FAT32 to Macbook Air External Drive

Hi everyone! I just got my very first Macbook Air & I'm currently saving up for a time capsule for more storage.
However, in the meantime, I wanted to transfer my files from my IBM Thinkpad to my Macbook Air. Being a first-timer, I was told briefly by someone that there should be format changes to be done before I can connect my Transcend external HD & begin transfer.
Is there anywhere in this site where I can get a step by step guide on how to do this & anything else I might need to know on switching from IBM Thinkpad to Macbook Air?
Appreciate it!

Welcome to the forums.
If your External disk is in FAT32, just connect it to you Mac and drag and drop as you wish.
OS X has no problems reading/writing to FAT32 volumes, only caveat is that filesize on FAT32 is limited to 4 GB per file ( that is not an OS X limitation however )
OS X can read NTFS volumes, but can not natively write to them ( there are 3 rd party drives for that )

Hope this helps.

Cheers ... McBie

Thanks! Will try that!

I see ShopPhoneCases sell a firewire/USB connector - is this the way to send data from a FAT32 ( old ) external drive to a much newer MacBook Air?

jack7158 said:

I see ShopPhoneCases sell a firewire/USB connector - is this the way to send data from a FAT32 ( old ) external drive to a much newer MacBook Air?

Click to expand...

Maybe. Maybe not. What is this old drive installed into? An external case, another computer, what? You need a connector that fits from THAT to the MBA.

@jack7158

Your question is welcome, but you are tagging on to a 5.5 year old thread.

Maybe opening a new thread with fuller details might stimulate more interest.

Ian

Thanks for that Jake - the old drive is a standalone, Firewire Seagate - no model name or number, ( used at the mo with a graphite iMac, being dumped, , and I do intend to connect the Ext HD to my MBA, but i don't know if just buying a Firewire / USB adapter will make a plug and play option. Cheers Jack

Thanks for this Ian - much appreciated - but the thread is still live and I have had 3 other replies in a matter of hours, so it still works. They have given advice and asked for more details, and that's very welcome and helpful - that's what I like about forums - there are a lot of helpful people out there, like yourself. Cheers Jack