I don't know if this problem is due to hfsplus so i posted about the following tar command with them.. apparently the procedure losetup -o 827510784 /dev/loop0 /dev/sr0 (apple 10.6.3 dvd)(am pointing to hfs+ volume) mount -t hfsplus /dev/loop0 /mnt/loopbmnt/ then having /dev/sdb1 mounted (it's hfs+ formatted).. cd /mnt/loopbmnt tar cvf - * |tar xvf - -C /mnt/sdb1 when 'var' is reached with tar.. it exits about some error about "var" and var on the hfs+ volume is a symlink.. I'm not sure if this is due to tar or hfsplus.. 12 items are not finished completing to be copied.. it takes 10 minutes to reach that point and am not sure how to duplicate it so i can shorten the test time.. ... but those symlinks are copiable..