External Hard Disk

Dear all... I've recently purchase an Imac. I use to be using windows but now, I've change to Mac. So basically i got about 50gb of files from my portable hard disk, I want to transfer it to my imac. Can the Imac read the hard disk as I scare it may need to re-format it so I've not yet try.

Thanks

OSX can read Windows format and write to only Fat32.

I have just recently switched too. I have one of my windows external hard drives plugged into my macbook pro right now. I will read it. However, it can't write to it so you are safe to read and copy files from it but you won't be able to change them.
Aloha

OS X can also write/modify/delete files on FAT16, but i'm not sure who would format a drive FAT16 when you could format it FAT32.

once your data is copied off, you can reformat using OS X's disk utility under applications/utilities.

Awesome! Thanks u all. So in order to read & write for mac & pc use... I need to get a Hard disk like maxtor or lacie thats supports mac & pc right?

you can use the one you have. the only restriction is the file system.

feel free to reformat your current disk to FAT32 once you've retrieved all the data you need. you can also format to HFS+ if you're pretty sure you won't be using the drive on a PC (though you can always download a utility to read HFS+ on a windows machine). but for the best compatability, go FAT32, or create a couple partitions and make one of each.

ok eric. thanks. Will try it out soon.