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Getting Files to Mac

shutitdown

shutitdown

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2008
17
0
I got a Macbook and want to transfer my music files over to it from my PC and when I Plug my External HD into the Macbook the hard drive turns on but it wont show up on the screen. Where can I find it? Any advice on how to swap the files would be much appreciated!
 
Your hard drive is probably formatted in a way that Mac OS X can't read. But before you do any formatting check to see if it shows up in disk utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app), I've had a problem where a drive wouldn't mount but it would show up in disk utility. Also try restarting your computer with the hard drive plugged in and on.
 
shutitdown said:
I got a Macbook and want to transfer my music files over to it from my PC and when I Plug my External HD into the Macbook the hard drive turns on but it wont show up on the screen. Where can I find it? Any advice on how to swap the files would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...

"MacFUSE" will allow your Mac to read NTFS format disks. Google MacFUSE.

A second method is to put the drive back on the PC and connect both the PC and the Mac to the same network. Then from the PC share the files and then on the Mac drag the files you want out of the PC's shared folder.
 
Thanks Im sure one of those options will work for me. I was hoping i wouldnt have to format it. I didnt know if it was just something Tiger wouldnt recognize or what. My HD is formatted to windows so that must be why. i will let you know if it doesnt work tomorrow.
 
Mac OS X is able to read NTFS formatted volumes from the start - no additional software like MacFuse is needed for reading, only for writing to a NTFS volume.
Also Mac OS X can read and write FAT16/32 formatted volumes without hiccups.

What connection do you use (USB or Firewire)? Maybe you have to manually mount the disk via Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
 
spinnerlys said:
Mac OS X is able to read NTFS formatted volumes from the start - no additional software like MacFuse is needed for reading, only for writing to a NTFS volume.
Also Mac OS X can read and write FAT16/32 formatted volumes without hiccups.

What connection do you use (USB or Firewire)? Maybe you have to manually mount the disk via Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
Click to expand...


It only has a mini USB connection so USB 2.0 is used. I would of looked through it but his brothers HD showed up when it was just plugged in so assumed it was a problem with mine.
 
UPDATE: alright, im sitting at my friends work on their crappy AT&T Wifi trying to get this thing to work. its a 120gb WD external HD thats self powered via USB 2.0. the drive does work because i put all my music from my PC onto it. when the drive plugs in it powers up but nothing shows up on the screen(tried restart, restart without drive, restart with drive) nothing got it to show up on the desktop. went through disk utilities as stated in an earlier post. the only thing that shows up on the side of the Disk Utilities screen is the Fujitsu 111.8gb HD with the Macintosh Partition. OSX Tiger is being used.

The Drive is plugged in with the light on while i sit here awaiting reply from one of you helpful apple gurus. thank you.

-ian
 
It's well known that certain WD bus powered usb drives have abnormal power requirements and won't work on many older laptops. It should work with MacBook though.

Supposedly there is a 2 USB connector that will provide the drive with more power to allow it to work. I avoid WD drives. All other bus powered drives works fine.
 
Try switching to the other USB port on the MacBook. On the last generation MB the rear USB port shared the bus with several other components and couldn't provide enough power to USB-powered devices. I don't know if that's true with the new generation, but it's worth a try.
 
the different ports did nothing. i had a USB hub in my car and i have that plugged into the wall trying to get more juice but that didnt help either. the mac is using battery and not the power cord. would that make a difference?
 
UPDATE:... i plugged my HD into my PC where it sat fine for over a year and it sounds like a metronome now... help?

i think the macbook needs a USB booster cable. hopefully its not a gonner. the low power output of the macbook must of ****ed up my HD.
 
The easy way to do that in my opinion is to leave the hd on the pc and turn on file sharing on that drive through windows. Then use the mac to connect to the pc over the network.

Then open Itunes and click add to library (after setting up itunes to copy files to directory and setup new directory on your mac) and select the networked folder and import.

What this will do is find the files on your pc, copy them over the network to your new music folder on your mac.

This is how I did it.
 
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