Newb Question - How to move data from Mac to PC

[FXGuy3369]

My friend has an Ibook G4. They want to back up all their pictures and music. When I open the picture program and try to export to a western digital passport, it says it can't do it. Is there a way to format my passport for Mac use, if so how do I then get the data on to a PC. Or is there a better way to go about this all together. Thanks!!!!

 

[Kmax82]

Yea.. by default.. OS X can only write to HFS, or FAT, formatted drives. So you'll either need to use MacFuse and NTFS-3G, or format the drive as FAT (so that Windows can read the data). You could copy over the network, but if there's a lot of data, then that'll take forever. Or you could use Parallels/Vmware and copy the data that way (it uses MacFuse, just easier if you already have it installed).

 

[TheStu]

The quickest way to do it would be to format it to FAT32, don't have to install anything extra that way.

 

[JSt0rm]

quickest is get them connected over a network and transfer the data

 

[TheStu]

quickest is get them connected over a network and transfer the data

If he is running Tiger on the iBook (or anything older) that might not be the quickest way, and a lot depends on the Windows OS as well. I had a ton of trouble connecting my Tiger MacBook to my classmates' Win XP laptops, wired or wireless, and I know a fair amount about networking. Once Leopard came out that all changed, at least on the OS X side. It was/is still a pain to connect to an OS X box from Windows, but vice versa isn't pretty straightforward.

Plus, an iBook G4 is going to have a 4200-5400 RPM drive, pretty old one at that, so performance will be subpar. Plus 10/100 ethernet... complete wash between USB 2.0 and ethernet with that drive and those ethernet speeds.