Bought My First Mac Computer Last Night

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Good Day All,

Thanks for letting me be apart of your site!!

Long time Mac product user(Ipod/Iphone), first time Mac computer buyer. Wife and I just picked up our first MAC last night. I haven't even taken anything out of the box but the owners manual. Being a life long Window OS user at school, home & work, this little experience should be a nice change of pace.

A couple of question before I set the computer up though. We currently have a windows OS laptop and everything Digital(photos/Music/movies) is on a Western Digital Hard Drive.

1) What is the best way to get that information onto the new MAC?
(I have gone ahead and copied all my information onto another hard drive just in case of a hard drive crash while transferring)

2) Can I hook up the laptop and transfer all data as well. We have recently purchased music and some small data and information files on the computer but nothing major. Or would I be better to copy everthing to the hard drive and try to transfer to that?

Thanks
Frank
 
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First, what type of Mac did you get? Also, where did you buy it at (Apple Store, online, etc.)? If you picked up same at a Mac Store they could transfer the data from your old PC to your new Mac. More input please.

May God Bless!

Ed:Blushing:
 
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2011 MacBook Air, i5 27" IMac, 2010 21.5" IMac, 2010 Mini, 2011 13" MBP, IPhone 4, Airport Extreme
Well, The easiest way is to move the data to that Western Digital Drive you referred to, then just plug the drive into your new Mac. The Mac will be able to read the external drive with no actions required on your part.
 
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Thank you everyone for your replies. I fired the iMac up last night and it worked flawlessly. It is the faster computer I have personally every used or owned.

osxx-Thank you for the link it was very helpful.

mini_mi - I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged the WD HD into the iMac and it loaded up everything on the HD. I thought because it was being used on a Windows system I would have to reformat the entire thing.

Again Thank You. We are up and running, now it is time to enjoy and explore!!

Thanks
Looking
 
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FYI, your MAC had native read support for most HD's. However, if you are planning on copying files back over, you will need to make sure that the HD is not formatted in NTFS. In order to write it must be formatted in FAT32 or HFS(MAC OSX format).
 
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I will probably just try and copy everything off the hard drive to the computer, then get a permanent external hard drive to store everything too that I can write back and forth too on the iMac. Of course I will keep my original hard drive.

The WD website says it is formatted NTFS.

My intention is to store my music for itunes on the comuter, but I will store pictures to a hard drive in order to save HD space.

Should there be any problems with the above?

Thanks
 
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Is the WD an external? if so then i would copy everything off it and then reformat it as FAT32- this will allow you to read write to the drive from both Mac and Windows provided no single file is greater than 4gb- which shouldnt be an issue provided you are not putting HD movies on it.

Either way, you will want to format any external as HFS(mac only) or FAT32(mac and windows) to ensure that you can backup your photos from your mac.
 
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Yes, the WD HD is and external, thank you for the tip on formatting to a Fat32. I will mostly definitely do that then.

Once again, thank you for all the help, from a imac newbie. I am sure I will have many more questions as I start
learning the new system.
 
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I actually bought my first Mac, 27in iMac about a month ago. The more you use it the more you will love it.
 
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Question - How do I find out all the computers my Itunes account is linked to?
I have my home PC, Work PC and new IMac, but the Mac told me last night That I used 5of5 user accounts already. Is there an account setting to view those authorized accounts?
 
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To my knowledge there is not, however, there is a way to deauthorize all currently authorized computers tied to your ID. To do that login to your itunes account and view your account information in itunes. I believe its under the store drop down in itunes. The screen that comes up will have a button right there to do it. You'll then have to reauthorize any other PC's for it.
 

Slydude

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Good Day All,

Thanks for letting me be apart of your site!!

Wife and I just picked up our first MAC last night. I haven't even taken anything out of the box but the owners manual. ...
Frank

Welcome to the board. As you can see lots of helpful folks here. You sir have demonstrated a remarkable, albeit misplaced, degree of restraint. In the future if you are going to fit in with this crowd you really must open those boxes far sooner than that. :D
 
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Thanks StMFA, Found the button and used the button. Not real sure where those other authorized computers where but it was probably my wife!!

Slydude, thank you for the welcome. Yes I am a very restrained person when it
comes to stuff I know nothing about. Otherwise I am typically like a kid on Christmas morning!!
 

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