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ubuntu 20.04.3 - error "invalid filename" while copying to external HD

in flag

Why won't Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS copy all files to external HD? My external drive has been used as backup drive with Ubuntu 18..04 LTS for long time without any problems. But when I recently installed 20.04.3 I get error messages with "invalid filname" on hundreds of files, mostly names containing characters like ?, * and sometimes even -. This is something that never bothered 18.04 so it has nothing to do with the external HD. I've used other drives too just to be sure, it doesn't allow copying som files because of the name. This is really a problem because I have no complete backup.

There must be others having this problem

oldfred avatar
cn flag
Is it NTFS? You used to have to specify windows_names in a mount to prevent use of invalid characters. Window_names prevents the use of invalid windows characters: (which are the nine characters ” * / : < > ? \ | and those whose code is less than 0×20)
ErikaR avatar
in flag
@oldfired. Yes it is NTFS. Is that the problem? Which should I use?
oldfred avatar
cn flag
If using NTFS, you must have a Windows install to run repairs. If not using Windows better to use ext4. You can use NTFS for data sharing with Windows, but not for full system backup as it does not support Linux ownership & permissions. For data only those can be reset to defaults. And have to avoid invalid file names.
ErikaR avatar
in flag
@oldfred Thanks for answeing, I've changed the format to ext4 and everything is fine now!
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