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I can't copy hard drive without it aborting

machenryr

machenryr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2016
748
101
I'm not sure whether this is the right forum. Not sure what the problem is. I have two Mac Pros networked. I'm not sure whether that's germane. All I'm trying to do is consolidate some hard drives. I want to copy the data off of some, reformat and put them to the side. Wasted space. But these two external drives won't copy. I get a failure after awhile. Error -36? It'll say some file failed to copy. Mostly I do this on my second MacPro. Yosemite. I have yet to update the OS to Sierra. I'm always a couple behind. But this was also problematic on my main 10.12.6 MacPro. Drive failure?

Does anyone have any ideas? This is a PITA.
 
machenryr said:
I'm not sure whether this is the right forum. Not sure what the problem is. I have two Mac Pros networked. I'm not sure whether that's germane. All I'm trying to do is consolidate some hard drives. I want to copy the data off of some, reformat and put them to the side. Wasted space. But these two external drives won't copy. I get a failure after awhile. Error -36? It'll say some file failed to copy. Mostly I do this on my second MacPro. Yosemite. I have yet to update the OS to Sierra. I'm always a couple behind. But this was also problematic on my main 10.12.6 MacPro. Drive failure?

Does anyone have any ideas? This is a PITA.
Click to expand...
Try carbon copy cloner. I’m no expert but that is what I would use to copy more than just a few files.
 
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Last edited:
There’s a corrupt file somewhere. When it gets to it you get the error. Copy things in smaller pieces and try to isolate it.
 
bjar said:
Try carbon copy cloner. I’m no expert but that is what I would use to copy more than just a few files.
Click to expand...

I was going to do that. I use Super Duper for nightly automatic back ups of various drives.
 
JesterJJZ said:
There’s a corrupt file somewhere. When it gets to it you get the error. Copy things in smaller pieces and try to isolate it.
Click to expand...

I’ve been trying to do that. These are music files. I’ll select a few audio files and copy them. It takes forever. It’ll say 9 hours for 12 files of maybe 2 mb each. Then shortens or lengthens the estimate. I walk away and come back and only 5 have been copied with an error notification. -36.
 
machenryr said:
I’ve been trying to do that. These are music files. I’ll select a few audio files and copy them. It takes forever. It’ll say 9 hours for 12 files of maybe 2 mb each. Then shortens or lengthens the estimate. I walk away and come back and only 5 have been copied with an error notification. -36.
Click to expand...
You definitely have a hardware issue. Possibly the source drive is failing. 24 megabytes should take a second or two to copy.
 
pl1984 said:
You definitely have a hardware issue. Possibly the source drive is failing. 24 megabytes should take a second or two to copy.
Click to expand...

Yeah well, the source drive is really old a partitioned into five sections. That’s back when I was on OS 9 and that was the best way of accessing audio for recording. Quicker and easier maintenance. At least that’s what we all thought. That no longer necessary. So I’m trying to back up that drive before it fails terminatedly. Or reformat it. Might fix it a little while Little Byers. Then I could put back ups of back ups so when it fails I won’t have lost anything. But now it’s just a waste of time.
 
Have you run DriveDx to see the drive health and/or check if there are any SMART errors?
 
If the drive is 20 years old then there's your problem lol. You should try data recovery software to get what you can off the drive. I use Data Rescue / Drive Genius.
 
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haralds said:
Use CarbonCopy Cloner. It will log read errors and list the missing files, but continue.
There is a trial period, but no Mac User should be without it.
Click to expand...

You prefer that over super duper? I may still have CCC. I used to use it for nightly backs but switched to SD.
 
machenryr said:
I'm not sure whether this is the right forum. Not sure what the problem is. I have two Mac Pros networked. I'm not sure whether that's germane. All I'm trying to do is consolidate some hard drives. I want to copy the data off of some, reformat and put them to the side. Wasted space. But these two external drives won't copy. I get a failure after awhile. Error -36? It'll say some file failed to copy. Mostly I do this on my second MacPro. Yosemite. I have yet to update the OS to Sierra. I'm always a couple behind. But this was also problematic on my main 10.12.6 MacPro. Drive failure?
https://downloader.vip/torrent-sites/ https://downloader.vip/turbotax/ https://downloader.vip/gogoanime/
Does anyone have any ideas? This is a PITA.
Click to expand...
Try carbon copy cloner. I’m no expert but that is what I would use to copy more than just a few files.
 
Last edited:
CCC has been able to get past data corruption for nearly failing drives on client machines in the past, saving nearly 99% of the contents. Has even recovered failed Windows system drives that were mounted in an external dock. Beyond that, the tools within the software are top notch.

I cannot say the same about Super Duper. For non-system drives, there are limited capabilities to schedule folder backups or "updating" the clone. The newer version adds some of this functionality, but the tools available in CCC are more robust for my needs.

DiskWarrior used to be great to reviving old failing FW400 external drives, but it's been years since I've used that product.

Regardless, full clones are the only true backup. Especially important for any older spinning HDD with years of use that contains important data. Have two or more copies of the data if it's important. Run DriveDx to keep tabs on possible issues.
 
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I've been trying to repair the drive. I used disk utility. Repaired permissions. Then I used Disk Warrior. There are 4 partitions. I repaired two of them. The third was problematic. Disk errors. I couldn't replace it with the corrections due to these errors. It suggested I replace with the preview which I couldn't find. I tried Disk Doctor, but that seems more like a utility to free up space.

My project on the side.
 
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