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External Hard drive questions

B

BBA

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 8, 2006
8
0
Hello, I am a windows user :mad: who is about to buy a Mac. I am waiting for the next update to the Macbook. I am excited to be switching. Anyway I have just purchased a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 250GB 3.5" External Hard Drive and I have some questions.

1) If I start backing up data from my windows PC to the external hard drive, will I be able to then take the contents of the external and move it to my Mac once I get it?

2) Will I be able to boot from the external hard drive using a program like Superduper, while at the same time just have all my media files on the external as well?

3) Will I be able to create a large collection of dvds on my external, while keeping them off of the Macbook hard drive?

4) I am planning on buying parallels in order to run some windows programs. Will I be able to back up this data to the hard drive, along with my Mac data? Is it also possible to boot from this as well? Or should I just buy another external hard drive in order to make this less complicated?

I hope I haven't forgotten anything ;)
 
BBA said:
1) If I start backing up data from my windows PC to the external hard drive, will I be able to then take the contents of the external and move it to my Mac once I get it?

3) Will I be able to create a large collection of dvds on my external, while keeping them off of the Macbook hard drive?
Click to expand...

I can only really answer these two so I'll let the experts on here answer the rest.

1 - Make sure the external drive is formatted with FAT and not NTFS. You'll be able to read everything from the mac then.

3 - As long as you follow 1 from above, you should have no problems accessing all your DVD's from the mac.

Sorry you're still having to use Windows now. I never like to hear stories like that. So sad. Friends don't let friends use Windows, why don't more people care about their fellow man (or woman).

So, in anticipation of your pending puchase, welcome to the light side!

Cheers.
 
Ah thanks for that. And yes I can hardly wait till I can finally use a Mac.

Anyway, can anyone else help me with questions 2 and 4. It would be a great help.
 
BBA said:
1) If I start backing up data from my windows PC to the external hard drive, will I be able to then take the contents of the external and move it to my Mac once I get it?
Click to expand...

Yes, as the previous poster said, format the drive with FAT 32

BBA said:
2) Will I be able to boot from the external hard drive using a program like Superduper, while at the same time just have all my media files on the external as well?
Click to expand...

You will need the Mac so you can use SuperDuper to create a bootable drive, I would suggest you create 2 partitions on the Seagate, 1 for the bootable partition and the other for your media

BBA said:
3) Will I be able to create a large collection of dvds on my external, while keeping them off of the Macbook hard drive?
Click to expand...
Yes, up to the limit of the partition size you create on the Seagate

BBA said:
4) I am planning on buying parallels in order to run some windows programs. Will I be able to back up this data to the hard drive, along with my Mac data? Is it also possible to boot from this as well? Or should I just buy another external hard drive in order to make this less complicated?
Click to expand...

The Seagate should be visible to the Windows system, so backups should be possible. The Windows bootable image is contained in a file, so I think it can go on an external, although I use Fusion rather than Parallels so I can't be sure how Parallels deals with this. If the Seagate is USB then it may be slower than if it's running on your Mac's internal disk
 
Ah thanks for your help. Just some last questions.

The segate I have purchased does not come with any software included in it to my knowledge. Does this mean that in order to say move movie files from the Mac to the external all I need to do is drag them over?

As well just so I am clear, SuperDuper can create 2 partitions, one for the bootable and one for the media easily?
 
BBA said:
Ah thanks for your help. Just some last questions.

The segate I have purchased does not come with any software included in it to my knowledge. Does this mean that in order to say move movie files from the Mac to the external all I need to do is drag them over?

As well just so I am clear, SuperDuper can create 2 partitions, one for the bootable and one for the media easily?
Click to expand...

Yes, just drag the files over. As a default the files will be copied to the external drive. If you want to move the file you hold the option key down while you drag and drop it. I usually copy files, and then delete the original once the copy has successfully, er, copied.

SuperDuper does not create partitions. You can create the 2 partitions ahead of getting the Mac, by using the Windows disk management utility. Or you can do the same when you get your Mac using the Mac Disk Utility. When you start up SuperDuper, you tell it to use the partition you want to boot from on the external, and it will image your Mac internal on the external, and then make it bootable.
 
When you start up SuperDuper, you tell it to use the partition you want to boot from on the external, and it will image your Mac internal on the external, and then make it bootable.[/QUOTE]

Ensure you connect the drive using firewire 400/800 as it will not be bootable from USB.:)
 
Alright guys thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it. :cool:
 
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