help moving images from Lacie external (NTFS) from Win XP to iMac

[Nikon Shooter]

I am using a LaCie d2 quardra 750 external on my Win XP. F drive on the lacie is Fat32 and used for almost nothing. H drive on my Lacie is NTFS and is my backup of my PC and thousands of digital images.

I will hook the Lacie up to an iMac soon via firewire 800. If I copy the data from the Lacie H drive(NTFS) to the main drive on the iMac, will the digital images be read only or fully editable?

Or should I reformat the Lacie to Fat32, do a backup from PC to the Lacie then transfer images and data to the iMac??

If these images and data now on the iMac are fully editable, I will then reformat the Lacie to HFS+ for the best performance on the iMac knowing that it will not work with Windows.

 

[ant-macyourself]

You shouldn't have any problems doing what you want to do. If you copy files from an NTFS-formatted drive to an iMac, the files will be editable once they're on the Mac side.

 

[illegallydead]

I'm not 100% sure how well the copy you are talking about will work. Should work without a hitch, I think. If it isn't too big of a deal (and you don't have any single files larger than 4GB) then reformatting to FAT32 might do you best if you foresee this transfer going on again in the future.

You might also take a look at Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X. It is a utility that allows OSX to read AND write NTFS files, so that drive will show up and you can do whatever you please with it no questions asked. I think that if you obtain it in an honest manner (a.k.a. legally), it is something like $40. It it is wonderful for actually truly using having your Mac play nicely with anything you plug in to it.
Just my two cents.

 

[sickmacdoc]

You shouldn't have any problems doing what you want to do. If you copy files from an NTFS-formatted drive to an iMac, the files will be editable once they're on the Mac side.

+1 for that.

The native inability of Mac OSX to write to NTFS volumes has no affect on the file once it has been read from an NTFS volume and copied onto a Mac formatted drive. Once on the Mac side the ability to edit will just rely on having an app that handles the type of files to be edited.

 

[Nikon Shooter]

Difference of opinion?

LaCie just got back to me with their answer.
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The hardware of the drive is visible to both the Mac and PC without the installation of any special drivers or software. How the drive then gets formatted, determines whether or not the drive can be read and written to, from either a Mac or a Windows environment.

The Mac format, HFS+, is what this drive shipped from the factory with. The Windows operating system will not read from, or write to that file system, which is why the hardware detects, but these drives need reformatting when connected to an XP, Vista or 2000 computer. There is a workaround though- a program called MacDrive, which can be installed to a Windows, that allows it to have read and write access to a Mac format. I will give information about that later.

The Windows format, NTFS, will mount in the Mac environment, but is read-only. There is no workaround for this.

As such, the best solution for you would likely be the MacDrive software. The software installs to Windows XP, Vista, or 2000 and allows read and write access to drives with a Mac format on it. Information can be gotten at http://www.macdrive.com/ They should have a limited-time demo available for download. It is third-party software; the most we're allowed to do is suggest it.
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Lacie says it's read only!!!

Perhaps not...we'll see.
cm

 

[spinnerlys]

NTFS is read only under Mac OS X, one workaround is MacFuse combined with NTFS-3G drivers. With that you can read and write to an NTFS formatted volume under Mac OS X, for free (no cost).

On the Windows side you can use HFSExplorer to read and write to an HFS+ formatted volume for free. No MacDrive necessary. Windows is not able to read an HFS+ volume natively.

 

[Nikon Shooter]

but...

....If i put the files from the Lacie external (NTFS) on to the Mac internal, THEN reformat the external to Mac HFS+ I should be able to read/write these files to the internal Mac drive and the LaCie HFS+ external???

right??

cm

 

[spinnerlys]

Of course you can read and write to the internal drive, as it is formatted in HFS+, no matter if you reformat the external drive.

If you reformat the external drive in HFS+, all the data on that LaCie drive will be lost (but can be recovered with third party software like Data Rescue II).
Then you can read and write from and to the external drive like any other drive formatted in HFS+.