Wndows file transfer problem

[tizeye]

Having a major problem(s) with Windows PC, so much so that it will be history, not because of pending termination of Windows 10 support, but the multitude of problems cropping up in the past month. Only thing keeping me from a mini pro or studio (another decision point) is file transfer. For reference, I personally built the PC in 2016, so relative kept with computers, Core I7 gaming level equipped for video rendering, organized 500 GB c: drive for programs which can be trashed, but 4TB d: drive (3.63 TB full) with photos, video and documents. That is the one I am seeking to transfer, but 4 failed processes trying to get them over to my MBP and attached 5TB external drive.

Hoping you can suggest something, but this is what I have done thus far:
1. USB memory stick (don't laugh) lasted 2 transfers then would freeze windows when inserted.
2. Bluetooth (Migration Assistant), while confirmed both computers bluetooth connected, Windows side would never respond to gain access and proceed.
3. Network Shared Folder - rejecting password attempts and even the "hint" is a direct English translation of a foreign word used as the password. Similar result in Finder, network, it does identify the PC on the network and accessed as guest but when attempting to switch to a user for full file access, the password rejection again. Also tried both bluetooth and network with the firewall deactivated, but same result.
4. Dropbox - though I found a solution as tedious as it was, uploading one folder at a time (some so large they take hours) then downloading to the MBP and moving to the external 5TB drive. While I am alphabetically up to the C's, I went to post in the Photography forum and discovered subfolders were empty! The way I work, RAW files into a folder for the shoot, process in Lightroom/Photoshop the export the photos as jpg and at least 2 folders - Full Size (huge) and 2500px (web and other postings). Not certain why no content in the subfolders as it does upload to Dropbox, files are physically visible in the subfolders on Dropbox, but on Apple, it does show the subfolder, i.e. 2500px, but nothing is in it post download from Dropbox. Is that an Apple issue?
5. Tried direct USB hookup, but never registered as a drive.

ANY SUGGESTIONS - I am at whits end! About the only thing I can think of is removing d: drive from the computer and inserting in a relatively inexpensive hard drive enclosure, hopefully making it a recognizable hard drive to Apple with Windows FAT format. It should be able to read it then move them to the Mac formatted external drive. I am hesitant to do that due to back up issues (another Windows problem) as Synology Backup for Business has been giving me daily email of schedule backup fail for both mine and wife's PC, with last backup about 100 days ago. Never hooked the MBP up to Synology, satisfied with Time Machine.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[russell_314]

There is a possibility that your drive is failing especially since it’s almost a decade old. I hope you have things backed up.


I would try moving small quantities files over at a time. Hopefully you don’t have everything in one huge folder and you have it organized into smaller folders. If not, you’ll just have to select so many files then try to drag them over at a time. If it’s absolutely refusing to let you for instance drag 50 photos onto an external drive then you might have some serious problems.

Can these files be opened on the Windows PC?

Obviously, the fastest way to do it is an external drive enclosure but if your drive is failing, it might not work

 

[Bigwaff]

5. Tried direct USB hookup, but never registered as a drive

After attaching to your Mac, open Disk Utility. Make sure to select View > Show All Devices. Do you see the drive? What is the file system format?

 

[chown33]

ANY SUGGESTIONS - I am at whits end! About the only thing I can think of is removing d: drive from the computer and inserting in a relatively inexpensive hard drive enclosure, hopefully making it a recognizable hard drive to Apple with Windows FAT format. It should be able to read it then move them to the Mac formatted external drive. ...

If you ever booted Windows from that drive, it's almost certainly NTFS, not FAT.

If you didn't boot Windows from it, it's still more likely to be NTFS than FAT, unless you specifically told Windows to format it as FAT.

Macs can read NTFS, but can't write it. That means the drive would be read-only, and you could copy data from it, but not write to it at all.

 

[tizeye]

There is a possibility that your drive is failing especially since it’s almost a decade old. I hope you have things backed up.


I would try moving small quantities files over at a time. Hopefully you don’t have everything in one huge folder and you have it organized into smaller folders. If not, you’ll just have to select so many files then try to drag them over at a time. If it’s absolutely refusing to let you for instance drag 50 photos onto an external drive then you might have some serious problems.

Can these files be opened on the Windows PC?

Obviously, the fastest way to do it is an external drive enclosure but if your drive is failing, it might not work

No problem on the Windows (or Dropbox) side viewing photos. To clarify as probably wasn't too specific because of all the original detail. On the Windows side, they have "Libraries" which open to "Documents", "Photos", "Videos", "Audio" folders etc. On the Mac side, I created folders to correspond and am currently working with the "Photo's" folder on both machines. Photos are either a specific event (like I am skipping a photo club shoot at city sponsored St Patricks Day Celebration) would be an event. While many folders are single events, but topic folders, such as "Birds" or "Photo Club" will have multiple events. I upload the folders one at a time, and the topic folders with multiple events, limit to no more than 10 event folders. In fact, a huge one due to multiple trips there is "Wetlands Park", with that one I am copying over to newly created folders "Wetlands 1" Wetlands 2" etc, limiting each to 10 event folders with the intent to consolidate when over on the Apple side. Doing it one at a time is what makes it so painful. What I found when I went to post today is that while everything is visible in Dropbox, in both the download folder (before I trashed it) and the final destination on the Lacie 5TB ""Photos" folder is that the event folder (and folders if multiple) show up. Opening them, the RAW files are there as well as subfolder labels, but when opening those folders they are totally empty.

Your statement "drag 50 photos to external drive" reminded me of the second attempt I made after the USB memory stick failure. I have an archive hard for Realtor house shoots that I label by the year, and Jan 1 create the 2025 folder, keep the prior year with 2023 sent to the "archive" drive, freeing up valuable space on my primary drive. I have plenty of space on the archive drive so created a "TEMP" folder and dragged 12 folders over to it. When attempting to move them to the MBP, received the message "This operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occured - (error code 50)". That is why I moved on to the bluetooth, network, and Dropbox.

 

[tizeye]

If you ever booted Windows from that drive, it's almost certainly NTFS, not FAT.

If you didn't boot Windows from it, it's still more likely to be NTFS than FAT, unless you specifically told Windows to format it as FAT.

Macs can read NTFS, but can't write it. That means the drive would be read-only, and you could copy data from it, but not write to it at all.

Yes, it is NTFS, not FAT. Was just typing from the top of my head and didn't look it up. I may have found a (painful) solution but will go into more detail in reply to @Bigwaff.

 

[tizeye]

After attaching to your Mac, open Disk Utility. Make sure to select View > Show All Devices. Do you see the drive? What is the file system format?

Thanks, but computer never showed up in Disk Utilities. But there appears to be a solution. In my reply to @chown33, the archive drive I referenced there did show up on Disk Utilities as an available drive. After my reply to him, I began experimenting as it still had the files from my initial attempt where I got the error code 50. Here is what I found...

For ease I tried moving to the desktop rather than the Lacie drive where would duplicate. Folder 1-11x14 copied fine, but there are no subdirectories in it as it is only a few files I submitted in 11x14 printing crop for a contest with one now displayed in City Hall. Then I attempted a far more complex folder "1-Book" for a book I wrote with over 300 photos and each chapter is a subfolder. Attempting to drag it to the desktop is when I received the error code 50.

That is when I cross compared the Archive drive to the Lacie drive since the 1-Book was already over there. All files and folders were at the first level, opening the "Chapters" subfolder, all files and the three sub sub folders, "Lightroom 1500px", "Lightroom full" and "Paperback" were there. Opening each of those 3 sub sub folders, they were totally blank. Tried the easy way, sending one of the folders to trash, then dragging that folder from the archive drive...but got the error 50 again. Had to restore that folder from trash. Then I opened the sub sub folder on the archive drive, copied all files (there were no folders), drug then to the equivalent sub sub folder on the Lacie drive and moved with no problem. SUCCESS! Now the bad news "Chapters" was only one subfolder of the "1-Book" with each Chapter having its own subfolder and it's series of sub sub folders, I will have to do that process about 20 more times before "1-Book" is complete and I can move on to the next topic folder.

I will have to decide which is easiest...and in the meantime saying it is all worth it as a mini pro/studio is waiting for me. One option is totally reconstruct from scratch, copying files and creating directories. The other, which leaning towards, continue with Dropbox which will do 95% including creating the sub sub folders, then manually go in and manually place the individual files in the sub sub folders. Given that some take hours to upload, I can alway finish completing the ones that have previously downloaded.

 

[macnavarra]

For Intel Macs First Install: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102622 , then boot your Mac with a macOS bootable USB ThumbDrive reinstall macOS during Install/Setup follow the screen to transfer files from networked Windows PC or direct Thunderbolted connected Windows PC.
For Arm Macs : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...m3-chips-cd15fd62-9b34-4b78-b0bc-121baa3c568c
... etc

 

[tizeye]

For Intel Macs First Install: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102622 , then boot your Mac with a macOS bootable USB ThumbDrive reinstall macOS during Install/Setup follow the screen to transfer files from networked Windows PC or direct Thunderbolted connected Windows PC.
For Arm Macs : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...m3-chips-cd15fd62-9b34-4b78-b0bc-121baa3c568c
... etc

Thanks, but this is a Windows 10 machine made obsolete as not upgradable to Windows 11. For the security hardware required by 11, requires an entire new motherboard ( or perhaps a PC Card with the hardware). I do have Parallels, but when upgraded the Intel based MBP to current M-series, now require an upgrade of Parallels plus a Windows 11 license. Honestly, both will be trashed. I do have another PC, minimum build, to run a security camera program, Windows only Blue Iris software. I can easily run another Windows only program on that computer creating a nice “dual monitor” setup.

The irony is that Microsoft is pushing me to Apple. I needed a new laptop when the Windows 8 disaster was introduced. The Windows laptop back to Best Buy during the return period and purchased a MBP. Maintained the dual systems (and its quirks/limitations). Now, no upgrade path from Windows 10, forced to buy/build a new computer. If it has to be a new computer, 100% Apple on both laptop and desktop plus future versions of operating systems free.

 

[Fishrrman]

My overly-simplistic solution:

Take the 4tb drive with all the data on it OUT OF the PC (if it's inside).

Get a USB3/SATA docking station (many available, cheap prices).

Connect the dock to the Mac and put the drive into it.

See if it will mount on the Mac desktop that way.

Now start moving stuff -- A LITTLE AT A TIME.
Yes, a lot of work, but sometimes slow and easy gets the job done.

KEEP HANDWRITTEN NOTES of your progress.

DON'T get "too fancy" with folders and file names yet.
The idea is to get the stuff OFF OF the old drive and INTO the Mac external drive (somewhere).
You can sort it all out later.

BE AWARE that the folders inside your home folder (on the Mac) -- those named "documents", "pictures", "movies", "music" -- cannot be be changed or moved (I'm talking about these "top level" folders).

You CAN, however, put stuff into them.

BE AWARE of permissions problems as you move things from the PC to the Mac.
Here's a way to avoid them (sounds complicated, but it's not)
1. Mount the (PC) drive on the desktop (such as "in the dock")
2. Click on the drive icon ONE TIME to select it
3. Bring up the get info box (type "command-i")
4. At the bottom of get info, click the lock icon and enter your Mac password
5. Put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
6. Close get info.

Now you can copy things from the PC drive to the Mac external drive, and whatever you copy will "fall under the ownership" of your Mac account.

 

[Snowlover]

Thanks, but this is a Windows 10 machine made obsolete as not upgradable to Windows 11.

You can use latest version of Rufus to create a windows 11 installer that bypasses all the requirements keeping you from upgrading. Then run setup.exe from it, and you should be able to perform the upgrade.
Have done this on 2014 mac mini and an asus transformer and worked with no issues. This is way simpler than using OCLP to bypass update restrictions on Mac.

 

[tizeye]

My overly-simplistic solution:

Take the 4tb drive with all the data on it OUT OF the PC (if it's inside).

Get a USB3/SATA docking station (many available, cheap prices).

Connect the dock to the Mac and put the drive into it.

See if it will mount on the Mac desktop that way.

Now start moving stuff -- A LITTLE AT A TIME.
Yes, a lot of work, but sometimes slow and easy gets the job done.

KEEP HANDWRITTEN NOTES of your progress.

DON'T get "too fancy" with folders and file names yet.
The idea is to get the stuff OFF OF the old drive and INTO the Mac external drive (somewhere).
You can sort it all out later.

BE AWARE that the folders inside your home folder (on the Mac) -- those named "documents", "pictures", "movies", "music" -- cannot be be changed or moved (I'm talking about these "top level" folders).

You CAN, however, put stuff into them.

BE AWARE of permissions problems as you move things from the PC to the Mac.
Here's a way to avoid them (sounds complicated, but it's not)
1. Mount the (PC) drive on the desktop (such as "in the dock")
2. Click on the drive icon ONE TIME to select it
3. Bring up the get info box (type "command-i")
4. At the bottom of get info, click the lock icon and enter your Mac password
5. Put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
6. Close get info.

Now you can copy things from the PC drive to the Mac external drive, and whatever you copy will "fall under the ownership" of your Mac account.

Thanks, but unfortunately not working. While I didn't go to the pulling the hard drive out of the PC and wait for Amazon to deliver the USB3 box tomorrow to mount it in, I did transfer a few files from the PC to a 2TB hard drive and attach to MBP. Command-i confirmed NTFS format but locked or unlocked, the line "ignore ownership on this volume" was missing. Confirmed by checking the destination drive, Lacie 5TB showing MAC OS Extended format and the "Ignore Ownership" line was available, currently with checkmark to ignore. Still got code 50 error. Also tried designating bot as Shared Folder, but same results.

The good news is that after reviewing for completeness those setup via Dropbox method, about 90% had no problems. For those that did, would load the entire folder from the PC onto the NTFS hard drive, then manually copy the files (not folder) into the empty folder on the Lacie destination drive. Only problem is that is those files to be copied also have another folder in them which then returns a Code 50 error. I have to manually create that folder, then manually transfer those files.

 

[960design]

...Command-i confirmed NTFS format...

Plug a USB drive into MacOS. Format the USB on your Mac to Fat32 (Fat32 works on both Mac and Windows). Plug into Windows computer. Drag and drop a few folders over just for fun. EJECT USB safely from Windows. Plug into Mac. Drag and drop 'test' files and folders to MacOS. EJECT from MacOS.

If you can get a few over, then start dragging BIG folders onto the USB.
Good luck.