PC to Mac

Pete Allen

Pete Allen

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Morning guys,
Looking for a bit of advice re: swapping from PC to Imac.
If I were to change, can I use hard drives and the data on them i.e. photos, pdf's, word and excel documents?
Or at least transfer them to an external drive that could read them all.
Looking to switch but, not sure if it would possible or, worth the hassle.
thanks.

EDIT Forgot to mention, my PC has died so I can't use migration assistant.
 
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Mac will read a hard drive formatted as MS-DOC (FAT) and ExFAT

Windows-compatible formats​

Choose one of the following Windows-compatible file system formats if you are formatting a disk to use with Windows.

  • MS-DOS (FAT): Use for Windows volumes that are 32GB or less.
  • ExFAT: Use for Windows volumes that are over 32GB.

File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, format disks or volumes using Apple File System (APFS), Mac OS Extended, MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT.
support.apple.com
 
But if I re-format the drive, I will lose all the data on it, correct?
 
Pete Allen said:
But if I re-format the drive, I will lose all the data on it, correct?
Click to expand...

Yes, formatting a drive will lose the data.

If you have data on a NTFS formatted drive then you would need to transfer it to a new drive formatted in FAT or Ex-FAT format in order for it to be read by the Mac and Windows machines.

If you want to transfer data from Windows to a new Mac then I would buy a cheap external HDD, format it to ExFAT and copy your data over, then plug it into the Mac and transfer it over to the Mac.

Then you can reformat the external driver to one of the Mac formats APFS or Mac OX Extended and use it as external storage. Or leave it as FAT if you need to read the drive on both Windows and Mac.
 
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Yes it's possible - but as your PC has failed, it will require the help of a friend with a PC, and be a bit off a pain.

The HD from inside your PC will probably be formatted as NTFS, which the mac won't be able to read, but a Windows machine can read.

So you need to get a HDD enclosure for your existing drives (making it usable as an external drive), plus a new external drive large enough to hold all the data.
You then format the new drive to FAT or ExFAT (it will need to be ExFat it the drive is over 2Tb, or any individual files are over 4Gb) using a friends PC / laptop
You then transfer from your old HD to the new external HD using your friends PC / Laptop - this may take a while, particularity if you are limited to USB 2 on either of the drives.

Then you will have the external drive in a state than can be read by a new Mac.
 
Thanks,
And when that's done, will the Imac be able to read and use all the data from the old drive?
 
Do you want to import the files on to the Mac? Or use them from the existing hard drive?

Photos and pdfs are pretty much open formats that will be compatible. Word and Excel can be read by the native apps on a Mac (Pages and Numbers are the equivalents of Word and Excel and come pre-installed), however there may be some small issues with layouts etc. If you want full compatibility you would need to buy Word/Excel/Office for Mac.
 
If you have Office365 I'm pretty sure you can install the apps on Mac as well as PC.
 
Even better! It has been a long time since I have used Office.
 
Although, it will depend on the age of the Mac, as to which version it can take!
 
A bit late to this thread.


On my macs I use Paragon to read NTFS volumes - I know it costs but it’s what I have used for years. Any new volumes that are to be mac only I format to apfs

( I also have just one installed Paragon Linux file system reader ext3/ext4 etc )
 
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