As newbie as they come

Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
104
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Hey all

I am wondering if I could get some help in the most basic of questions. I hope to be switching from a PC to Mac.

1. Right now I have an external drive that has most of what I value on it. (Photos and such). I do know that it will work with a Mac, but my understanding is I will have to reformat it. I have seen some posts on here about how to do that, but I think my question is so novice that I can't seem to get an answer on it lol. In doing so will I loose the stuff that is on my Harddrive. I have an old PC that did not have the required harddrive space to hold most of my Photos and Videos. I use the external drive as the solution to that. However that means that for much of my media the only place it is located is on the external drive.

So I am a little confused if I reformat it do I lose it? If so remembering my PC can't hold all that is on the hard drive...any suggestions of how to get it onto the Mac.

2. I have spoken to a few people at Best Buy about this(closest apple store is 2 hrs way) and I get conflicting reports. I am fairly particular about my itunes and have spent a lot of time organizing it just the way I like. Will I have to do all this reorganization all over again or is there a way to make my library in the new Mac appear just as it did on the PC with little effort? (if so how?)

Again thanks for the help, I realize to those in the know these are probably basic questions.

Cheers
 
Joined
Oct 23, 2010
Messages
836
Reaction score
17
Points
18
Your Mac's Specs
C2D 2.26 | 500GB Seagate Momentus | 2GB 1066 (soon to be 8)
Hey all

I am wondering if I could get some help in the most basic of questions. I hope to be switching from a PC to Mac.

1. Right now I have an external drive that has most of what I value on it. (Photos and such). I do know that it will work with a Mac, but my understanding is I will have to reformat it. I have seen some posts on here about how to do that, but I think my question is so novice that I can't seem to get an answer on it lol. In doing so will I loose the stuff that is on my Harddrive. I have an old PC that did not have the required harddrive space to hold most of my Photos and Videos. I use the external drive as the solution to that. However that means that for much of my media the only place it is located is on the external drive.

So I am a little confused if I reformat it do I lose it? If so remembering my PC can't hold all that is on the hard drive...any suggestions of how to get it onto the Mac.
Just plug the external drive into the Mac and then copy all the information over onto the Mac hard drive, then format the drive (erasing everything on it, and allowing Mac to write onto it) and then copy everything off the hard drive and back onto the external. Macs, by default, can read NTFS (Windows based formatting) but not write to it, and since your external is connected to a Windows machine, it is NTFS formatted.
2. I have spoken to a few people at Best Buy about this(closest apple store is 2 hrs way) and I get conflicting reports. I am fairly particular about my itunes and have spent a lot of time organizing it just the way I like. Will I have to do all this reorganization all over again or is there a way to make my library in the new Mac appear just as it did on the PC with little effort? (if so how?)
Simply find the iTunes folder on your current PC, copy it onto your above external hard drive, and then paste that in the iTunes folder on the Mac. Just do this before formatting ;)
Again thanks for the help, I realize to those in the know these are probably basic questions.

Cheers
Answers in red.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
1,466
Reaction score
47
Points
48
Your Mac's Specs
2.8 GHz 15" MacBook Pro OS X 10.7.x & some old Macs
1. If you only have one copy of those files on your external then you really should get either another external hard drive to create a backup or burn those files onto DVDs. If you only have one copy of something then you don't have a backup. Anyway s2odin's method works. Just double check to make sure all your files are transferred over to your Mac before formatting.

2. If you want to transfer all your playlists and music over to your Mac then you can also use iTunes' built-in backup to DVD feature: How to back up your media in iTunes. What's nice about doing it this way is that you also have a backup of your music and iTunes playlists in case anything happens.
 
Joined
Jan 27, 2007
Messages
5,658
Reaction score
159
Points
63
Location
*Brisvegas*
Your Mac's Specs
17 inch 2 GHz C2D imac (5,1) with 3GB DDR2 RAM, X1600 (128MB memory) GPU - OSX 10.6.3
1. You can move the important files:
Burnt to DVD
Copied to an external hard drive
Copied to a largish USB stick.

But yes make sure you have everything copied. Double and triple check.

2. Just remember to copy the old itunes playlist files from the PC to the Mac and you'll be ok :).
 
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
399
Reaction score
8
Points
18
Location
Switzerland & UK
Your Mac's Specs
2010 Macbook - OS X 10.9 - iPhone 4s - iPod - iPad
Hi,

When I switched to Mac I did as you have done re backing up photo`s > music > iTunes etc and all other important doc`s, then just plugged the external WD drive into new Mac and copied the files over.
Once done you use disk utility in the applications > utilities folder to format your external drive so your Mac can both read and write to and from it.
 
OP
J
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
104
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Hey Everyone thanks for the help.

So got the first message.....backup...very important lol I agree with you. I think I might burn everything onto disc just to have it.

Now to clarify.

1. I can move stuff from my harddrive onto the Imac before I format it, is that correct? (The guy at the Mac store didn't seem confident that I could......but he was young)

2. When I transfer the itunes folder......does it keep track of stuff like the following. How I have rated it? The number of times I have played it? Or even more specific stuff. Like say a particular song is encoded with information saying the genre is "rock" but I have changed that too "one hit". Does this folder recognize that stuff? This isn't a breaking point on whether I get th Mac or not, I just want to be sure I do this process right. I am glad it appears all of my songs will be transferred over, I just want to understand if my library will appear as it does now?

Thanks for the help
 
Joined
Oct 23, 2010
Messages
836
Reaction score
17
Points
18
Your Mac's Specs
C2D 2.26 | 500GB Seagate Momentus | 2GB 1066 (soon to be 8)
Hey Everyone thanks for the help.

So got the first message.....backup...very important lol I agree with you. I think I might burn everything onto disc just to have it.

Now to clarify.

1. I can move stuff from my harddrive onto the Imac before I format it, is that correct? (The guy at the Mac store didn't seem confident that I could......but he was young)

2. When I transfer the itunes folder......does it keep track of stuff like the following. How I have rated it? The number of times I have played it? Or even more specific stuff. Like say a particular song is encoded with information saying the genre is "rock" but I have changed that too "one hit". Does this folder recognize that stuff? This isn't a breaking point on whether I get th Mac or not, I just want to be sure I do this process right. I am glad it appears all of my songs will be transferred over, I just want to understand if my library will appear as it does now?

Thanks for the help
Hey, there's nothing wrong with being young. I'm 19 and been using computers for 16 years :) And I think I give pretty good advice, lol.

1. Yes.

2. It should, yes. Like if I volume boost a song in iTunes to +100 then put it on my s:flo2 (mp3 player) it is volume boosted on my MP3 player. I have never personally moved my itunes folder from a PC to Mac tho so someone else might have more input on this subject.
 
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
399
Reaction score
8
Points
18
Location
Switzerland & UK
Your Mac's Specs
2010 Macbook - OS X 10.9 - iPhone 4s - iPod - iPad
Hi,

I can only talk from experience, but when I transferred my iTunes folder from my external HD to Mac all was as I had saved it, which you can see form the screen shot of my iTunes folder within my music folder. So yes it should.

 
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
When my friend gives me a song he made and it was in iTunes, when he sends it from his pc to my mac, the artist, comments and album artwork are saved as part of the .mp3 file. You should be fine :)
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top