windows Hard drive on my mac?

[Trance]

Before I bought my macbook pro I had a windows desktop that I accidentally spilled water on the motherboard, Is is possible to take the hard drive from the PC then connect it to my macbook by USB so I could retieve files so I don't have to buy another motherboard?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Yes, you can do that.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB

 

[Trance]

Yes, you can do that.

i'm confused with the info you gave me can you explain it or recommend more reading material to understand how to do it?
thanks

 

[simsaladimbamba]

i'm confused with the info you gave me can you explain it or recommend more reading material to understand how to do it?
thanks

Oh, I just gave you information about the different file systems in use by Mac OS X and Windows, and as that HDD of yours is most likely using a file system used for Windows (NTFS, or maybe FAT32), you can at least read the contents if the HDD, nothing more to read into this.

Btw, if you successfully copied the data, you can always format the HDD for Mac OS X use later.