[beachboy_ce]

Sorry to anyone who had seen a post similar to this in some random thread. I swear I posted this thread in the Anthing Mac forum earlier, but I tried to search for in and found nothing. So I'll try again...

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Overall, what is the best to go about doing this? I was thinking of the network, hooking up my Dell desktop to my new MacBook via an ethernet cable.

I've got about 100GB of pictures, music, photos, video, work (Word) docs etc. that I want to store on my external hard drive connected to my Mac. How should I format the external?

I want to use my external hard drive connect to my MacBook via FW 400 regularly, with a partition for internal HD back-up, leaving the rest of the drive for files. But I also want to take these files off my PC first (one time only) to store on my external.

I need help!

Thanks,

Very, very, very excited new Mac user!

 

[jaline]

I'd like to know more info about this as well before I move my files.

Also, what external HD are you using?

 

[dannyrabbittang]

Well that would depend on how you'll be using the external drive afterwards.

For me, I formatted my drive to HFS (Mac format) and then I went to my old windows machine and enabled shared networking on folders that I needed to take files from. After that I connected to the folders on my MacBook via network and transfered my file to the external that way.

Another way would be to format the drive using FAT32 format (MS-DOS File System in Disk Utility) and then plug it into your windows PC and grab files that way.

 

[Starkicker]

Can windows see the HFS filesystem?

 

[dannyrabbittang]

I remember I tried to connect my HFS formatted disk to my sister's PC and I got nothing. So I would have to say that Windows doesn't see HFS.

 

[Daktari]

Have the external drive plugged in on the Macbook and partitioned into two with one for backup and one for network shares.

The way to go is to have both partitions (Backup Partition and Network shares Partition) in HFS+ (journaled) and make the Shared partition available to the Dell on the network using SharePoints. I haven't tried it personally.

Another path is to have both MS-DOS aka Fat 32 and HFS + on the same external hard drive. This is a bit more of a hellish experience. This way you can read and write on the Fat 32 partition using the mac or using the Dell, while having a fully bootable HFS+ Journaled backup. I had it up and running but I decided that with my luck I would prefer to minimize all the chances of anything going wrong with my only backup.

After setting everything up, share the drive on the mac and simply copy whatever you want over the network. If you have gigabit ethernet on the Dell as you do on the MacBook plug them in directly into each other, then make sure both computers are in the same subnet and the copy the data over at a much faster rate.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Windows will not see a directly connected HFS+ drive unless you purchase the commercial MacDrive software.

If you connect a HFS+ drive to a Mac and share it on a network with Sharepoints, then the PC could see it, but as a SMB: network share, not as a "drive"

 

[beachboy_ce]

HFS+ (journaled) and Sharepoionts seems like the way to go. That is just my delima, I want to get the files from my PC onto my external drive which I'll be using on my Mac.

Other than this one time, I dont plan on sharing any files with my Dell, or plugging it into the Dell. In fact, the Dell will be going into the trash soon after the files are transfered.

So I guess I'll plug in the external to the Mac, and enable file sharing on both machines. Then install Sharepoints on the Mac and start the transfer, correct?

jaline, I've got a 500GB/7200 rpm Seagate external drive in a Maxor enclosure.

Thanks for everyones help!

 

[fyrefly]

Well-- do you see yourself ever having larger than a 4GB file, or longer than a 32 Character filename on the External Drive?

If not, you can just format as FAT32 and it can be read on both the Mac and Windows machines. You plug it into the windows box, transfer your files, and then just plug it into the Mac. Voila.

It's the easiest way if you can live with the limitations of FAT32.