I have a folder that has turned itself into a 'Unix Executable File', with the same filename. While the old folder was about 10gb, the new folder is 0kb.
Has the folder 'forgotten' it is a folder? Can this be fixed?
Your understanding is incorrect, but its a confusing topic. A google search for "fat32 folder limitations" pointed me to the original Microsoft fat32 specifications document. Take a look at it yourself. The URL is
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgendown.mspx?
The link shows a limit on the number of files in a folder. Not the size of a folder.
A limit on the size of a folder wouldn't make sense. e.g. 90% of people with fat32 partitioned computers would have folders larger than 4gb (e.g. program files folder, windows folder, my documents....etc).
Either way, it was working for a long time, and only today has this error appeared.
The folder has my music stored on it.
But i agree with you, i should stop using fat32. When i can clear this up, ill definetly be re-partitioning the drive to HFS.
I was the guy with the prob in the thread referenced here. I was able to use the fix as described by Terence on my MacBook. I'm now having the prob again on my wife's iMac, but I'm getting the error messages that I didn't get last time, so the docs remain executable.
Terence, if you're still out there, what is the second set of commands that would avoid the error messages?
So, a few "Operation not permitted," and the rest "Permission Denied."
In the Finder, I'm getting a dialog that only permits me to click "OK" to dismiss it that says, "Palm Desktop Background" and underneath it, "Unexpected error #-120" This box reappears repeatedly after clicking OK, several dozen times at least...
I just tried it again, same prob, but now I see that the "Palm..." error dialog doesn't go away until I open access to all contents of the Documents folder again via the Get Info box. But that does it fur shure...
That's two separate errors there. There's the permission denied and then the -120, which is a Directory Not Found error. Now both of these could be symptoms of the same permissions issue. Try Download BatchMod from
Gosh, no, I really can't say for sure. Most were created on the machine itself, some may have been created at work (Dells, ugh!) and transported via flash drive. She doesn't really know...