"

https://macosx.com/threads/what-is-a-UNIX-executable-file-why-is-it-doing-this.3 02267

It mentions resource forks and other complex-sounding things, but perhaps it'll shed some light on the issue.

Others say that once the files have morphed into executables, they won't morph back on their own. The originals would have to be re-copied from the original source. I'm guessing that these were the original files, which … *****. 😟

This may be a permissions problem. If Finder doesn't recognise the object type as a folder and it has executable permissions then it is displayed as a unix executable file.

Try running ls -l in the DCIM folder in Terminal and compare with what you see running the same command in your home directory or on another SD card.

Copying the file from the SD card to a local hard disk to see if it is recognised as a folder on the hard disk might also be worth a try.

do you need to recover your photos? if not, you can just format the card (in the camera!) and continue using it

do all new photos appear like this?

try this:

- make new folder Test on the Desktop

- copy the files from SD card to the Test folder

- open Terminal, type ls -la ~/Desktop/Test and press Enter

- paste the output here

you can change tie file extension by right-clicking on the damaged file, selecting "Rename" and writing an extension (for example .jpg) after the filename

Is it possible to connect the camera directly through USB and either use Sony

software or Apple's Image Capture (should work) and move the files to the Mac?

I would try these approaches before messing with recovery software. If it connects

and photos are available to download from the camera, do it then try and reformat

the card in the camera.

Also, when the card is in the camera, does it still recognize the contents

and directory structure?

why would she have NTFS filesystem on the camera's SD card? Cameras are pretty much known for using the dinosaur-aged FAT32 filesystem

and remember not to write any data to the SD card. The more you write, the less you will be able to recover.

Absolutely!