Okay, another one of those “I’m thinking of buying an iMac but…” threads.
My question is regarding my WD usb MyBook external drive. Is is FAT32 formatted and has all my music, photos, videos, documents, and a few windows applications stored on it.
Will I be able to plug this drive into an iMac or MacBook Pro and get access to the data without any additional steps?
If not, what addition steps will be necessary to get to this data?
Thanks,
MeanJoe
Yes, you can just plug it in. The Windows apps won’t run, of course.
And depending on the file formats of your data, you might have to install additional software to read them (e.g. if you have music/video in Windows Media formats, or your documents are .doc(x) or something). You probably knew that though.
If you’re going to get an Imac, I would recommend the $1500 model with the 24" screen. If I’m not mistaken, it has the same screen as the more expensive 24" versions. It’s a fantastic screen, much better than the 20".
If it’s a FAT32 drive, you’re good to go.
OTOH, Macs can read from NTFS drives, but can not write to them - keep this in mind if you’re trying to use a file directly from an external disk as some apps want to write temp files to the same directory the file is in. Word and Excel do this, for example. In this case, you’d need to copy the file to your Mac, then open it.
>Yes, you can just plug it in. The Windows apps won’t run, of course. <
Hey, don’t forget a little program called ‘Parallels’. I bought it for $79 and have used both Win XP and Vista with it. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. You can be running mac programs and windows programs at the same time. Say, using bitTorrent on your Windows side to legally download music, then playing the songs in iTunes. And drag-and-dropping from Mac to Windows and vice-versa. I used Boot Camp for a while, but it’s got nothing on Parallels.
Thanks everyone! I assumed any apps there would not run on the Mac unless I’m in Windows via Bootcamp or Parallels. There are Office docs (.xls and .doc) on that drive but again, I understand the limitations there. My biggest concern was being able to get to (or move) my music and photo library between the external drive and the Mac.
MeanJoe
You can open basic Word docs with TextEdit, and iWork, which can be obtained as a trial, and may be on the HD already, can handle more complex Office documents. It’s only $79, while Office 2008 is over $200 ($100 if you’re eligible for the student version). There’s also OpenOffice.
Also, you can download OpenOffice.org to open .doc and .xls files on your Mac. It’s a free and open-source office productivity program, and the latest version runs through OS X. (The earlier versions had to run through UNIX on the Mac and did not share the Mac’s user interface or menu bars.)
Indeed.
I love my 24" screen!
I bought the 24" model, figuring I couldn’t add the inches later if I tired of the 20" model. I have never regretted it. A very nice screen.
There are a couple of good NTFS solutions available.
Many people swear by the free NTFS-3G, which sits on top of MacFUSE. I choose to use a commercial tool called NTFS for Mac from Paragon.
At one time, the commercial product was substantially faster than the open source one, which is why I bought it. I don’t know how they compare today.
Ah, so the standard version of Open Office has finally caught up with NeoOffice, then?