Files from Windows to Mac

Windows won't recognize the file system Macs use. If you can partition you HD make that partition Fat32 and you are set. Fat32 can be read in most if not all OS's.

Hope this helps!

DJAKO said:

I have some video_ts files I need to move from my windows computer to my mac. There are around 8GB total for the one movie. My 8GB flash drive won't hold it and when I use my HD formatted for my mac windows doesn't recognize this. why is this?

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Your Mac will format drives as HFS+ by default unless you tell it otherwise. Windows can't read the HFS+ file system without a 3rd party add-on like MacDrive.

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

If there is nothing on your external drive, re-format it to FAT so that both computers can access it.

You can also transfer most of the files to your 8GB flash, then copy the rest afterward.

Another option is to network the two computers together (wired preferably) and mount the PC's drive to the Mac (or vise versa).

-steve

sJv said:

Your Mac will format drives as HFS+ by default unless you tell it otherwise. Windows can't read the HFS+ file system without a 3rd party add-on like MacDrive.

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

If there is nothing on your external drive, re-format it to FAT so that both computers can access it.

You can also transfer most of the files to your 8GB flash, then copy the rest afterward.

Another option is to network the two computers together (wired preferably) and mount the PC's drive to the Mac (or vise versa).

-steve

Click to expand...

Not totally sure, but I think this is wrong. I have a USB stick formatted for the Mac and it seems to work both in Windows and on Mac just fine.

One issue is the trash though. If you never empty the trash while the stick is connected to your Mac, then the available space will go down over time due to the trash being full (on the stick).

It's not reallly a requirement to format an external drive to FAT. The Mac (Leopard) will also read NTFS partitions but just can't write to them.

Virgil-TB2 said:

Not totally sure, but I think this is wrong. I have a USB stick formatted for the Mac and it seems to work both in Windows and on Mac just fine.

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USB flash drives come pre-formatted using the FAT filesystem, which is probably why it works. If you go to repartition and re-format it, it will default to HFS+. If you merely erase it (re-format) using disk util, then it will keep the FAT filesystem.

DJAKO said:

Can I hook up a cat-5 cable between the two computers for this transfer and maintain my wireless internet for online stuff? How would I let the computer know which is which lol. If you get what' im saying.

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You can, but you will manually have to set up IP addresses as you won't have anyone dishing out DHCP to the two systems.

Unix seems to know which interface is speedier and switches to it. For example, I can start a big transfer over wireless, then plug in my ethernet cable. It will automatically switch to ethernet.

-steve