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Buying 15" MBP tomorrow, tips on getting files on to it

R

ravensfan55

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 16, 2009
413
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Right now I have a Vista laptop, and I plan on getting a 15" uMBP tomorrow. What's the best way to get my files from one laptop to my new one? I have an IDE to USB Hard Drive enclosure I could use, but I'd rather not take out the hard drive.

Also, would it be worth it to get the mid-range with the 9600M GT? It's only $250 more (education discount). I don't plan on using a lot of games but I will be using Photoshop and video (maybe HD) editing.
 
You have got a few choices:

1. Have the Apple Store do it for you. Just bring the hard drive in
2. Take all the data onto an external hard drive and put it onto your Mac
3. You a cable to transfer the data between them.
 
celticpride678 said:
You have got a few choices:

1. Have the Apple Store do it for you. Just bring the hard drive in
2. Take all the data onto an external hard drive and put it onto your Mac
3. You a cable to transfer the data between them.
Click to expand...

Will they transfer them for free? I read that if you signed up for One2One they would do it.
 
celticpride678 said:
You have got a few choices:

1. Have the Apple Store do it for you. Just bring the hard drive in
2. Take all the data onto an external hard drive and put it onto your Mac
3. You a cable to transfer the data between them.
Click to expand...

1. That'll take forever, and chances are, the person will roll their eyes.

3. I've tried that before. It doesn't work.

I'd say 2 is the best option. 1 TB costs about $100. Unless you've got a network...

And I'd like to point out, if your laptop has Vista, it probably doesn't have an IDE HDD.
 
How much content do you have to transfer. I transfered 90 GB of content with a 16GB flash drive because I couldn't find my 100GB external HDD. With the thumb drive it took 6hrs of data transfer. Not bad really.... On the top of every hour I was done a 16GB session.
 
I have about 50GB of data I need to transfer, it's a 160GB drive.

I bought this laptop right after Vista came out in 2007, it has an IDE drive.
 
Now I need to actually FIND the enclosure, it has my old old laptops HDD in it, but it's whereabouts are unknown. :(
 
ravensfan55 said:
Now I need to actually FIND the enclosure, it has my old old laptops HDD in it, but it's whereabouts are unknown. :(
Click to expand...

Then I'd get a 1 TB external with USB 2, FW 400 and maybe FW 800. At the most, it'll cost $130. And even better, when you're done transferring files, you can setup Time Machine to use the shiny, new external drive you have.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
Then I'd get a 1 TB external with USB 2, FW 400 and maybe FW 800. At the most, it'll cost $130. And even better, when you're done transferring files, you can setup Time Machine to use the shiny, new external drive you have.
Click to expand...

I agree, external drives are the easiest and having even a simple backup solution can pay off.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
Then I'd get a 1 TB external with USB 2, FW 400 and maybe FW 800. At the most, it'll cost $130. And even better, when you're done transferring files, you can setup Time Machine to use the shiny, new external drive you have.
Click to expand...

+1

External hard drives are great to use w/ Time Machine. This is probably the best way to do it.

Regarding the upgrade, I generally advise against getting the "next fastest" processor unless you absolutely need it because most of the time for day to day tasks, you won't notice the difference. However, the graphics card is much better in the more expensive model, and I believe would help you with video editing, but i'm not too sure how significant the performance bump would be. $250 is $250 though, so if you don't think you will need it I would advise against it. $250 alone for the processor bump isn't worth it but if you see value in the better graphics card in terms of editing video then the upgrade is definitely worth it.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
TM has saved my bacon more than a few times!
Click to expand...

Same. I once deleted my entire (>30 GB) music library and emptied the trash. Don't ask how but I "clicking" a bit too fast that day! Time machine actually restored the whole thing, preventing a huge disaster. We're talking years and years of accumulated CDs and hours and hours spent ripping music here!
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
Then I'd get a 1 TB external with USB 2, FW 400 and maybe FW 800. At the most, it'll cost $130. And even better, when you're done transferring files, you can setup Time Machine to use the shiny, new external drive you have.
Click to expand...

A 1TB external HD with FW for $130. They don't exist. Edit: Oh snap, I actually found one. Too bad the shipping from Newegg.ca would defeat the purpose.
 
The apple store will do a basic setup for all new computer purchases for free. You are responsible for putting all files in a single folder on you vista desktop and they copy it to your mac desktop. Usually takes about 24-48 hours depending on how busy your store is. A 1-2-1 membership includes a complete setup which means that they drop your music into iTunes, photos to iPhoto, and documents into the documents folder. Same 24-48 hour turnaround.

If you don't wan to do that, take an Ethernet cable and hook your machines directly together. I'm not sure about the vista laptop but your mac will have an auto-sensing port meaning it will sort out all of the connection issues. Make sure your vista laptop has a password on it and a computer name that you know. Then enable sharing on your c: drive. Share the whole thing. On your Mac, press apple-k to connect to server. Type in "smb://your-vista-computer-name" without the quotes. If you've got a router with a switch you can hook both computers up to that and use the vista computers IP address instead. Either way works. Type in the windows account name and password.

You're now connected to your vista machine. Drag your files over. :)

Even if you don't already have an Ethernet cable it will cost you only a few bucks to buy a short 6-foot cable. It's pretty much the cheapest/fastest option out there.
 
I dont suppose you have a firewire port on your PC? Even my crappy dell has a firewire 400 4 pin port. If you have fw, usb will work too(slower), just put your mac in target disc mode and just transfer all your info.
 
mikes70mustang said:
I dont suppose you have a firewire port on your PC? Even my crappy dell has a firewire 400 4 pin port. If you have fw, usb will work too(slower), just put your mac in target disc mode and just transfer all your info.
Click to expand...

No Firewire on my laptop.
 
for me, i will transfer files i want on my windows hard drive onto a shared folder.

than i will connect from my mbp through finder "Connect to Server" and transfer the files over
 
What's wrong with a single, simple TP (cross)-cable and transfer the stuff over the network? Sounds like you're trying to hard.

If the old PC has a 1Gbit network card it will go really fast as well.
 
There are plenty of possibilities... as mentioned you could use an external hard drive, you could use a usb memory stick (depending on the amount of files you want to transfer) or you could transfer over the network (wired or wireless, with wired being faster obviously)!
signature_silverapple.jpg
 
bolen said:
What's wrong with a single, simple TP (cross)-cable and transfer the stuff over the network? Sounds like you're trying to hard.

If the old PC has a 1Gbit network card it will go really fast as well.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, you wouldn't specifically need a crossover cable. GBit Ethernet (or at least the Mac's ethernet port) is Auto-sensing, meaning that it would take care of the Tx/Rx for you. A simple cat5/e/6 patch cord would do fine.
 
Sneakz said:
A 1TB external HD with FW for $130. They don't exist. Edit: Oh snap, I actually found one. Too bad the shipping from Newegg.ca would defeat the purpose.
Click to expand...

At the Best Buy closest to my house, there are 1 TB externals for ~$100. Not sure about the connectivity, though.
 
So I got the mid-range 15" MacBook Pro, LOVE IT! I popped open my Vista laptop, took out the hard drive, and what would you know, it was a SATA, despite device manager saying it was ATA/IDE. Anyways, I have an old IDE hard drive I'm formatting now, so I should be able to get most of my data over by later tonight.
 
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