03-15-2007, 11:40 AM

Hi,

my names Romi, and I've been addicted to Macs for 5 years...

my latest problem is that when I copy files from my laptop to my lacie external hard drive i get this pop up for certain files, during the copying, saying that the filename is too long and it won't copy that file, it means i have to go and alter the name of the file, which is really and inconvenience when your copying trance mp3's that have names like "Entering the dimensions of botanicall life to breathe the essence of God.mp3",
does anyone know how i can get around this without having to modify the name?

??????
aaargggg

03-15-2007, 01:41 PM

Welcome Romifly!!!

I think there is an easy answer to your problem. I would bet that your hard drive is formatted for FAT32? If you reformat for HFS+, this should resolve the issue.

03-30-2007, 09:37 AM

well i checked and it's formatted at the moment in HFS (no "+" sign), i wonder if i should restore? i can't loose the information on the disk though, and it seems like restore is pretty much like formatting the disk, and my laptop doesnt have a cd burner to do a backup.

any suggestions?

03-30-2007, 10:52 AM

That might explain it. I believe that HFS (used pre Mac OS X) limited file names to 31 chars length. In the days when PCs used the old 8.3 format for file names, this was a huge luxury, but it has become a limitation these days.

If you reformat for HFS+, you should be fine.

03-30-2007, 11:50 AM

kool, thanx for that, but, how do I reformat to HFS+?? does it mean i loose all my data?

thanx a lot for your help!

03-30-2007, 12:16 PM

with formatting you usually lose all data on the drive

03-30-2007, 12:21 PM

yeah, i know, but is there no way of changing the format without having to format?

03-31-2007, 02:16 PM

No, unfortunately not. So, you need to backup your data first, then reformat, which wipes the drive clean, and then restore your data. Sorry, I am not away of pretty much ANY operating sytem that supports on-the-fly reformating with no loss of data.