I'm an idiot--how to view USB Drive photo files from PC on new MAC Book?

[primaamanda]

(ADDITIONAL NOTE: Thanks Spinnerlys...but it does not appear in "Finder" under Devices. The only things appearing there are: iDisk and Macintosh HD.)

I just got my Mac Book yesterday....yea!!! What a welcome change from ridiculous old PC. But anyway, I want to transfer my picture files from my old computer (as well as some music files, down the line....)

What is the best way to do this?

The method I have tried is to save a bunch of picture files on an HP flash/USB drive. However, when I insert the USB drive into my Mac Book, nothing flashes like "new device recognized" or whatever usually flashes on my old PC. How can i find the contents of the flash drive? Did I need to have done something to it before inserting it in the Mac? Any insights appreciated!

 

[ElectroGhandi]

I just got my Mac Book yesterday....yea!!! What a welcome change from ridiculous old PC. But anyway, I want to transfer my picture files from my old computer (as well as some music files, down the line....)

What is the best way to do this?

The method I have tried is to save a bunch of picture files on an HP flash/USB drive. However, when I insert the USB drive into my Mac Book, nothing flashes like "new device recognized" or whatever usually flashes on my old PC. How can i find the contents of the flash drive? Did I need to have done something to it before inserting it in the Mac? Any insights appreciated!

It will mount and appear under Macintosh HD on the desktop. You use Finder to view it.

 

[spinnerlys]

Go into the Finder (the Mac OS X equivalent to Windows Explorer) and you should see you USB drive on the left side under Devices.

In this picture the USB's drive name is "BACKUP".

The USB drive should be also visible on the Desktop.

From that you copy the data to whatever place you want.
Mac OS has places for Pictures and Music already under your username, but you don't need to use those places.

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

But if you have a large amount of data to transfer, doing so via an Ethernet cable might be better.

 

[ElectroGhandi]

If it isn't showing up on your desktop, and it isn't showing up in Finder, it may not be a Mac compatible flash drive.

 

[primaamanda]

Thank You!

Does anyone know if a Microcenter or a Sandisk Cruzer is Mac compatible? Those are the other ones I have on hand.

If I insert a firewire into my comp, from my PC, will it just work??

 

[xraydoc]

Does anyone know if a Microcenter or a Sandisk Cruzer is Mac compatible? Those are the other ones I have on hand.

As long as they're formatted as FAT32. The Mac OS doesn't natively work with NTFS (though it should be able to read NTFS even though it can't write to it without 3rd party software).

 

[alphaod]

Does anyone know if a Microcenter or a Sandisk Cruzer is Mac compatible? Those are the other ones I have on hand.

If I insert a firewire into my comp, from my PC, will it just work??

If they are formatted as a filesystem that is not recognized by a Mac, the computer will display a pop up dialog that will ask you to "intialize"; if you don't get that error message, there should be no issues.