Newbie transferring FIles from PC to Mac

[darlenea]

I will be getting my first Mac tomorrow - a Mac Pro. I have about 750 gb of data I need to transferr from my PC to the new Mac.

I have used MRoogle to search MacRumors and also have searched the apple forums but I must be using the wrong search terms.

I will not have a network to hook both computers up to so network sharing will not work.

I have purchased two new 2 tb external HD to use as off site backups for my new Mac.

DO I need to format one of them for NTFS and put the data on it and then hook it up to the Mac and drag and drop or can I leave the harddrive in MFS format and still use it to move files from the PC to the Mac ? A Fat32 partition will not work because many of my files are larger than 4 gb. I just do not know how to do this? THanks for the help. Darlenea

 

[CaptainChunk]

Without third-party software, you can read NTFS partitions in OS X, but not write to them.

So in theory, you can install the drive into the Mac Pro and just copy that way, since you only need to read from the NTFS disk.

 

[Einz]

It's not a theory. Just install the PC HD in Mac and move the files.

 

[PenguinMac]

I have external backup disks in NTFS format from my Dell (see sig). I bought a NewerTech driverless eSATA card from OWC and installed it in the Mac Pro to copy the data over and for future backups to HFS+ disks. As I have 6TB of data to copy over, eSATA is mandatory. Once I'm on the Mac Pro for good, I'll reformat the disks to HFS+ and use them as Mac Pro backup disks.

 

[sboerup]

Just in case NTFS gives you problems, Google has helped develop MacFuse and NTFS3G. Install both and you're golden.

 

[diazj3]

It's not a theory. Just install the PC HD in Mac and move the files.

Assuming the PC drive(s) the OP has are SATA... there shouldn't be a problem to just install the drive in one of your MP's empty HD bays and copy the data over to a Mac formatted drive.

Otherwise, you'll need something like this to connect the IDE drive via USB and transfer the data.

Cheers!