Failed to create symbolic link

When I tried to copy /bin/ folder to an external hard disk using Thunar, the above message appeared. How could I copy such files?

 

There's not quite enough information to give a definite answer, but I would assume that as Thunar saw the external drive, it is mounted.

You can try doing it from the command line

cp -rp bin <target, for example, /dev/sdb1/my_directory>

(The /dev/sdxX will depend upon how the system sees the external hard drive. Typically, the small x will be a letter, and the large X a number.) You can also do

cp -rpv
which will make it more verbose about what it's doing.

 

My comp recognizes /dev/sdb1 to 9 but none is recognized as directory. So the code did not work.

Anyway, I believe I would not be able to copy Linux files with a name containing : / \ etc. to a fat32 harddisk shared by Windows. SO, I just give up, and backup my files using fwbackups into a TAR file that wraps all those names.

Thanks anyway.

 

If the external HDD wasn't formatted worth a linux-friendly file system, it won't have the ability to recognise symbolic links; trying to copy over a directory containing such links won't work! Linux filesystems can contain more file information than Windows/DOS ones.

Format the HDD as ext2 or ext3, and it should work.

 

Thanks, David... You confirm my suspicion on format problem.

Anyway, looks like the fwbackups ran flawlessly with the TAR file, except for SYS folder that I don't bother to copy.