Soon to be Apple iMac User Question???

[Justin24]

So I will be buying an iMac in a week or so when I get my federal return. I have been a PC user all my life. I have 3 external hard drives which are a few years old and are still working fine. Can I hook up my external hard drives to the mac and work on my photos with out any problems or would I need to reformat?
If I reformat then I'm screwed cause then I would lose years of work. I do have a mozy account with all my stuff backed up too but its for a PC. I talked with their customer support and they said if I switch my account over to the imac I would need to start over again.

Is there any software you can recommend where I wont lose my work? I will also be buying either a 1tb or 2tb hard drive and I want to transfer my files over to that and retire my other hard drives.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Purplereign]

buy a bib . . . all that dribbling over the shiny prettiness can be very very bad for your new toy


enjoy

 

[Justin24]

Thank you Purplereign do you know if I can just hookup my external hard drives and have no problems or would they need to be reformated?

 

[waynetravis]

I think you can read the drives, but you won't be able to write to them unless you format.

 

[Liesje]

I think you can read the drives, but you won't be able to write to them unless you format.

They need to be MS-DOS/FAT32 format to read AND write on PC and Mac. If they are NTFS the Mac will read them but cannot write to them. Likewise if they are formatted Mac OS on a Mac, the PC is locked out. The way we ensure they work with both is to format with a Mac and do the MS-DOS.

 

[Justin24]

Could I transfer the files to the iMacs hard drive, then format the External Hard Drive and then transfer the files back?

 

[martha]

Justin goes Mac! It's a sign of the End Times!

Welcome to the future, dear.

 

[Justin24]

I know crazy right martha!! Me always bashing Apple LOL but I need to it for my photography.

 

[Diemen]

Could I transfer the files to the iMacs hard drive, then format the External Hard Drive and then transfer the files back?

That'd probably be the best way to go about it.

 

[LMP]

That'd probably be the best way to go about it.

Agreed.

 

[jesseu2]

Justin goes Mac! It's a sign of the End Times!

well, deep went from mac to pc like a week ago. There's a sign.

 

[namkcuR]

Snow Leopard can write to NTFS. Not out of the box, but it supports it.

 

[Justin24]

Ok so I am buying my iMac tomorrow. Just to get one thing straight. As stated the best method is to transfer all my files over to the imacs HD. Format the External to Fat32 then transfer all the files back to the External and it should be able to read and write correct?

 

[namkcuR]

Ok so I am buying my iMac tomorrow. Just to get one thing straight. As stated the best method is to transfer all my files over to the imacs HD. Format the External to Fat32 then transfer all the files back to the External and it should be able to read and write correct?

Justin, like I said above, Snow Leopard - which should be the version of OS X that comes with your new iMac - can write to NTFS. You have to modify a file, but it can be done. snow leopard write ntfs - Google Search Supposedly it's not actually supported by Apple, and some people have reported some problems, but it is proven to work. I haven't actually tried it myself - I just got Snow Leopard recently but haven't gotten around to installing it yet. There's plenty of info at the google link for you to look at - how to do it, the risks, etc - and make your own decision.

The disadvantage to MS-DOS/FAT32 that hasn't been mentioned in this thread so far is that it has a file size limit of ~4GB. I don't know what sorts of files you have on your external hard drive, but if you have any big video files or DVD isos that are over 4GB in size, they CANNOT be stored on a FAT32 partition.

 

[Justin24]

thank you NamkcuR. Man this is going to be a pain. I really don't want to hack and put plug ins to make it work. My files are usually not over 4gb. I also don't feel like paying 100 bucks to apple to have them successfully transfer everything over, then format to the ms-dos/fa32/NFS Bull shit. Why does apple have to be fucktards and have their own file system.

I might as well go buy a 1tb hd made for mac and transfer my files there, cause I know they will work.

 

[Liesje]

If it were me (I don't have any files near 4GB), I would format the external drive as MS-DOS using the new Mac's Disk Utility. If your iMac is going to be the primary computer, then that's how I'd do it. Whenever we buy a new external at work (I use Mac and PC interchangeably), our standard procedure is to format it on the Mac as MS-DOS. This way, I've never had any issues going back and forth, and my Mac is my primary computer. There's no reason why this would not work unless the drive is messed up or something.

 

[Justin24]

Got my files working on my new imac!