probably a silly question

[sophiarosehips]

Hi,
I apologize if this is a silly question, but I just don't know much about this. I have an older iBook operating the first version of OS X, and no way to get info on or off it as it has no drive for CDs or anything. I'm wondering whether a flash drive will be compatible with it and my PC? The PC is running Windows XP, fwiw. The iBook does have the needed USB port so I figure a flash drive will work; just don't know if that means trips to Kinkos to use the Mac there at $1million/hour or if I can then bring the flash drive over to the PC and access the files?
I've considered just trying to plug the flash drive in but as I already have some files on it from the PC I thought it better to ask before possibly corrupting everything.
Thank you for any advice!
- Sophia

 

[oynaz]

It shouldn't be a problem. Just use the flash drive to transfer the files.

 

[Sam25]

Yup, it will work.

 

[sophiarosehips]

Thank you!!!

 

[bwccom]

That's the nice thing about usb sticks, they aren't picky (unless they are old).

Make sure you choose the "safely remove" before removing it, usually people don't bother with this but it's a good idea to play it safe.

 

[redbeard1]

For best results, the thumb drive should be formatted Fat32 instead of NTFS.

 

[bwccom]

How do you go about doing this? (This is new to me.) And do mean, just better running overall?

 

[Nizology]

Originally posted by: bwccom
That's the nice thing about usb sticks, they aren't picky (unless they are old).

Make sure you choose the "safely remove" before removing it, usually people don't bother with this but it's a good idea to play it safe.

You do not have to do this for flash drives. That is only required of "moving" hard drives.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Nizology

Originally posted by: bwccom
That's the nice thing about usb sticks, they aren't picky (unless they are old).

Make sure you choose the "safely remove" before removing it, usually people don't bother with this but it's a good idea to play it safe.

You do not have to do this for flash drives. That is only required of "moving" hard drives.

Sometimes it helps to do it anyway when going from Windows to a Mac. Especially if the device is formatted NTFS.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Nizology

Originally posted by: bwccom
That's the nice thing about usb sticks, they aren't picky (unless they are old).

Make sure you choose the "safely remove" before removing it, usually people don't bother with this but it's a good idea to play it safe.

You do not have to do this for flash drives. That is only required of "moving" hard drives.

Sometimes it helps to do it anyway when going from Windows to a Mac. Especially if the device is formatted NTFS.

Hopefully it isn't formatted NTFS; that old version of OS X won't write to it (I rather doubt she's running MacFUSE.)

 

[sophiarosehips]

Hi all,
You were right about it working! Yay. My iBook prompted me to drag the drive's icon to the trash before removing it after the first time I removed it without doing so. I assume this is the "safely remove" thing. So now I do that.
Thanks again!
No idea whether it's formatted NTFS but I assume not as I am running the first OS X.
Anyway you were very helpful and I appreciate it.
- Sophia

 

[thomprecision]

Glad you got it figured out. I prefer using my flash drive when going between different computers whether they are macs or pc's. It just makes everything easier, and burning CD's can be really time consuming.

I was reading the other posts, and wondering how do you format to Fat32, and what's the worse that can happen if you don't...is it that the document is distorted on the mac?

 

[oynaz]

All operating systems can read and write the FAT32 format, but file size is limited to 4 GB.

The NTFS format allows larger files, but Windows is the only OS which can reliably write to it.