So I just got my brand new Lacie Porsche drive in the mail this morning... It does look pretty slick! When I got to drop a folder on it, I get the message that the file cannot be copied because the name is too long, and/or there are characters that the drive doesn't recognize. I can't really go through and change all the names in the files! Does any one know of any work arounds?? Thanks in advance!
-Chris

You need to reformat the drive, probably. It probably comes pre-formatted as FAT32, which is primarily used under Windows.

Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility) and select the Porsche drive in the left-hand sidebar. Then, click the "Partition" pane, and select how many partitions you would like under "Volume Scheme" (usually just one unless you need to "split" the drive into different partitions). Name the drive, and choose "Mac OS Extended" or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (the latter is preferrable) and then click the "Partition" button at the bottom.

This will erase the drive completely and put the proper format on the drive for use with your Macintosh (and only Macintosh, so the drive will not be compatible with PCs). That should solve the filename problem you're experiencing.

Be sure to get all the data on the drive back off of it, as this procedure will completely wipe the drive clean! Good luck, let us know if that fixes it!

That seems to have done the trick!! Thanks so much for the help!
-Chris

A lot of vendors have their own disk drivers, so if you got sofware with the disk that includes formatting it, you should use that instead.

Okay so... I partitioned the drive as you suggested. Now I have no problem getting things on the drive, but the drive is going incredibly slow. When I try to drop a folder with about a 1gig of music on to it, the thing will get stuck quite often. When I try to open the drive, to see what is on it, i get a beach ball for about 20 minutes before it actually opens. Any ideas?
-Chris

Hmmm... what kind of interface does the drive have (USB or FireWire), and, what model of Macintosh are you using it with? Also, which system version are you running?

My dad always said that Porches spend more time in the repair shop than they do on the road...

I am using a firewire connection, my computer is a 12" powerbook G4 867Mhz. I am running OSX 10.3.7