Transferring files from a PC to a HD then to a Mac

I have a friend who wants to do this:

Transfer files from a desktop then to a portable hard drive, then to a mac.

I know a LOT about PCs and whatnot but I'm not sure about how OSX will act. After reading some "switching" posts I'm still left with a few questions.

Will OSX read and write to an NTFS partitioned drive? If not then is there a format that will work with the two?

The desktop doesn't have a dvd burner that would obviously be the easiest way, the transfer will be of mostly video, audio, pictures, and some office documents which will total about 40GB

Whats the best way to do this with only a portable hard drive?

Thanks

 

OS X will read NTFS volume, but will not write on it.
if ur total partition drive is more than 80GB (eg. 250GB) don't use FAT32 format, as u will loose ur data (happened to my sister, i already told her to format it to HSF+ but she will not listen... -_-)

there are a couple of ways i transfer my data.

1) with ipod - format it in windows so it has a FAT32 format, so mac will recognise it.

2) with Portable harddrive - format it either in FAT32 (if the drive is smaller than 80GB) or NTFS (if you don't plan on writing on it on mac) btw, you can both read and write on FAT32 format in Mac, but FAT32 don't have journaling/recoveribility (amongst other things...), so becareful.

3) there are many ways of course. but the two mentioned are i think the best option.


EDIT: ALL FAT in this ARTICLE IS FAT32, sorry, i was too lazy to put the 32 in... i'll change it now.

 

Even simpler way, put both of them on a network (using a switch or a crossover cable) and simply copy stuff. Should be much faster also.

 

My friend has an iBook and has just been given a present of a 320Gb drive. I *guess* it is FAT32, because I wrote some music onto it from my MPB last night, so obviously I could write to it.

Is there really a problem with FAT32 > 80Gb? Why? And if so, why do manufacturers sell them???

I'd be grateful if you could clarify because my friend is planning to back up all her data to the drive !

 

are you sure that wasn't a hd failure that ate the data, or some other occurance (drop, shock, etc) that could cause data corruption? I've had 65gb FAT32 on my desktop for over 2 years now, never lost any data.

so, based on my experience, i'd go with the fat32 option.

alternatively you can go HSF+, and then get a program called macdrive to read and write to the HSF+ partition from windows.

edit: just noticed the over 80gb part. my suggestion would be to try it and see what happens with some non-critical data.

 

If you only want to copy files from a portable drive to the Mac any NTFS or FAT format drive will do.

As wobble987 said Mac will read and write to a FAT partitoned drive but will only be able to read from an NTFS partioned drive.

 

if there was a genuine problem with FAT32 drives over 80gb, then surely they wouldnt be marketed? Or am I missing something ?

 

The only issues FAT32 has is that a single file cannot be greater than 4GB and drive size cannot exceed 8TB, which is 8000GB, so in theory 80GB FAT32 drives should be fine. However, Microsoft Windows has issues with FAT32. For example, Windows XP does not allow you to format a FAT32 drive of size greater than 32GB. You will still be able to format a bigger drive under Windows, but you will need to use third party applications in order to achieve that.

That aside, OS X can read from NTFS, and both read and write to and from FAT32. If you just want to copy files over to OS X, NTFS will be just fine.

 

Thanks for the info

 

I have a 3 year old FAT 32 formatted 160 gb Seagate drive...and it's still working fine.

 

if i'm not wrong. under windows; u need a special program to mount FAT32 that have a file size over..... 32/80GB> in size.

i don't remember quite properly, but i just got it in my head; if you got an external harddrive (except the ipod (20/30GB)) fomat it with either NTFS or HFS+ format.

i can't remember this (again ) but i thought my external harddrive (seagate 250GB) comes preformatted with NTFS. and i can't format all my drives, except my ipod or pocket harddrive, with FAT32. because windows xp can only support fat32 file under 32gb.

i think, my sister plug her external drive to the Macbook, and format it to FAT32 from there, i told her to write it to HFS+ but she cant be bothered. and then after a while, i think after she wrote a couple of stuff to the external harddrive (making the harddrive contains more than 80GB) the volume (external hdd) just says that it "the volume is not formatted" (something like that anyway.

EDIT: it could be 128GB instead of 80GB...