Moving files from PC to Mac with External HD (NTFS)

I have a 1.5 tb external hard drive that I use as backup for all my music, movies, pictures, etc. That's basically the bulk of all the files that I want to move over to my new mac from my windows pc. How exactly do I go about this? Does the HD have to be in a certain format or will it already recognize the files on there?

I don't have a problem with wiping the hard drive clean and loading it up again if I need to change the file format but will I have to?

Are you running OSX 10.7 Lion, if so migration assistant can help
OS X Lion: About Windows Migration Assistant

louishen said:

Are you running OSX 10.7 Lion, if so migration assistant can help
OS X Lion: About Windows Migration Assistant

Click to expand...

Yes it will be. The iMac still hasn't arrived.

The only real settings that I want to carry over are the files in the folders above.

If I wanted to go the route of just backing things up though would I just be able to plug in the external hd or does it have to be in a certain file format?

If you want to just transfer your movies, music, pictures, etc on your external hard then it's as easy as plugging it in and copying all the files over to your new Mac. Macs can read NTFS file formats without doing anything extra. If you want to write to your NTFS drive then you will have to use software that will allow you to do it.

If you no longer want to use your external drive for Windows then you can format the drive to Mac's file format and then manually backup your files like you did on Windows. If you want to use the drive for both Windows and Mac then it will be a little more tricky. I prefer to keep my Windows and Mac backup drives separate. Many people fully switch over to Mac as their main computer so they don't need to backup both.

If you want to conveniently backup everything automatically on your Mac then think about using Time Machine. It will require you to format the external drive but Time Machine will do that for you.

If you would like to be able to read and write to your external, it needs to be Mac OS extended (Journaled). Otherwise it will recognize your external and read from it only and then you can redo by way of 'Disk Utility' after you've done your transfer.

Hope that helps...

Ok EndlessMac said it first and better than I did lol I'm not sure if you could also have 2 partitions formatted differently. 1 for your Mac and 1 for your windows... But as others have said often in this forum: it's often best to ONLY use your mac for a while and 'de-microsoft' yourself for a while (MS windows way of thinking can make the switch a lot harder than it needs to be).

Thanks guys. I'm gonna go ahead and backup all my most recent files later on this week in preparation for loading them onto my imac when I get it.

Then I'll format the drive and use it as a backup for my mac files. I have 2 other 500 gb hd's that I have a 2nd backup for that I'll keep in the windows format and the 1.5 main backup drive will swithc to mac.

I like to manually backup my files.

Another question though. How well does it work to just set up a network or connect the 2 computer and send files from windows to mac that way?

I'm just hoping that maybe I can avoid having to backup my most recent windows changes to the external hd cause i'm ultimately gonna format that hd to mac....if I can just transfer directly from the pc to the mac that would be way better and not force me to backup twice.

DaGrandMastah said:

Another question though. How well does it work to just set up a network or connect the 2 computer and send files from windows to mac that way?

I'm just hoping that maybe I can avoid having to backup my most recent windows changes to the external hd cause i'm ultimately gonna format that hd to mac....if I can just transfer directly from the pc to the mac that would be way better and not force me to backup twice.

Click to expand...

You can network Windows and Mac. Here is some instructions for you. If that doesn't help you there are a lot more help articles to read on Apple's website.

Thanks Endless mac. I'll give that a try. Whatever works easiest to get my files from pc to mac.

This will actually come in handy anyways since I'm going to keep my pc as a secondary computer.