Mac restarted while copying 2TB between externals — Did files transfer?

[dmag]

I'm copying 2 TB of files between two externals over USB. It almost finished and then must have hit a glitch and the computer restarted. Now I see ghosted-out folders in the destination drive. However, they all register "zero bytes" when I get info.

Do I have to start all over from scratch, or is there a way to complete the job and save having to do it all again?

Thanks.

[Tiangou]

Throw the "ghost" folders in the trash.

The copies should have proceeded alphabetically and hierarchically. So, look in the last non-ghost folder and see how far the copy-operation got. You may be able to save some time by copying only those files/folders that didn't make it over successfully.

...If they're all ghost-folders then toss the whole lot of them and start over.

[dmag]

Tiangou wrote:
Throw the "ghost" folders in the trash.

The copies should have proceeded alphabetically and hierarchically. So, look in the last non-ghost folder and see how far the copy-operation got. You may be able to save some time by copying only those files/folders that didn't make it over successfully.

...If they're all ghost-folders then toss the whole lot of them and start over.

Thanks for the tip. All ghost-folders. Starting over.

[ka jowct]

You’d be better off using Carbon Copy Cloner or ChronoSync when doing large transfers or backups.

[mikebw]

I've had success copying files via the terminal. I've used cp -Rpv, do that then drag/drop your origin and then destination. The -R makes it recursive so it goes into subfolders if there are any, and you can see what files are being copied as they are completed.

[davemchine]

The ghost files definitely need to be deleted. I had several situations like this and I switched to using PathFinder which provides much more reliable file transfers.