New External HD Transfer

[aceracer195195]

Greetings Forums!
I will be getting a new external hard drive to store all my media on. Currently i use an old 100GB Maxtor for my pictures, video, and music, among other comparatively small things.
My question is this: What is the quickest/safest/smartest way to copy all of my files from my old external drive to my new external drive? Is a simple copy & paste the best way? The old one is in FAT32 (not NTFS, i just checked) and new one will probably be HFS (or HFS+, whatever it's called). Or should it be formatted differently?
Thanks in advance!

 

[BlueRevolution]

Just drag and drop. That's all it'll take. As long as the drive isn't bootable (which it's clearly not since it's FAT32), there's no reason to use a more fancy method.

What formatting you use depends where you're going to be using it. If you want to interface with only your Mac or other Macs, HFS is the way to go.

I would always do a full format the first time out. That should catch any bad sectors so they don't trip you up later on. (Of course, good sectors can go bad, but that can't be helped.)

 

[aceracer195195]

Okay, thanks for that. I just use my external for storage of my media (movies, pics, videos) and iTunes access it directly for music.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Then you should be just fine. Let us know if you have any more problems/questions.

 

[aceracer195195]

Well i got the drive but for some reason it wont format into anything except FAT.

I get this when I select the volume & format:
http://flickr.com/photos/30930443@N08/3140307360/
And when i select the drive & format I get this.
http://flickr.com/photos/30930443@N08/3139483639/

Ideas anyone?

 

[aceracer195195]

Nevermind, just being a noob (never formatted a disk in OS X before).
i was erasing all the time, but i tried a partition and it worked.