Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Copying music to mp3 player

Mar 17, 2018 5:13PM PDT

Hi all,

Might be an easy solution but I'm completely lost. I recently bought a new mp3 player as a replacement for my old ipod. I attempted to copy my music over by finding it in the itunes media folder and dragging it over to my mp3 player. But I keep getting errors after a few artists have been copied over. The error message isn't always the same, sometimes it says the file is too large to be copied to the destination which isn't true and sometimes it says the file no longer exists which it does. I've tried usb 2.0 and 3.0 ports on my laptop and tried a different cable but always the same result. All my music is in mp3 format but I have noticed that they all say that they are read only but it won't let me change this. Anyone have any advice what I can try?

Thanks in advance

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Without make, model
Mar 17, 2018 5:36PM PDT

It's anyone's guess but the most common reason for that message is either you ran out of space or copied all the files to the top folder which can only hold so many files. iTunes automatically hides such details so folk often get a rude lesson in how things work without iTunes.

- Collapse -
Make and model
Mar 18, 2018 2:40AM PDT

Thanks for the reply. It's not a space issue as its a 64GB mp3 player and I get the message transferring over one song that is only a few mb. The mp3 player is a bush KW-MP07BT. Laptop is a HP Pavilion 15 Notebook PC. I'm not a fan of apple which is why I've replaced my ipod with a non apple product. I'm even willing to go through my music collection artist by artist and change whatever settings I need to but I quickly come across a folder that simply will not copy to the mp3 player and I have no idea why. Error could be that there's not enough space or that the file is no longer in that location but I can copy the folder to my hard drive no problem. Could it be a problem with the mp3 player?

- Collapse -
A folder that won't copy.
Mar 18, 2018 12:22PM PDT

Remember that folk rarely are aware of the file count limitation in the top folder. I bring this up so now your know. The new to this issue owner will counter it's not space. It's not, it's a limitation.

As to the folders that don't copy, that's a known issue too. NTFS file names are not always valid in FAT32 file systems so you WILL GET ERRORS. Nothing broke here as it is what it is.

-> NOW YOU CAN MAKE A CASE THAT MICROSOFT SHOULD REPORT THAT ISSUE RATHER THAN "NOT ENOUGH SPACE." Sorry folk, we've asked for decades that this get fixed.

So here we are. Riding along in a 20+ year old jalopy. You get to learn all about areas that iTunes hid from view and just dealt with it.

->>> Big nod to other copy apps. I use Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier for such syncs as it can deal with some of these issues and may have better error reporting.

- Collapse -
Giving up
Mar 20, 2018 4:17PM PDT

Thanks for your replies. I really appreciate it.

Have tried everything I can think of but certain songs keep freezing and ejecting the mp3 player when I try to copy them over. And I can't find any difference between a song that copies over perfectly and one that freezes the whole thing. Also tried syncing through windows media player but that froze up a few minutes into the syncing process as well.

- Collapse -
What about Roadkil?
Mar 20, 2018 4:26PM PDT

It is my choice since I can see what items failed and look into why.,

Remember this will be a learning experience about NTFS versus FAT file systems and names.
Along with possible issues in MP3 TAGs.

- Collapse -
Roadkil
Mar 20, 2018 4:43PM PDT

Just installed roadkil. Do I use it to copy all my music from it's folder on my laptop to the mp3 player all in one go?

- Collapse -
Your choice.
Mar 20, 2018 4:47PM PDT

The idea here is to find a file that fails so you can inspect its name, tab, the folder name that holds it, etc.

Remember I take it you have done research on FAT and NTFS issues along with tags.