# WD Passport for Mac copy problem



## Airmiles (May 13, 2007)

I have just bought a WD My Passport for Mac. Great I thought now I can copy my folders onto it. I have just tried to and this is the error code I am getting. "The operation can&#8217;t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50". Can someone please help me as I have no idea what to do. I am new to iMac and new to copying things to an external HD for Mac.

Kind regards,
Airmiles


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## CleaverX (Sep 27, 2012)

Can you verify that the same thing happens if you try to copy single files one at the time? Can you also look at the drive properties and confirm the file system (format)?


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Copying to an external in Windows and OS X are essentially the same.

These kinds of errors are pretty cryptic and not exact and could be many different I/O errors.

A couple questions:

1) Do you already have information on the drive or are you just starting to use it
2) Will you being using this drive with Windows and OS X or just OS X 

One thing to always remember, before you unplug an external drive you need to properly allow it to unmount.
You do this using the Eject icon in Finder or right clicking and choosing Eject on Desktop icon (if you use that option)
If you don't this can easily lead to problem with the information and data structure on the drive.


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## tompatrick (Apr 19, 2010)

Airmiles said:


> I have just bought a WD My Passport for Mac. Great I thought now I can copy my folders onto it. I have just tried to and this is the error code I am getting. "The operation cant be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50". Can someone please help me as I have no idea what to do. I am new to iMac and new to copying things to an external HD for Mac.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Airmiles


Try copying files individual to WD external hard drive. I suspect that there is one file that is preventing the completion of the transfer process. Hope this helps!!


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## Airmiles (May 13, 2007)

I think that was the problem, one of the files wasn't copying across. Fingers cross it seems to be working now. I just find it odd because with the Windows one if you copy a whole lot of files across but one doesn't, it copies those it can but not the one with the problem. I am guessing that Mac works very differently. 

Thank you for all the responses I received.


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