Trouble opening Word files

Hi all....newbie here. First time Mac owner after too many years to count with a PC.

My question/problem is with opening my Word files that I have backed up on an external hard drive. When I open Word (for Mac) and go to file/ open....find the file and highlight....hit open......a little colored wheel pops up and just spins and never opens the file. I eventually have to do a force close on Word to stop the process.

Now.....I can open Word.....open Finder......locate file and click and drag the file into Word and it opens. Is that the only/correct way to open files of this type?

I have a new IMac by the way.

Thanks,
Tommie

First, what file format is the hard drive using? NTFS? FAT-32? If it's NTFS, your new iMac can read the files but can not write to them or open them on the external - therefore, can not open them in Word on your iMac. If the external is FAT-32 formatted, the Word files should open OK.

Dragging the files from the external to your iMac and then opening them will work even if the external is formatted to NTFS. Why? Because the files are not being opened or written to on the external, they're only being copied to the internal drive on your iMac where they can be opened.

Regards.

I just checked that external drive with disk utilities and it is Fat-32 format.
I had already opened one file from that external the first day I got the IMac and it worked fine.

I was a little surprised today when I tried to open another one and it wouldn't open.

Thanks for the help!

Well, that puts a different light on it. As your external is FAT-32, the Word file should have opened - perhaps with a slight delay.

Check the file to see if it's in the XML format (docx) or the compatible file format. (doc) Either way it should have opened if you're using MS Office 2008.

Regards.