Mac and PC network

I recently switched from PC to Mac Pro, all I can say is wow.
I did some file manipulation and burned some cd's last night and it was laughable.
I tried to do it the PC way (read that the hard way) and was frustrated that the Mac would not allow me to open two finder windows. Then I realized it was not at all necessary.

The question.

I have my old PC that I want to use as a server. I have external hard drives that I have used for some time. I would like to place the PC server out of sight with the hard drives hooked to it. I could then use them for archives and backup.

My question: I tried a direct link to one hard drive and I could read from it but not write to it. I was told that was because of the HD format. It is not fat 32. If I write to the hard drive through the PC will I have the same problem? I need to buy a monitor to make this work and I don’t want to take the leap if it will not work.

Thanks in advance for your help.

You won't have the problem if you use the PC as a server. It takes care of the file system issue for you and just presents the logical contents via the SMB mechanism. I routinely read and write disks hosted on my PC this way. Have fun!

Great thanks for the assurance.

Actually, in thinking about this, I realize that I have always done this the other way around, accessing the Mac from the PC, not visa versa. I believe the steps are the similar, but you have to enable file sharing on the PC, and then from the Mac use the [Go, Connect to Server] dialog in the Finder window. Does anyone have a step-by-step "recipe" for Bill_S in this area? Since I have always done it the other way around, I can't provide the detailed steps. Thanks.

With this article and about 15 minutes of your time, you should be up and sharing in no time. Just remember to get the workgroup name the same on both computers. Apple has a decent article as well. Both of these are spot on for the Mac but they kind of gloss over or over complicate the PC side. I would recommend searching for pc to pc file sharing to get the PC half down if you are having problems there.