Taking files off a Mac

[olds]

<--- PC user

My daughter is here and has what I think is a Mac. It's a white all in one and has OS X on it.
I want to copy her files to a portable hard drive. Drag and drop doesn't work. How do I do this?
Also, what do I use to search for something like *.jpg?

TIA

 

[postmortemIA]

copy and paste? finder search is similar to windows explorer search

 

[olds]

I can copy files but there is no paste option.
Decided to copy hard drive to a portable hard drive so I don't miss any files. She can go though them later

 

[TheStu]

Is the external drive formatted NTFS? OS X can read, but not write to, NTFS.

 

[olds]

Is the external drive formatted NTFS? OS X can read, but not write to, NTFS.

Yep. That explains why I am getting "dunk" noise.
I guess I can buy another drive. What would I format it as?

 

[Essence_of_War]

FAT32 or exFAT should be readable and writeable by both windows and OSX.

If there is nothing else important on the drive, you don't need to buy a new one, you could just format it to FAT/exFAT from OSX's disk utility.

 

[olds]

FAT32 or exFAT should be readable and writeable by both windows and OSX.

If there is nothing else important on the drive, you don't need to buy a new one, you could just format it to FAT/exFAT from OSX's disk utility.

It's my wife's back up drive so I can't format it.

 

[olds]

Once I get the files off, is there a way to wipe the hdd without losing the OS?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Once I get the files off, is there a way to wipe the hdd without losing the OS?

No. Wiping the HD means wiping the HD.

If it's a white iMac, it's probably too old for internet-based restore/recovery. You'll need to use it to download an OS X installer and create an installer thumb drive from that.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

For installation/wiping/setup/boot-from-usb instructions, etc., refer to the apple knowledge base. It's pretty expansive.

 

[olds]

It's an iMac 5 with a 2.16 GHz processor

 

[Childs]

Just plug it into a switch, turn enable file sharing on your PC, and connect to it and copy the files off.

Also, if you go to the Apple logo in the upper right, click it, then go to About This Mac, it should tell you the OS version and model. That'll help you know what you OS it came with, whats its currently on, and how to proceed.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It's an iMac 5 with a 2.16 GHz processor

Too old.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Once I get the files off, is there a way to wipe the hdd without losing the OS?

I mean, you could delete the files you moved off of it, but there is no nuke from orbit option that also preserves the OS if the data and the OS are on the same volume.

It sounds like you have something specific in mind that you're trying to do, could you explain what exactly you're trying to do?

 

[olds]

Daughter wants to get rid of the Mac. Wants her pictures. I got another flash drive and formatted it exFAT and got the pics. The apple store walked her through deleting her account on the Mac but I assume the files are still there somewhere.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Daughter wants to get rid of the Mac. Wants her pictures. I got another flash drive and formatted it exFAT and got the pics. The apple store walked her through deleting her account on the Mac but I assume the files are still there somewhere.

Deleting her account will remove the /users/daughter folder, including any files in /users/daughter/Pictures, /users/daughter/Desktop, or /users/daughter/PlotToDestroyTheWorld.

So actually, if she didn't put her photos some weird place like /Applications or /System, it should do exactly what the Apple Geeks said it would.

 

[olds]

Awesome. Thanks everyone for the help.

 

[Childs]

Awesome. Thanks everyone for the help.

Don forget ~/Lirbary/Application Support. Thats where stuff like attachments, preferences, account info, etc are stored. You would be better off creating a new account, then deleting the old account and removing the home folder.