Need some help before I go insane.

 

Basically I am in the process of putting some tunes on the Columbus HDD from an SD Card

 

I convert them to mp3 from the aac files using iTunes

 

Move them into a folder on my SD card

 

No probs so far, they're all there on the card in mp3 format.

 

Now comes the part Im having trouble with...

 

Soon as I put the card in the Columbus in says reading data or something, then it shows each track doing a quick scan but in front of each track name it has ._

 

When I go to copy the SD card to the HDD, its somehow duplicated every track, so if there were 20 tracks, it says copying 40!

 

When I go to the folder on the HDD it should just say 01 Welcome to the Jungle for example, but before the actual tracks it also has a  ._01 Welcome to the Jungle version and so on for the first 20 tracks, and none of them will play (it says unable to play file format or something)

Im having to manually delete all the ._02 ._03 etc  which is so slow as you have to do them individually!

 

When I have finally deleted all the ._ files, it leaves me with the actual tracks I want

 

Cant understand why its doubling the tracks in an unplayable format... I don't want them FFS!

 

 

 

 

I hope you understand what Im on about, and have a solution, as its making putting music on the HDD a very tedious task

 

 

TIA

 

Damo

 

I've not even figured out how to copy them over. I thought I did but i cant seem to access my hdd at all! Just not tried it again since!

Sent from my RM-821_eu_euro1_342 using Tapatalk

hey

 

so guessing you are doing this on a mac. its os/x creating them as you are copying to  non HFS+ or UFS volume (the sd card). os/x uses these files to store information that is stored invisibly on native mac file systems. 

 

there is good thread on the issue here - http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/14980/why-are-dot-underscore-files-created-and-how-can-i-avoid-them

 

and something like this may help - http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/ (note I have no affiliation or personal experience of the blueharvest app)

 

 

but read the FAQ with blueharvest ,and be very careful whacking these files as they can contain a lot of information you dont want to delete if you are using MS Office, openoffice or similar. 

 

 

t.

Edited 5 April, 201412 yr by tmg

Thanks for the reply fella

Yes it is a mac... and I'll have a read of those links later

Cheers mate

Hi Damon,

I had the same problem. Firstly when you convert the files the original files are also kept. the Mac will also save the files and when you view the SD card you will will three files at the top of the list, if you examine those files you will see. Lot of saved file. The easy way to remove them is Blueharvest this will stop,the duplication a and the strange hyphenation. You do have to pay for Blueharvest but fortunately there is. Trial period and this mY be enough for you. I am considering buying this product ( guilty conscience ) as it did save me a lot of problems.

I am assuming you are using separate folders for the albums. The mix option is not best in my opinion so I have made a separate folder with a mix of music and the Mix option does work well on this folder.

Also look at SD card organisation thread on this section

Hope this helps

I think Im just going to have to live with it after reading that.

 

Surely I can't hurt anything deleting the dot underscore files on the Columbus HDD when Ive copied it?

 

Just a PITA

 

I take it, this doesn't happen when filling an SD card from a PC

Hi, it is not as daunting as it seems. just that the mac uses a lot "safety" features to allow users to recover deleted data. The issue with the SD card is the metadata that shows on the card. You will see .fsevntd, .spotlight, .trashes. The Trashes file is where the stuff you do not need is stored and it will eat up a lot of the space on the card.

Not sure about this bit, but i think when i first did what you did before i realised what was going on, I noticed a lot of the Columbus HDD and been used for a relativley low folder count and I have put this down to problems we are discussing i.e. copying the saved converted files. I removed the folder, sorted out the sd card ( thanks to Blueharvest ) and now everything is fine. Blueharvest cost about 15$ US. £9.91

 

Once you have loaded files onto the sd card, cli ck on the files like trashes etc go into services at the bottom of the drop down list and select Blueharvest to delete of offending files.

 

There is much to love about Apple and so much to hate

 

have fun

John 

Thanks John

It may not be an option, but you should be able to load the SD card into a windows PC and delete the OSX files from there.

No cost then.