Considering switching to mac but need some help

Sorry if this is inappropriate for this forum or section. Wasn't sure where else to post. My pc finally died and am tired of viruses, pc problems etc, so I got the green light for a mac from my wife (thinking of a mini). My question is how do I get all my backed up data on my western digital my book (pc formatted) onto my new mac? Is it possible?
I was thinking it is since I've read that macs can run windows. Theoretically I would think that if I turned the mac in windows and plugged my My book external drive, it should recognize it, right?

The Mac should recognize your drive without dealing with installing Windows.
If your data that is backed up is just in folders, etc, then why even mess with windows? I thought the whole idea was to get away from the PC virus issues and stuff.
Mac's can *read and write* to PC drives that have been formatted with Fat32 (common with Win98, XP and most external drives) and they can read drives that have been formatted with NTFS (common with XP internal drives). After you get your data off of the drive, you can use Disk Utility to change the partition type to HFS+ and format the drive for Mac's and Time Machine or just use it with Fat32 for transferring files to PC's etc.
You mount the drive by plugging it in, it shows up on the Mac desktop, drag the files onto your Mac and put them in the proper folders or make new ones.
If your files are standard computer files like PDF's, Doc's, Jpg's, then they will open with MacIntosh versions of the programs you used on the PC or other programs specific to the Mac. In the PDF example, I don't even install Adobe Acrobat Reader on a Mac (who needs the security issues) and use Apple's Preview program instead.
For my clients who are switchers, there are usually only two programs in common use on a PC that are a problem for Mac's - The PC version of Quickbooks is better and there is no MS Access Database program for the Mac. There are Mac versions of almost all of the most common PC programs, or excellent replacement programs for the Mac. Programs are easy to deal with, it's the data that you can't replace.
Deal with Windows if you have to, but many don't and use their files and hardware anyway...
Hope this helps.

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