Moving Day

November 29, 2006 6:16 AM

Plug external hard drive into PC, grab all my music/docs, unplug, plug into shiny new MacBook, move files off drive. Can it be done?

I'm something like 8 days from having my very own shiny MacBook, my first Mac ever (I think I read too much internets, and you people brainwashed me into Apple fanboyism). If I buy an external hard drive that boasts compatibility with PC and Mac, can I take all the (cross-platform) files I need from my PC, put them on the drive, and bring 'em over to the Mac (or, in the case of the music, leave it on the drive for external access/backup)? I keep hearing about needing to format the drive for use on a Mac after you've used it on a PC...what's the point of having a drive compatible with both platforms if you can't cross-pollinate?

Yes, I understand I could also just use my trusty iPod, but I have it set to sync and don't feel like going back to disk mode.

posted by sjuhawk31 to computers & internet (10 comments total)

I'm pretty sure any USB or FireWire external hard drive will work happily with any Mac. (I have a LaCie USB drive that I use with my PowerBook G4, too).

The only issue would be the filesystem. Just make sure that the first time you pop in the drive and you have to format it, that you format it to FAT32 which is a file system that both Mac OS and Windows can happily read.
posted by DrSkrud at 6:21 AM on November 29, 2006

Yes. Mac OS X can read and write to FAT32 disks, and can read-only from NTFS disks.

Either way, you're fine. If you want to be able to write to the disk from the Mac, you can reformat it to FAT32 (on the PC or the Mac) or to the Mac filesystem. (If you never want to use it on the PC again.)
posted by Mwongozi at 6:35 AM on November 29, 2006

If you haven't monkeyed around with the format since you took the drive from the box, you'll probably be fine.

What's the worst-case? You start a transfer over ethernet or wireless and watch a dvd in the meanwhile?

Enjoy your new macbook! I've always been pleasantly surprised with how well mine meshes with my windows computers.
posted by cowbellemoo at 6:36 AM on November 29, 2006

Answer: Yes. Or use your trusty iPod. It mounts as a storage device whether iTunes syncs it or not.

Or if your PC has firewire, save money on the external drive and use your MacBook in target disk mode.
posted by ardgedee at 6:37 AM on November 29, 2006

Unfortunately, while a clever idea, you'll still spend money if you use target disk mode since you'll need to buy Windows software that allows you to read and write to the HFS+ filesystem. MacDisk is the more popular of such.
posted by majick at 6:47 AM on November 29, 2006

Shiny, thanks guys. I'll be sure to format the drive correctly now that I'm confident enough to go out and get one. I'm hoping that, once all my stuff is transferred to the MacBook, I'll never need to interact with another computer. My PCs have always treated me well; there's just no need for me to use them once I get all my stuff on the laptop.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 6:47 AM on November 29, 2006

d'oh! Forgot about HFS+. Yes, that is important.
posted by ardgedee at 7:37 AM on November 29, 2006

Should be fine doing it with an external drive- just don't format it to NTFS as mentioned above. You're macbook will read the files but will not be able to write to the disk if NTFS. FAT32 will give you r/w.

Another recommendation: create a back up of your fresh Macbook before you start to customize it- use carbon copy cloner and then create a bootable disk image on your external. That way in the event that things do go astray then you have a copy of your disk image and I believe you can also boot from it with the new intel macs.

I too am getting a macbook and plan on doing the same process. I have three 300GB external drives that I use back and forth from PC to Mac all the time, you'll notice the index files from both OS's but just ignore them and you'll be fine.
posted by eleongonzales at 8:06 AM on November 29, 2006

There is a file system size limit with FAT32 (don't remember how much at the moment) -- I had to partition my cross-platform drive to be max size FAT32 and the rest as NTFS.

However, since you are going one way from PC --> Mac, you could partition it as NTFS on the PC, copy on, connect to mac, copy off. Then after you have all your files on the laptop, wipe the external and format it as HFS+.

If you do not already have the drive, look for one that includes some version of Retrospect bundled with it. Great backup app.
posted by omnidrew at 10:00 AM on November 29, 2006

I just want to give some mad props for MacDrive (NOT MacDisk...it's easy to confuse the two), which is the de facto standard for Windows< ->Mac disk interoperability.

I regularly have to exchange files between my Macbook Pro, a G5 tower at work, and several Windows machines, and find it much easier and efficient to make the Windows machines speak the Mac's language rather than the other way around. Working with FAT32 formatted drives works if you're not willing to spend the money on software, but I found the 4GB filesize limitation to be, well...limiting, at least for the kind of data that I work with.

It's just a hell of a lot easier to install MacDrive on the Windows machine so that it can read AND write to Mac HFS/HFS+ partitions.
posted by melorama at 10:15 AM on November 29, 2006