Switching Music Files from Mac to PC

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I have about 195 GB of music files on my Mac formatted external Hard Drive in an itunes library. I need to get my music files moved to my PC. Is this possible?
Also, I would like to somehow un-format the Mac formatted external HD and then re-format so that I can now use it on the new PC. Is any of this possible? How do I do it.
Will the re formatted ext. HD be "safe" after this switch?
 

chscag

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I have about 195 GB of music files on my Mac formatted external Hard Drive in an itunes library. I need to get my music files moved to my PC. Is this possible?
Also, I would like to somehow un-format the Mac formatted external HD and then re-format so that I can now use it on the new PC. Is any of this possible? How do I do it.
Will the re formatted ext. HD be "safe" after this switch?

You can move your music files several different ways:

1. Network your new PC with your Mac. Make sure the external HDD is attached to the Mac. Transfer the files. With networking the file format is transparent.

Note - your new PC will be formatted to NTFS so you can't write to it directly. I do not recommend using NTFS R\W software for the Mac as it is not reliable.

2. Purchase another external HDD and format it to FAT-32. Copy your music files directly to the FAT-32 drive and later transfer them to your new PC. This may be the easiest solution and nowadays large external drives are inexpensive.

As for reformatting you old external drive, that's easy. Once all your files are transferred, use Disk Manager from XP or Vista to remove the HFS+ partition, create a new Windows partition, and format the drive. As for the drive being safe, I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but once the drive is reformatted all the old data on it will be gone (not really) and the space will be overwritten with new data.

Regards.
 
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Thank you. Can I just use the old External hard drive on the new pc after I reformat it? You said to buy a new one. Also, do you have a link or instructions for how to network the two computers this way?this way
 
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I think that way is a bit complicated. Your PC should be able to read the Mac formated drive it just won't be able to write to it. Just connect your external to the PC and drag the itunes folder to where ever on your PC. I don't have Windows, but I'm sure there must be a music folder there somewhere.

Once you copy all the music off you can reformat your drive. I'm pretty sure it doesn't hurt your drive in any way when you reformat it. The only thing is all your data that was on it will be deleted once you do the formating. So just make sure that it all copied successfully to the PC before you do it.
 

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