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Flash Drive and duplicate files made
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
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I have 2 flash drives and both of them do strange things. I've found this question posted with no answer twice in the last year, so I'll ask too.
When placing files into the drive it adds a copy of the file with a ._ before the name of the file. For example:
examplefile.doc
would be
._examplefile.doc
What is going on? And how do I not have this happen?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Originally posted by euchomai:
I have 2 flash drives and both of them do strange things. I've found this question posted with no answer twice in the last year, so I'll ask too.
When placing files into the drive it adds a copy of the file with a ._ before the name of the file. For example:
examplefile.doc
would be
._examplefile.doc
What is going on? And how do I not have this happen?
These "._" files are written by the HFS file system when writing to another file system (like the FAT32 that your flash drive is formatted in). They are hidden on the Mac, but shown on Windows, since Windows has no idea what they are. Technically, they are the resource fork of HFS files (FAT32 doesn't support forked files like the Mac's HFS does). AFAIK, a properly designed OS X application isn't supposed to use the resource fork any more, but for what ever reason, the OS continues to write these files to non-HFS systems. They take up little to no disk space.
Bottom line: when on Windows, just ignore them.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
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Originally posted by Cadaver:
These "._" files are written by the HFS file system when writing to another file system (like the FAT32 that your flash drive is formatted in). They are hidden on the Mac, but shown on Windows, since Windows has no idea what they are. Technically, they are the resource fork of HFS files (FAT32 doesn't support forked files like the Mac's HFS does). AFAIK, a properly designed OS X application isn't supposed to use the resource fork any more, but for what ever reason, the OS continues to write these files to non-HFS systems. They take up little to no disk space.
Bottom line: when on Windows, just ignore them.
Wow, great information... Thanks a ton, now the problem is that they are on my Flash MP3 player. How do I get them to not be put there? Or how can I get them off of my player? I can't see them at all!
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Originally posted by euchomai:
Wow, great information... Thanks a ton, now the problem is that they are on my Flash MP3 player. How do I get them to not be put there? Or how can I get them off of my player? I can't see them at all!
That I'm not sure about. MacOS X has a habit of depositing these files all over the place on foreign file systems. Check macwindows.com perhaps for some suggestions.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2001
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You could use FileBuddy to manually remove the files from your flash drive.
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
You could use FileBuddy to manually remove the files from your flash drive.
That would work, BUT be aware that if you remove the "._" file from a Mac-based data file that is dependent on the resource fork, you will corrupt the file and render it unusable on the Mac.
Wont matter for MP3 music, but if you're storing Mac data on the device it may matter.
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