Incredibly frustrated with external HDD.

Hello everybody,

I have a Sony handycam, a couple of years old, which works with MiniDV tapes and a firewire cable. I almost never use it, but last week I wanted to import some old tapes into iMovie to edit them into one videofile.

Guess what, iMovie doesn't recognize my camera, and sadly there was no way I could get it to work (trust me, I tried, and even asked on another Dutch mac forum for help but no solution).

So I thought, okay, let's just put it on my parents Windows Vista desktop, and the two tapes were imported no problem. They're in .avi, which I know might cause a problem, but I have HandBrake so I can easily convert it to a file iMovie can cope with.

So I connect my week old external HDD (western digital) to the Windows computer, and it doesn't even recognize it. After some googling I found out that disks formatted for Mac aren't going to work on a Windows computer. Okay, that's fine, that's life if you're a Mac user.

So I borrow my Dad's external HDD because I read online that a Mac computer can read Windows external HDD, but not write on it. I transfer everything from the Windows onto the external HDD, and plug it into my MacBook Pro. My MacBook recognizes the external HDD, I can browse through it. Then I wanted to copy the first .avi file to mac (I just put it on the desktop, cause that was the easiest thing to do, I can move it later), and it starts copying. The file is several GB's big so it needed some time so I just spend some time on the Windows computer. Then, at the end of the copying process, I get an error code, number -26. It says (translated from Dutch) that the Finder couldn't copy the file because it contains content that he can't read or something.

I am soooo frustrated right now! How do I get these 2 .avi files on my MacBook Pro, so I can edit them into a video? It's just 2 MiniDV tapes that I shot last summer at vacation. I am seriously considering throwing all the computer stuff that I own out of the window. I don't consider this Apple's fault or Windows' fault, but I just switched last October/November (not sure), and while haven't had much trouble switching, this really throws me off. Why is it sooo hard to transfer two bigger size files from Windows to a Mac operated system? I use my USB stick all the time for other smaller files to be transferred, but unfortunately these files are too big.

Any help would be immensly appreciated!!!

- Eline

(PS: if you have any trouble understanding any of this, I'm sorry, I am Dutch, so it might be a language problem. If you just ask I'll try to clear it up for you )

your English is better than most on these forums

Try compressing the files into a format like .zip to transfer. OSX won't look inside that way.

Post back with the results.

Thanks, will try it now

And thank you, I try my best to write correct English

Edit: Cannot put them into .zip file because they are too big. I tried to put them in there together and seperately, but no luck. I can put them in .rar files, will that also work? I ask because the thing says it will take over an hour...

It worked. One of the two files is now on the desktop of my MacBook Pro Took over 2 hours to make the rar file though, so I'll save the other one for tonight because it's even bigger. At least I have a solution!

Thank you very, very much

use UnRaRx to open them again.

Yes, it worked, thanks!

Wow, so sorry this is the best answer...

I am having a similar problem and I am so frustrated that this is the best answer for this whole ordeal.

I bought a new external harddrive thinking I would be able to put a bunch of files from home (My Mac) and use them at work. I also thought it would help in transfering some files from my Mac to my new laptop (PC...yeah yeah, I wish I could afford the Macbook pro and wish it would be compatible with work...) anyway...

I just tried the seagate harddrive only to find that my Mac won't do anything with it! Of course my laptop running Windows 7 uses it fine...

So, I grab my other external harddrive that I use for time machine on my mac and try that on my Windows Laptop...no dice, doesn't even see it! Ugh...

Finally, I downloaded MacDrive based on the recommendation here:
Can I swap my Personal Storage Device between a Mac and PC?

and was able to get the Mac files off the Mac external harddrive. But what a pain...why does it have to be that way?!

Is there a more direct answer? I still don't have a way to take files from my home to use at work. I can't install MacDrive on my computer at work (no admin rights), and I can't use thumbdrives at work either based on work policy...I am left with only being able to burn CDs I guess...that should work right?

Please someone tell me there is a Mac Freeware out there that will let me save stuff to a windows external harddrive (I read on another forum that Mac should read NTFS but still can't write to it...honestly I don't know how to change the format on the external hard drive anyway...).

What is the best solution for easy file transfer between machines?!

Thanks for your time!

-Stuck between worlds

What Mac are you using also what version of OSX is on that Mac? If it's 10.6 Snow Leopard you can download a little utility called NTFS Mounter and have full read and write on OSX for an NTFS formatted hard drive.

If you are not running Snow Leopard 10.6 but say 10.5 Leopard, there are other solutions that allow writing to an NTFS drive. Also as long as no SINGLE file is larger than 4GB in size, you can format the external FAT32 and both windows and OSX will read/write, but if you are running 10.6, go with NTFS mounter as NTFS is a superior file system to FAT32.

So please tell us the OS version you are running on that Mac.