Hey Apple folks of mine, Until last week, I was using an old Desktop PC, running Vista. Ended up crashing down. All my datas (like 15 000 pictures, 2 000 songs and various school related documents) are on an external hard drive, a WD My Book Essential, that I bought in 2011. I was planning on buying a Macbook Air next week, but I wanted to know first if I would be able to read my datas. FYI, I was using the hard drive like a giant USB key.

I didn't install any programs on the PC I was using. But, somebody told me that, since I was using a PC, I would have to reformate my hard drive to use it on Mac. Unfortunately, I have no where else to put my datas first to do that. I thought that, since I was using it as a USB key, it would work anywhere, like a USB key would. Please say yes. Thank you so much for your help.

As JimmyCMPIT commented, by default the Mac system won't write to a disk having the NTFS format, which is a popular format for PC disks. However, there are many solutions which would allow the Mac to use a disk formatted that way. On the other hand, if by some chance your disk had a different format, the Mac might be able to use it without adding any 3rd party software. There might, however, be some other difficulties in using the same organizational methods that Vista allows. Do you have access to an Apple Store? My experience is that the Apple Store reps are more than happy to provide personalized details that can help switchers get started. Also there's Boot Camp and virtualization for running Windows on a Mac.

My Book For Mac Instructions

Here's a place to start. Fat32, ExFat are readable, writable, deletable on OS X NTFS is writable only, but there are 3rd party utilities to write and delete to it. From Windows select the device with Right Mouse Button (RMB) select Properties look under file system.

Type: Local Disk File System: NFTS There is no set rule but what you may find common in Windows is Intenral disks will generally be formatted NTFS External disks and Flash Drives can be formatted NFTS, or FAT, or FAT32, or ExFAT, or some other format but this is far less likely. Using Apple Migration Assistant you can migrate the data from the PC to the Mac, there are a number of ways to do it, locally or over the network (same network, not across a WAN) A new computer from Apple will likely come bundled with some iteration of OS 10.12 Sierra. So start here. See also: Migration Assistant for Windows. 1) you need to download the windows version of the assisnt. I posted the link.

Applications in Windows do not appear in the control panel, why are you even in the control panel? Applications will need to be installed, and should appear in your start menu once you install them. If not they are by default they are in C:/program files/ 2) If you migrate over the network it does not matter what format the drive is. Using s3's avb for mac download. If you migrate directly from the disk you are not writing to the NFTS formatted, only reading it, so getting data off the disk is not a problem. 3) if you are having problems with the instructions from Apple you should probably take your old computer or hard drive with you to the an Apple store if you plan to buy from an Apple Store and see if a genius can assist. Apple Footer.

Wd My Book Essential Setup

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