PC-MAC Question

[philmccann]

HI there

Have just bought me a MAC. Know nowt about them, so am learning slowly. Was always a PC man till now. Now I have a desktop harddrive I used to backup my previous PC files. Is all this data worthless now, or can I retrieve it to the MAC??

Rgds

Phil

[V8mate]

What made you buy a Mac if you know nothing about them?

Genuinely curious.

[The Excession]

Depends what files are on it. There are plenty of MAC apps that can read Word and Excel documents etc. Pictures and music won't be a problem either.

What type of files are you concerned about?




This post needs shifting to the Computers and Stuff forum

[mmm-five]

The data on the drive will still be accessible by the Mac, it's just down to what file formats you've got on the disk as to whether you've got appropriate software on the Mac to read them.

[philmccann]

When I plug the USB drive in the mac says format required.

To answer other question, fed up with PCs been using them for 20 odd years, simply thought of a change. Easy as that.

[spydersingh]

You are okay my friend. Welcome to the dark side, and you will not want to go back to that blue screen of death.

Back to topic, I'm sure if you plug in your drive into the Mac, everything should come up as it should do. If you are a bit nervous and weary, ask someone how has a Mac to come around for a beer and talk you thru it. Otherwise, ring up your local Apple Store and get an appointment with one of their "Geniuses/Geniei" and get them to talk you thru it.

After a while you'll wonder what the fuss is all about.

[Juffled]

all media files are ok for both pc and macs, programs like vlc player will be useful to ensue this for the movies, all microsoft office files are ok, you can use open office (free) or office for mac, i doubt you have anything else on there

[moleamol]

Will the file format of the drive be the same though?

[Psychobert]

Have an external drive here which I regularly access using a mac and a PC through an Airport Extreme. Everything works fine.. Should be no problems with file formats - any media files that don't work immediately are easily converted..

[tinman0]

philmccann said:

When I plug the USB drive in the mac says format required.

Format the usb drive on the pc as FAT, copy files to it, and then shove in the Mac.

(Make sure nothing is on the usb drive before you format it though )

[cyberface]

The Mac *shouldn't* say 'format required'. I'm assuming here that the external drive is formatted with NTFS, the 'proper' Windows format.

Any OS X box since 10.3 (Panther) can access NTFS formatted disks read-only, and the NTFS-3G project allows writing on OS X too.

Exactly how old is this Mac?

[CVP]

Just gone through the same. Plugged in my external drive into new Mac and it can read all the Windows files but it cannot write to the drive. I just hoovered up the files onto the Mac. That external drive is being left with the old Windows box so I did not bother reformatting but just bought another external drive and use this in the Time Machine feature as my back up copy.

Worth getting a copy of "Switching to the Mac" by David Pogue. Well written and has helped me learn the new OS faster than I would otherwise have done.

So far I wish I'd made this leap years ago.

Chris

[tinman0]

cyberface said:

The Mac *shouldn't* say 'format required'. I'm assuming here that the external drive is formatted with NTFS, the 'proper' Windows format.

It might not be so aggressive, but i've found my Mac can take a dislike to a USB drive occasionally. Quick reformat on the PC and everyone seems happy again.

[philmccann]

Certainly looks the Bks. Only had it a few hours and already getting there. Can now read the contents on the backup drive. Thanks for all the help.

Certainly faster, simpler and more fun than the old Vista Crap.

Learning all the time.

Thx again

Phil