# Video question



## AJGNYC (Jan 21, 2010)

Trying to convert home videotapes to digital. I have a superdrive and a converter, using imovie. I get an error code 36 when I try to retrieve the clips from the hard drive.


----------



## DeltaMac (Jan 21, 2010)

Is that an external hard drive?
The error -36 is just an I/O error - some references call it I/O error (bummers)
The fix is to try copying all the files from that disk (if you can), and erase the disk with your Disk Utility.
If that doesn't help, then the hard drive is no good (and that tells you why the term 'bummers' is used, eh?)


----------



## misterpickle (Feb 3, 2010)

I have had the problem of trying to copy large folders with many subfolders to an external drive, always getting error code 36.  Although I could copy the files directly within the subfolders, this was taking far too long.  This problem arose when I upgraded to Snow Leopard.

To get around this, I used the SyncTwoFolders application to sync the folder on my hard drive to the one on the external drive and HAD NO PROBLEM WHATSOVER.  It worked like a charm.  There must be something in the way this app recognizes and handles the folders that is different from the Snow Leopard finder.

Let me know if others find this useful or if it has limitations.  I'm sure that other folder syncing programs would work as well.

Matt


----------



## bilbocroft (Feb 21, 2010)

Today for the first time I have tried to copy folders to my external hard drive and had this error code -36. Looking at many forums, this error seems to be an issue when moving folders around that only started when one of the releases of snow leopard went in. "i/o error" in this case is just a cop out. Apple needs to address and resolve the problem.


----------



## jdannan (Mar 7, 2010)

Just another confirmation of this bug in Snow Leopard. I was just trying to copy a directory of pdfs to a USB stick and it failed. I only upgraded to SL 10.6.2 last week and have never had this problem before. All permissions and files checked and OKed individually, I can copy through a terminal window (ie cp -r). Contrary to most of the advice I found through teh google, there is nothing corrupt in the files or the USB stick (I tried two). It's just a Snow Leopard bug. I can even copy the errant file, but can't do a directory with the file (and nothing else) in. There are spaces in the file names but nothing else unusual (and they have had spaces for ages, they always used to work).

In my case, the problem with Finder seems to be solved by reformatting the USB stick as mac os extended (journaled) but this is obviously inconvenient for transferring files between multiple computers (inc windows).  Actually I will probably revert to FAT and just use cp in future.


----------



## bilbocroft (Mar 7, 2010)

As a matter of interest the suggestion given in the following link worked a treat. Take care to read the bit about where Windows is involved.

http://www.macyourself.com/2010/01/07/solution-to-finder-error-code-36-in-10-6-when-copying-folders/


----------



## jdannan (Mar 7, 2010)

That worked for me, though if I'm going to have to start typing in a terminal I might as well just use cp...amazing they haven't fixed such an obvious problem yet.


----------

