Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

bigzebra · May 11, 2007, 11:39 AM

I think this is the most approporiate forum for my question. If not my appoligies.

My Mac Pro should be here within the next few days, and I am wondering what is the most efficent method of transferring my data (a LOT of music, pictures, word docs, ect) to the Mac?

I assume burning a lot of CD's, but if there is a better way help a guy out!

Also if anyone has any tips for me and my new system it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!

Leonard · May 11, 2007, 11:51 AM

Well, I've heard Macs can read NTSF HDs as well as FAT-32 HDs (I've seen reading FAT-32 myself), so why not network the two systems via ethernet cable and copy everything over (don't use wireless - it's too slow).

I'm not sure how to turn sharing on, on a PC, but I'm sure someone here could explain it.

Burning things to DVD/CD would be my second or third option.

Athens · May 11, 2007, 12:09 PM

get a cheap switch, plug the PC and Mac in, share the Mac or share the PC, either works, make sure the firewall on the PC is off and transfer the data, or you can buy a cross over cable but if I remember correctly you can use a straight through normal cable to and the Mac will adapted and act as if it was a cross over.

You can plug the PC hard drive into the Mac (OS X) reads and writes to Fat32 and can read NTFS and directly dump the files onto the Mac that way as well. The best way is to just network them.

Burning the CD's and DVDs would be my last option but they also give you a good backup if you do it that way as well incase anything ever happened to your hard drive. Its just the optiont that will take the longest.

Big Mac · May 11, 2007, 12:28 PM

A router is the best solution. Just turn on file sharing on either the Mac or the PC, connect to the other machine and start copying your files.

Peabo · May 11, 2007, 01:23 PM

what about an ethernet crossover cable?

jcjones86 · May 11, 2007, 06:24 PM

Ethernet crossover would work. (I don't know about the Mac Pro, but some network devices have automatic switching internally to detect a crossover connection, thereby eliminating the need for a crossover cable. It's worth a shot before buying one!) I believe you must configure IPs manually. Make one 192.168.1.0 and the other 192.168.1.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, no gateway. Otherwise, just plug them into your router and it should work the same.

Share the folders from your PC: The easiest way to access all your data is to share out the drive letters by their root. To do this, right-click on the drive letters in the My Computer directory and go to the Sharing tab under Properties. Just share it as its drive letter, say C for the C: drive. You may have to enable file and printer sharing from here. If that's the case, click the link and tell the wizard that your computer connects through a residential gateway.

To connect to your Windows share from the Mac: Click Go and Connect to Server. Use this syntax to specify your PC share: smb://administrator_username:administrator_password@pc_h ostname/C

Replace administrator_username with a username of somebody who has administrative rights on the PC. Replace administrator_password with that account's password. Replace pc_hostname with the name of your PC on the network (or the IP address). Finally, replace C with the share name you specified earlier for your drives.

This should be the easiest method of doing all this. You don't have to worry about the filesystem format on your PC, as the Samba (That's what SMB stands for!) protocol makes the share look like a generic filesystem to the client computer.

I hope this helps!

Jared

rehoot · May 11, 2007, 07:53 PM

Is your old computer Mac or Windows?

I have networked a Windows computer directly into a Mac like jcjones86 said. If you have a router, that would be easier. If you don't have a router, you could also try copying files to an external hard drive. If your old computer is Windows, then the external drive should be formatted as FAT32 so both computers can read it.

If you can't do the above, then you'll have to manually configure static IP addresses and connect the computer via a network cable. If you are not familiar with the manual configuration of IP on BOTH Mac and Windows, you might get a bit frustrated, but you could Google "manual static IP configuration" (without the quotes). I have also done it by linking two computers and using FTP (if you are not familiar with configuring an FTP server, try another method).

peeb · May 11, 2007, 08:17 PM

You might just want to pop the drive from your old computer into an external enclosure.

Leonard · May 11, 2007, 11:30 PM

You don't need a crossover cable. Macs have been auto-sensing (or whatever it is called) since the later PowerMac G4s. All you need is an ethernet cable.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42717

jcjones86 · May 12, 2007, 01:14 AM

Originally Posted by Leonard

You don't need a crossover cable. Macs have been auto-sensing (or whatever it is called) since the later PowerMac G4s. All you need is an ethernet cable.

Apple products that require an Ethernet crossover cable

That's what I thought. Gotta love how those engineers thought that through.

peeb · May 12, 2007, 09:46 PM

I do love that kind of attention to detail! Is that standard on PCs now too, or just an Apple thing?

SkaGoat · May 12, 2007, 10:54 PM

PCs had it first.....

the Auto Sensing ethernet ports have been pretty much standard equipment for years now. It's not an Apple thing. Most likely it's just something that was included in the adapters that Apple was buying for the PowerMac G4

bob-nine · May 12, 2007, 11:15 PM

I would use a USB flash drive. I use them at the office all the time. The good ones are fast. Mine holds 4GB. I can only assume that a Mac will read it, as I am still saving to buy one. They are usually formatted with FAT. Good Luck.

bld44 · May 13, 2007, 10:07 PM

Another for the direct ethernet cable from the mac to your PC. Enable file sharing on your PC, and find it in the networks folder on your mac. Drag and drop- its about the fastest way to move your stuff. That's what I did when I moved to my Mac Pro, moved about 200 gigs worth of data.

bigzebra · May 16, 2007, 10:22 PM

Thank you all for the help! I used an ethernet cable, like most of you recomended, and it worked like a charm. (After I figured out how to set the settings up correctly- I'm kind of dumb when it comes to computers!)

analogika · May 18, 2007, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by SkaGoat

PCs had it first.....

the Auto Sensing ethernet ports have been pretty much standard equipment for years now. It's not an Apple thing. Most likely it's just something that was included in the adapters that Apple was buying for the PowerMac G4

It's been standard on all Macs since around 2000. (Powerbook G3s, IIRC)

Cadaver · May 18, 2007, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by bob-nine

I would use a USB flash drive. I use them at the office all the time. The good ones are fast. Mine holds 4GB. I can only assume that a Mac will read it, as I am still saving to buy one. They are usually formatted with FAT. Good Luck.

MacOS X will read/write FAT formatted hard drives and flash drives just fine. It'll also read NTFS formatted devices, but can't write to NTFS without additional software (don't have a link handy, but its an open-source project).

cspuryear · May 26, 2007, 09:44 AM

Thanks for this information, it's helped me a ton too!!!

Cheers

himself · May 28, 2007, 03:02 PM

If the hard drive is SATA, you could just plug it into the MacPro and copy your stuff over that way. It could also serve double duty as a windows boot disk for Boot Camp or Parallels...