Best way to bring project into apple retail store

[jertronic]

My girlfriend and I each both have a new Mac. Since mine is the iMac version I would like to make it easy when going in for an apple one to one appointment together. We want help with making and importing videos. I have a ton of home video on my iMac. I back up to an external HDD using TM.

Can I bring in my external HDD, as is and work on my stuff at the apple store?

She has a MBP, so for her it's easy. I want to avoid having to lug my iMac into the mall.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Yes, an external drive should work just fine for what you're trying to do. Make sure it is formatted in one of the supported formats for Mac OS X without add-ons though: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and its variants, FAT32, and for Snow Leopard 10.6.5 and newer, exFAT (also known as FAT64).

 

[jertronic]

Can I simply bring in my ext HDD containing the time machine back up? Or, do i need to partition, or format it differently than it's current state?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Can I simply bring in my ext HDD containing the time machine back up? Or, do i need to partition, or format it differently than it's current state?

If your project is already stored on an external HDD then you are good to go. If it is not, then you have some choices:

1. Copy the project to an appropriately formatted external and bring that
2. Move the project to the external, instead of copying

I don't recommend bringing in your Time Machine drive unless you're having problems with Time Machine, for the simple reason that, for what you intend to do, it will be very difficult to use. You can also use a USB flash drive for this purpose, if what you need to bring will fit on one - or, lacking that, I recommend a portable form factor external. Those are MUCH easier to transport than desktop form factor externals, but the downside is that their maximum capacity is smaller (up to 1 terabyte rather than up to 3 terabytes).