iMac in the bin at this rate!

Good evening all,

I was in love with my new iMac until I discovered how it was difficult it was to connect it to a PC to transfer files. I even bought a crossover ethernet cable.

However no matter what I do, I get the message "The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again."

The Laptop and iMac are directly connected why can it not just be simple and they recognise each other?

Any help would be so very much appreciated!

Many thanks

I am sure some of our smarter members will be able to solve this problem. But solving the problem requires a bit more information:

1. Which operating systems are involved here (on both the Mac and PC).
2. Do you have the firewall software turned on on either of the machines?
3. Have you tried this with a regular ethernet cable? If I am not mistaken the network hardware in the iMac is auto sensing so a crossover cable would likely be unnecessary.
4. Is file-sharing turned on for both the Mac and PC?

For that matter - have you even setup IP addresses and/or confirmed that you can ping either system from the other?

I know it's kind of irrelevant, but if you have an external hard drive, it would be much easier to use that instead. What you're doing can get a little complicated sometimes, as the post's above already depict.

You could use Microsofts files and settings transfer wizard to copy them to an external disk.

I assume you are running Windows on the iMac and that's the reason for the transfer.

This is tricky. I know I've done it and it worked flawlessly, but the set up with the IP addresses and firewalls was really byzantine and I couldn't do it again now. I did it wirelessly. I know you said you are doing it with a cable, but here are some pretty clear instructions connecting the two computers by creating a network.

How to connect to a Windows PC from Mac in a Network | PushkarArora.com

Two words:

Thumb. Drive.

+1 to the thumb drive if you have all day to go back and forward with the thumb drive. Not the best method by far but that works.

Or you could buy an external hard drive, format it PC and use that to transfer all the files over then reformat it Mac and use it for Time Machine or soemthing else.

forget the crossover cable. use regular cat5 network patch cables, and network the two computers via a network switch. then drag and drop to your heart's desire!

Decaf said:

I was in love with my new iMac until I discovered how it was difficult it was to connect it to a PC to transfer files. I even bought a crossover ethernet cable.

Click to expand...

Maybe the problem is that it's difficult to connect a "PC" to a Mac.
(For a Mac owner who just bought a "PC". It's a matter of perspective!)

I second the thumb drive... I just threw all my PC stuff onto a flash drive and slammed it in my iMac and I was good to go.