Questions about making the switch

[ipoddin]

So my 24" iMac is on it's way from China Now to figure out the best way to make the switch from my PC.

Question 1 relates to importing photos and videos from drives currently formated NTFS:

Right now I have an internal 500gb drive, and two external drives. I plan to make the 500gb an external and use with the mac. It currently holds all of my photos, itunes library, and home movies. And the current external drives are used as backups for all my media. Thing is, all three drives are currently formatted as NTFS. As I understand it, Mac's use FAT32, correct?

I also plan to use Windows XP on the iMac via bootcamp. My questions relate to how to import all my media in to OS X since that will be my primary OS and XP will be used for gaming mainly. If I just hook the 500gb up via firewire as it is currently formatted, will OS X even see the files so I can drag on to the internal drive? Could I just boot in to XP on the iMac, and drag the files from the external drive on to the internal drive, and then when booting in OS X, see all of my files again? (then I would reformat the 500gb drive as FAT32)

Or another option if it would work, would be to reformat the 500gb drive now as FAT32 and copy everything back over from the external drives to it. Once I have my iMac and the 500gb hooked up, it will be ready for OS X already.

Question 2 is about importing my iTunes library:

After I figure out question 1, the other one is making sure all my iTunes library is successfully imported in to the Mac, especially my purchased music. I assume all I need to do is drag all of my tracks in to the library and then authorize the Mac so it is able to play and sync to my ipod (which is currently windows formatted)?

Thanks for helping me figure all of this out. Everything is backed up to DVD just in case something goes horribly wrong.

 

[apfhex]

1. Mac OS X can read but not write NTFS. So if you just want to copy files from the NTFS formatted drive you can go right ahead. OS X can read and write to FAT32. But Macs use HFS+ as the standard disk format.

2. You've pretty much got it.

 

[balamw]

As I understand it, Mac's use FAT32, correct?

Macs use HFS+ by default, they can read and write FAT32 and support NTFS as read only. So you can play anything you've already got on an NTFS HDD without modification.

As for #2, assuming you're using the default iTunes settings copy over the entire iTunes folder including the iTunes XML files and you'll keep everything including playcount and rating info. If you go your way you will lose that info.

B

 

[plinden]

Thing is, all three drives are currently formatted as NTFS. As I understand it, Mac's use FAT32, correct?

No, Macs are HFS+ but they read and write FAT32 and can read NTFS. FAT32 is the pre-XP Windows file system.

I also plan to use Windows XP on the iMac via bootcamp. My questions relate to how to import all my media in to OS X since that will be my primary OS and XP will be used for gaming mainly. If I just hook the 500gb up via firewire as it is currently formatted, will OS X even see the files so I can drag on to the internal drive?

Yes

Could I just boot in to XP on the iMac, and drag the files from the external drive on to the internal drive, and then when booting in OS X, see all of my files again? (then I would reformat the 500gb drive as FAT32)

No need, just do it in OSX.

Do you need to access the 500GB drive from a PC? FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB and cannot normally be formatted if it's larger than <some size much less than 500GB>. If you don't need to use a PC, just format it as HFS+. Or you could partition it ... I have my 500GB external drive partitioned in three - a 25GB HFS+ partition on which I have a backup install of OS X (came in very useful last week when my wife's MB hard drive failed), a 25GB FAT32 partition in case I ever need to transfer large amounts of data to/from my work and a 450GB HFS+ backup/data partition.

Question 2 is about importing my iTunes library:

After I figure out question 1, the other one is making sure all my iTunes library is successfully imported in to the Mac, especially my purchased music. I assume all I need to do is drag all of my tracks in to the library and then authorize the Mac so it is able to play and sync to my ipod (which is currently windows formatted)?

It's pretty painless. When I switched, I had my iTunes library backed up totally, and I just had to copy the top level folder to the Mac. Everything came with it.

 

[beatsme]

As I understand it, Mac's use FAT32, correct?

Welcome to the club
Mac uses HFS+, though I believe you can use a FAT32 drive as an external i.e. non-bootable drive.

If I just hook the 500gb up via firewire as it is currently formatted, will OS X even see the files so I can drag on to the internal drive?

if it's NTFS, then I believe so, yes.

I assume all I need to do is drag all of my tracks in to the library and then authorize the Mac so it is able to play and sync to my ipod (which is currently windows formatted)?

pretty much, though you may want to do a little searching about how OSX and your Windows-formatted iPod will play together.

 

[ipoddin]

This is all very helpful and making my life much easier than I thought. So what I'll do is just keep the 500gb as is, copy over the files, then reformat the 500gb as HFS+.

I assume when booting in to XP, XP won't recognize the 500gb hd as hfs+, correct?

In that case, I'll either partition part of my internal Mac hd as NTFS for the XP install and files, or use one of my current external drives to install XP and keep it's files. I'm leaning towards partitioning the internal drive for XP as I assume it will have faster read times than an external FW 800 drive.

Thanks for the tips on iTunes too. I plan to reformat the ipod for Mac use once everything's in place. balamw, thanks for those tips as well.

 

[balamw]

I assume when booting in to XP, XP won't recognize the 500gb hd as hfs+, correct?

Yeah, although you can buy MacDrive so that XP can read and write to it.

http://www.mediafour.com

B

 

[steve_hill4]

Also, if you never plan to use your PC again, (or rip the drive out and still use the machine at some point in the future), deauthorise your computer from iTunes first. If you don't, it still counts and the only way of getting rid of it in the future would be to deauthorise all accounts, which can be done once every 12 months.

 

[ipoddin]

Also, if you never plan to use your PC again, (or rip the drive out and still use the machine at some point in the future), deauthorise your computer from iTunes first. If you don't, it still counts and the only way of getting rid of it in the future would be to deauthorise all accounts, which can be done once every 12 months.

Thanks. I am planning to gut the PC and sell off the parts.

 

[vohdoun]

1. Mac OS X can read but not write NTFS. So if you just want to copy files from the NTFS formatted drive you can go right ahead.

Hm if you say it can't write to NTFS how am I copying files back and forth from OS X that is networked to the PC which is a NTFS partition then... or am I reading you wrong?

 

[balamw]

Hm if you say it can't write to NTFS how am I copying files back and forth from OS X that is networked to the PC which is a NTFS partition then... or am I reading you wrong?

You're making requests via SMB that are being handled by the PC.

i.e. the PC is reading and writing the NTFS, and presenting it as SMB/CIFS.

Same thing works for linux you can use samba to present an ext2 filesystem as a SMB share to be visible from PCs or Macs.

B

 

[nplima]

Thanks. I am planning to gut the PC and sell off the parts.

you know, these paralels and dual-booting solutions are nice and all, but they're really not meant to be permanent solutions. if you don't really need the extra $$$$ from that sale, you might be better off keeping that PC hidding in some closet, use it as a file server and for Windows-only software. sometimes that comes in handy and you can use a Remote Desktop client from your Mac to control the PC.
Of course that you can't play games over Remote Desktop, but look how much work you'd save if you kept your media files where they are right now and access them from the network.

 

[xUKHCx]

Thanks for the tips on iTunes too. I plan to reformat the ipod for Mac use once everything's in place. balamw, thanks for those tips as well.

I have my iPod formatted windows, and it works perfectly well with the mac. I did this so i can use it as a cross platform storage device. So if i want to copy a couple of gigs from my girlfriends PC to my Mac (different houses) then i can easily and quickly.

Just a thought.

 

[balamw]

I have my iPod formatted windows, and it works perfectly well with the mac. I did this so i can use it as a cross platform storage device. So if i want to copy a couple of gigs from my girlfriends PC to my Mac (different houses) then i can easily and quickly.

The downside of this is that you will also need a PC (or at least iTunes on your Boot Camp install) to upgrade the firmware or restore your iPod since (at least in iTunes 7) the Mac version will refuse to do so.

B

 

[Surf and Turf]

that is true about the ipod update .. i had to go through the same process

 

[ipoddin]

you know, these paralels and dual-booting solutions are nice and all, but they're really not meant to be permanent solutions. if you don't really need the extra $$$$ from that sale, you might be better off keeping that PC hidding in some closet, use it as a file server and for Windows-only software. sometimes that comes in handy and you can use a Remote Desktop client from your Mac to control the PC.
Of course that you can't play games over Remote Desktop, but look how much work you'd save if you kept your media files where they are right now and access them from the network.

Good idea, but my point of going the Mac route with bootcamp is to eliminate clutter in the home office.

 

[Max on Macs]

Good idea, but my point of going the Mac route with bootcamp is to eliminate clutter in the home office.

And BootCamp does work rather well, and come Leopard it should be flawless.