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Forum Discussion
Problem transferring files from desktop dropbox folder to an external drive
I've used Dropbox for 2 years without issue. My files are located in the dropbox folder on my computer. It has worked flawlessly. Suddenly, when I try to transfer a file (located within dropbox on my...
Hi Lee,
This happens because your external drive uses a different file system than your internal drive. Your internal drive (where your Dropbox folder is located) uses NTFS, while your external drive most likely uses FAT32. The NTFS file system can store additional properties with a file, while FAT32 cannot do that. Dropbox uses this feature of the NTFS file system to store additional properties for the files in the Dropbox folder.
When you try to copy a file from the Dropbox folder to the external drive you receive that warning because the file system on the external drive cannot store additional properties. Therefore, those additional properties cannot be copied to the external drive.
You will not see that warning message when you transfer a file which has no additional properties (like most of the files outside of your Dropbox folder).
However, you can safely ignore this message because those additional properties are relevant only in the context of the Dropbox folder and only for the Dropbox application.
Hope this helps.
Razvan
I have some mp3 files that I want to copy to a USB but when I do only a short cut copies and won't play from the USB. When I do the copy it say that it will copy without properties which I think is what causes the problem. I don't understand FAT and all the things mentioned above, all I want is my files to copy and I don't know how. Please help
