Trouble copying files

[Thomas S. England]

Just in the last couple of days I've run into problems copying folders from one drive to another.  When I drag certain folders, I get the flashing circle with the diagonal slash and it won't transfer to the other drive.

Usually I can select all of the contents of the folder and they transfer as usual.  I just tried moving one folder which has three sub-folders and two of them copied, but the third didn't.

Same ownership and permissions all around. I'm running OS X 10.4.11 on an Intel Core Duo.

I've repaired permissions, restarted. Any have any suggestions?

[Gregg]

Just a temporary workaround... You've probably thought of it already, since I rarely have a groundbreaking insight with computers: Can you do a SaveAs to the other drive?

[Xairbusdriver]

I think "Folders" can have permissions different than all the contents. Try emptying one of those non-transferable folders and check its permissions. You may not be authorized to perform certain actions on the folder..

[tacit]

The circle-slash usually doesn't indicate a permissions problem. More often, it indicates that you are trying to copy files from a Macintosh hard drive to a PC drive, and the Mac files are not able to be put on a PC drive--either because they are too big (a PC-formatted FAT32 drive is incapable of storing files larger than 2 GB) or because the Mac files have names that are forbidden on PC disks (PC disks can not have files whose names include certain characters).

Can you describe to us exactly what drives you are copying from and to? Is the drive you are copying to formatted for PC use?

[Thomas S. England]

QUOTE(tacit @ Oct 26 2008, 08:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The circle-slash usually doesn't indicate a permissions problem. More often, it indicates that you are trying to copy files from a Macintosh hard drive to a PC drive, and the Mac files are not able to be put on a PC drive--either because they are too big (a PC-formatted FAT32 drive is incapable of storing files larger than 2 GB) or because the Mac files have names that are forbidden on PC disks (PC disks can not have files whose names include certain characters).

Can you describe to us exactly what drives you are copying from and to? Is the drive you are copying to formatted for PC use?

I think you've hit on it. One of the drives is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32) and I'm sure the other which was giving me problems is as well (it has already been put back in its' secure, non-disclosed off-site location).

So that's why it would accept 400 images files, but not a folder of them?

It's not a filename issue, I've learned how to avoid those by now.

Thanks for the answer.