Few questions on migrating external HD to iMac

[iFalcon]

I'm not sure if this is the best place or not. I apologize if it isn't.

We bought a mint condition 21.5, 3.06, Nvidia GS 9400 about 2 weeks ago for $750.

Our 1.5 TB WD Elements drive showed up today that will be dedicated for Time Machine. We'll never fill that up, but got if for under $45.

Anyway, our PC has a smaller portable external hard drive that basically store pictures, a very few doc/xls, and a backup of Quicken installation media.

My question is what is the best way to migrate the information from that drive over to the iMac so it's included with Time Machine? I'm still trying to figure out on how to import the pics into iPhoto.

Also, for installation media backups for Quicken, what do you guys/gals usually store those. Do you typically burn them to a DVD?

Thanks.

 

[rkaufmann87]

The first thing to do is connect the Time Machine drive to the iMac and format them correctly. (Applications-Utilities-Disk Utility), then select the drive on the left pane, next click the Format tab and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click Format, BTW I'd call the drive something like Time Machine. This will format the drives correctly, if Time Machine doesn't immediately find the drive then open the Time Machine Preference (Applications-System Preferences-Time Machine) Select Disk, navigate to the Disk, make sure the Time Machine slider is set to On and then you can begin to back up, after that TM will backup automatically.

Time Machine will back up all external HD's connected to the iMac as a default however I think I'd migrate the PC data to the iMac rather than leaving that drive connected. Doing that should be a simple drag and drop process. If you haven't already I'd recommend spending time on the following sites if this is your first Mac.

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/