Transferring data from a PC to a Mac

Blackshirts007

Blackshirts007

New member
Ok so the description sounds super easy and dandy, but i have a problem. I just bought a mac and a hard drive for this upcoming school year. I would like to transfer a few things over (pictures, iTunes, movies, etc) because i would hate to spend hours upon hours downloading songs and bringing them into my iTunes, i have about 3,000 songs on my iTunes with some movies that need to be transferred. I have the external drive so thats all great my only problem is my PC has a massive virus. So massive i didn't want to spend the money on repairs and just bought a Mac. I've had plenty of spyware and trojans before on PC before i bought norton security but could always find a way to get rid of them. Well now this virus on my pc literally freezes it up upon log in. Every single i log in, i can move the arrow for about 5 seconds and then everything freezes. I read a few ways to try to handle this (going into safe mode and doing all sorts of security checks etc) and following step by step procedures on how to get rid of this, but it continues to fail. I called around and it seems like a problem that they would have to wipe my drive clean if i ever want it to work again (could be a way to try to get my business) but in any case i was told this by multiple places. So how do i transfer my stuff in safe mode. Is there anyway to since whenever i try half of the programs won't even open in safe mode? i want that stuff but i can't afford to send in my computer (warranty is up) and it would cost about half of what the Pc was worth!! thanks for the help/ suggestions. By the way this Mac is amazing.

 
Off the top of my head, one option I can think of is plugging your hard drive in as a slave drive on another computer in order to browse through it with Windows Explorer. Otherwise, if your computer runs in safe mode you should be fine - you shouldn't need any special program or software running to transfer files from your internal to an external drive, it's just a matter of copy/pasting folders and files.

 
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Off the top of my head, one option I can think of is plugging your hard drive in as a slave drive on another computer in order to browse through it with Windows Explorer. Otherwise, if your computer runs in safe mode you should be fine - you shouldn't need any special program or software running to transfer files from your internal to an external drive, it's just a matter of copy/pasting folders and files.
Click to expand...
that's what I would do or just download or order the Free Ubuntu Live CD, boot from it, copy your data & clean install XP. Assuming you are using XP

 
+1 to scarlet's suggestion. If the problem is the Windows interface being messy to work with, simply boot off a Ubuntu LiveCD which you can burn yourself from the Mac. This gives you access to all your files from an OS loaded from the CD. Access to the drive contents while bypassing the corrupted Windows interface.

Copy your data and then do whatever you like with your windows machine.

If you don't know how to boot from the LiveCD, you press one of the F keys (F2,F4, F10, F12, etc) during startup. Not sure which one, could depend on the system.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
zoogies said:
If you don't know how to boot from the LiveCD, you press one of the F keys (F2,F4, F10, F12, etc) during startup. Not sure which one, could depend on the system.
Click to expand...
90% of the time it's F1 or delete to enter into the BIOS, where you can change the boot priority to an optical or thumb drive first. Many OEM systems are already set for those devices first though.

 
For some reason my PC isn't recognizing my external drive. It is both usb 2.0 and 3.0 compatible so it should work. Ill mess around with a little more tomorrow. Thanks for the help though, once it recognizes my drive i should be fine with transferring stuff. I am a little disappointed this Mac doesn't come with a disk drive. I would have liked to copy some DVD's into my iTunes. Ive looked up alternative ways, but everything looks too difficult considering I'm tech retarded.

 
Just get an external disc reader, *or* do the copying on the PC and port it over on the hard drive.

Boot from Ubuntu CD and it should absolutely recognize your hard drive. If you're still messing around with the virus-infested Windows install, I'd suggest...stopping that. You want to access your HD without going through all the viruses. I wouldn't even plug the HDD in there and run windows, but maybe that's just extra precaution.

 
Blackshirts007 said:
For some reason my PC isn't recognizing my external drive. It is both usb 2.0 and 3.0 compatible so it should work. Ill mess around with a little more tomorrow. Thanks for the help though, once it recognizes my drive i should be fine with transferring stuff. I am a little disappointed this Mac doesn't come with a disk drive. I would have liked to copy some DVD's into my iTunes. Ive looked up alternative ways, but everything looks too difficult considering I'm tech retarded.
Click to expand...

How is the drive formatted?

 
Actually, unless you know what/where the virus you think is in the PC is, there is a risk you take it with you when transferring files.

There is a possibility it is your antivirus program that is causing the issue. I have seen Kapersky do it to Windows 7, where when it was on, everything literally took 5 to 10 min to open a program.

I have also removed a maleware program from a cousin's comp that 'locked' it up after start up. It was a program that was creating multiple instances of itself as seen in the task manager, and 'locking' her laptop because the cpu was at 100% and that program was top priority.

 
This is true, but -- let's say you are transferring your .jpgs, your .docs, .mp3s, etc. That would be sort of safe, wouldn't it?

 
zoogies said:
This is true, but -- let's say you are transferring your .jpgs, your .docs, .mp3s, etc. That would be sort of safe, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...
Depends. Some of the nastiest maleware/virus will spread to any connected hard/flash drive. While its not the most common occurrence, it can happen.

 
Back
Top