FreeAgent Products

[DJG]

I recently came across the following problem and was able to solve it and wanted to share the answer. I was manually copying files from my backup drive back to my hard drive (after reinstalling Windows XP) and I kept getting the message "Error Copying File or Folder" at the top of a box and "cannot copy file". I then went to individual subfolders and some folders would copy but others would not. It turns out the problem was that the path for my filenames was two long (apparently 255 characters is the limit). I had some very long filenames on my computer but when they were transfered, they then became too long on the backup drive. The solution was to rename the path - so I changed each part of the path "backup" etc to a single character. But before I was able to do that I had to get permissions to change the file name. Here is the link for changing the permissions: http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seagate.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5218. Now I don't know what I will do when I have to backup again but at least I was able to recover my files.

I am using FreeAgent 500 GB USB. No need to reply - just wanted to share this solution since I couldn't find it anywhere on this forum.  

[lalipa]

DJG - this Link doesn't work

[AlanM]

Our Knowledge Base switched over, which caused a different URL for all our articles.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=203795&NewLang=en

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[mangel]

The 255 character limit for paths is purely arbitrary and therefore simply unacceptable.  Whatever is allowed no my hard drive should allowed on the Seagate; otherwise the Seagate is an inferior product.  I had this problem myself and only discovered it 80% of the way into a one hour copy to the seagate,  When the message popped up, I was astonished that it didn't even tell me the path and my only choice was to cancel or skip. 

Is this just another case of corporate stupidity?  Look like it!  Is this just another case of a programmer who doesn't give a darn about the customer?  Looks like it!

This situation is so ludicrous that I can not believe it is allowed to exist!!!!!

[mangel]

I don't see this as a solution at all.  The limitation should just not exist,

[Cantbecanit]

Files that won't copy are either incomplete or damaged or stuck in a bad sector, also when transfering files to any external media you will notice after a short while they get incredibly hot, I find this a lot with memory cards and the whole file moving seems to hang, it's possible the same is happening with your FA, try moving smaller files across and not letting the drive become too hot, if you don't believe me try it yourself with a MicroSD card and see how hot it gets after 3GB's of copying.

As for file name length, this seems to happen when some file gets a name that stretches too far, on any drive this happens btw, not just Seagate and externals.