Topic: Pc>iMac harddrive swithch

[wheresjerry]

I just purchased my first iMac and want to transfer my concert recordings from my pc formatted external hard drive to my iMac. How the heck do you do this? With about 300 gigs, I am not about to burn them onto a disk, thumbdrive or anything that takes that route. I am ok with pc commands, but Mac is oh so foreign to me. I have seen there are different ways to do this but I am lost. I need to connect my pc formatted external to the iMac, transfer them to the iMac then reformat the drive for the iMac. Any help in layman terms here would be appreciated! Karl

[DigiGal]

MACDRIVE for your windows drive might help...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/


The current "Team Apple/Mac" thread is located here.
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=147525.0

[ScoobieKW]

if it's FAT32, which many windows external drives are, it's plug and play.

if the drive is formatted for NTFS, then this free driver will enable your iMac to read it.
http://download.cnet.com/NTFS-3G/3000-2094_4-10913782.html

Macdrive is a product to reverse the process and read mac drives on a window machine.

[wheresjerry]

So, seems like having Mac drive is a good thing to be able to format the drive and be able to transfer files to it, then use the drive on my Mac or pc, correct? The drive with my shows on it is ntfs and not fat.

[ScoobieKW]

what i'd do is start with the free option, NTFS-3G installed on your new iMac which is stable and I've used with linux. this will meet your stated purpose of reading and writing to your NTFS drive from your iMac.

if at any point you'd like to read any mac drives on your windows machine, then install Macdrive or HFS Explorer (free) http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html which lets you read mac formatted drives on your Windows PC.

[wheresjerry]

I'll give that a try. I want to dump the drive content onto iMac, then format the drive for iMac and be done with pc's. Keep ideas flowing invade this strikes out, but looks promising. Thanks!

[rastasean]

another free alternative...
if the old windows computer is still around and you have a router, you could connect to the mac to the windows and transfer the data over. Most likely this would only be at 10-11MB a second so it would take a very, very long time but just an alternative.

btw, this is the mac team board: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=147525.0

[wheresjerry]

I considered this method, but gets complicated for me with router permissions and settings, etc. I am still entertaining all methods. I'm sure I'll get it. I do have a back up internal HD on the pc, so I have two drives I can play with to get it transferred.

[DigiGal]

btw, this is the mac team board: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=147525.0

You are being invited/directed to start these questions in the [Team Boards] "Apple/Mac" or for this one even [Technical Help] "Computers/Internet Devices & Related Activity".

It is surprising this topic hasn't already been moved by a moderator because it is out of place where you posted it.

[scb]

plugging in a windows drive to read on a mac = very easy

plugging in a mac drive to read on a windows box = not

just download ntfs-3g and plug in the drive to the iMac.  it'll mount like any other drive

[wheresjerry]

This is what I did, sounds crazy, but well worth it.  I picked up a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex 1TB hard drive for $100 and it can be used on both a PC and Mac with out any hassles...all format info is built in, so it can be used on both formats.  Makes it so easy to transfer files between both, which makes it easy to share too being portable.  Thanks for all your excellent responses!