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urgent help. How to transfer files from external harddrive into macbook pro??

C

chariotofFIRE

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 18, 2007
37
0
its a windows based maxtor harddrive 7200 rpm .. i wanted to transfer files from my old dell into my macbook pro.


seems like nothing is popping up when i plugged my external into my usb port



i need to transfer these files.. help !
 
Not even appearing in Finder (in the sidebar)?

It may nto appear in the desktop necessarily.
 
chariotofFIRE said:
its a windows based maxtor harddrive 7200 rpm .. i wanted to transfer files from my old dell into my macbook pro.


seems like nothing is popping up when i plugged my external into my usb port



i need to transfer these files.. help !
Click to expand...


have you tried looking in the disk utility to see if it is showing up in there and just needs to be told to mount (Just a long shot).

Also to be more practical you could install the drivers for that hard drive. maybe get them off of the Maxtor site. It sounds as if the Mac has no drivers for the device and does not recognize it as a result.

I could be wrong but that is my take.
 
I'd like to know. I have a WD 120GB external HDD. NFTS format.

Can I just hook it up? Am I allowed to copy over files from that HDD? I hope so because my current computer has USB 1.1 and copying everything through that would take HOURS.
 
iMacBook said:
I'd like to know. I have a WD 120GB external HDD. NFTS format.

Can I just hook it up? Am I allowed to copy over files from that HDD? I hope so because my current computer has USB 1.1 and copying everything through that would take HOURS.
Click to expand...
No. OS X will not recognize a drive formatted in NTFS. You need to either load it through Windows, or transfer the files elsewhere temporarily, reformat the drive as FAT, and then move the files back. FAT will allow your hard drive to be recognized by BOTH windows and OS X, which imho is much more efficient than partitioning half your drive for windows in NTFS and half for OS X in FAT.
 
Illicit said:
No. OS X will not recognize a drive formatted in NTFS.
Click to expand...

Wrong, OS X would recognize the drive. And you would be able to read, so you may copy from your external to your Mac HD. The only limitation is that you can't write in it.
 
Roco said:
Wrong, OS X would recognize the drive. And you would be able to read, so you may copy from your external to your Mac HD. The only limitation is that you can't write in it.
Click to expand...
You got me on a wording error. By 'recognize a drive' I meant being able to do everything you would want to do on a external hard drive, including reading/writing from it. From my experience with 3 NTFS externals, they were detectable, but displayed an error "You do not have the authority to access this file" upon reading and writing.
 
Illicit said:
No. OS X will not recognize a drive formatted in NTFS. You need to either load it through Windows, or transfer the files elsewhere temporarily, reformat the drive as FAT, and then move the files back. FAT will allow your hard drive to be recognized by BOTH windows and OS X, which imho is much more efficient than partitioning half your drive for windows in NTFS and half for OS X in FAT.
Click to expand...

I just need to copy files from it. The external has all my music and movies and such. I want them on my MacBook. Then, Im'ma give back the external to this computer.
 
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