HT201553 How to transfer data from windows portable hard drive to a new MacBook air?

I am getting a new MacBook air and need to transfer my data. I have a windows 7 laptop and a 2TB wd passport. I have several large home videos (larger than 4 GB) home videos. Any help would be appreciated!!!

Yes, so copy it elsewhere temporarily

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Can anyone enlighten me as to how I can transfer data from an extracted hard drive off of a Macbook Pro onto a new Retina model? No SATA port!!!

Hello,
I'm trying to transfer data from my old hard drive (taken out of Macbook Pro 2009) onto a new Macbook Pro Retina. My ignorance is vast and I purchased an eSATA device to do so, not thinking that there is no SATA port on this new computer. Is there a special cable or anything anyone can recommend? I'd be very grateful for some help here.

I would just get a cheap USB enclosure from OWC, put your old drive in it, and use it it transfer the data to your new rMBP. Cheap and simple. The one I spec'ed is for a USB 3.0 enclosure as you have USB 3.0 ports on your computer - much faster than USB 2.0.
Clinton

How do i transfer files from my external hard drive to my new macbook pro?

how do i transfer files from my external hard drive to my new macbook pro?

Hi niel, when I open my hard drive in my mac, I cannot find any files in there. I guess its not reading my hard drive.

HT2090 how to transfer files from a portable hard drive to another

I tried to transfer some files from one portable hard drive to another but I cant seem to transfer anything.but hard drives are under the NTFS thingy.The brand of the hard drive is WD.pliz help...

Your HDDs are formatted for windows. There is software available that will allow you to use them with your MBP. It has received mixed reviews and you will have to use Google to find it. Perhaps someone else will give you specific information on same.
The other option is to reformat the HDDs to be compatible with your MBP using Disk Utility, but that will erase the user data.
Ciao.

I cannot transfer data from my external hard drive to my new mac

I had to get a new hard drive put into my macbook pro because it was failing. So, I moved all my data onto an external hard drive so I would not lose anything. But now I cannot get iphoto or imovie back onto my computer. It says I cannot open it because it is a time machine back up. I don't want to have to purchase iPhoto and iMovie again just because I had to replace my hard drive.

Copying the files directly from a Time Machine backup may be possible but I don't recommend it. Your new hard disk is essentially a new computer to Time Machine, and it will have problems understanding where to put the individual files. What you're trying to do is just not the right way to go about it.
To restore from a Time Machine backup, boot Lion Recovery and select "Restore from Time Machine backup".
See Pondini's explanation here: http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

How do i download my files from an external hard drive to my new macbook pro

how do i dowload my files from my external hard drive onto my new macbook pro?

Can you not just drag them from the external drive to a folder on your new computer?

I want to transfer files from a functioning hard drive in a nonfunctioning MacBook Pro to an external drive. I have an IDE/SATA drive adapter. The files won't fit on the drive for a working computer I have. Can I use it to transfer files to the external?

I want to transfer files from a functioning hard drive in a nonfunctioning MacBook Pro to an external drive. I have an IDE/SATA drive adapter. The files won't fit on the drive for a working computer I have. Can I use it to transfer files to the external drive?

Good luck and you are welcome.
Like I said, I bought one of their inexpensive enclosures and now can use the hard drive just as a source for the files that are on it...my external drives are much larger and faster so I just plug that drive in when I need something from it.
This one is on sale for $16 http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ES2.5BPU2S/

When transferring data from an old hard drive to a new one, is there a way to keep alias files and folders in tact?

My mac and I rely HEAVILY on the use of alias files and folders. The simple version of my question is: When transferring data from an old hard drive to a new one, is there a way to keep alias files and folders in tact? These are not symlinks or symbolic links, they're all alias files and folders.
Is there any software out there that might help me with a solution? Are there any tricks or tips you can give me to try?

Use either Setup Assistant at first start, or Migration Assistant on subsequent occasions and all will be transferred intact. Given your wording I presume you are Unix savvy and will appreciate the problems that duplicate userids would cause, so of you use MA for the migration, make sure the target Mac has no userid equal to that on the source and you will be fine.
SA does not have these issues since it runs before any user account is created, so it can simply copy over everything. But MA runs after the fact and only solves the issue partially by changing the UID in the user directory, leading to permission problems.

How do I transfer applications & data from my old hard-drive to my new one?

My old hard drive started to crash, it was on it's way out and making funny noises. I have brought a new hard drive and connected it to the same leeds as the old one. I have put the opperating system on to the new hard drive and it is all up and running..... but.
I want to transfer all my old applications like garage sale and limewire without having to pay for them again and transfer all my music and photos from the old hard drive to the new.
So:
1: How do i get the old hard drive out of the position it's in it seems glued in and i can't see any screws?
2: How do i connect both hard drives and transfer everything from the old to the new? Do i need to buy another set of leeds or should they be in the computer
Your help would be most appreciated.....
power mac G4 466MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi
You should be able to have both drives installed at the same time in the rear U shaped bracket. One needs to be mounted in the bottom of the bracket, have it's jumpers set to master and be connected to the end connector of the ribbon cable. The other needs to mounted above it, have it's jumpers set to slave and be connected to the middle connector of the ribbon cable. The computer should have the leads to do this, i.e. one ribbon cable with two connectors and two molex power connectors. With both drives installed, you can then drag your music and photos etc from the old to the new. You could try dragging the applications, although if they install additional files elsewhere they'll need to be reinstalled from the original CDs or DVDs.
The old drive may be screwed into the U shaped bracket from below. There should be a single screw which secures the bracket to the chassis at the front, although it may be hidden under the ribbon cable. If you unplug the ribbon cable and undo the single screw you can remove the bracket still containing the old drive, by sliding it forwards and lifting it up at the front. The screws securing the drive to the bracket can then be undone from beneath.

What is the exact name of the cable I need to connect my old hard drive from my macbook pro (it has been taken out of the computer) to my new macbook pro? I need to transfer files from the old hard drive to the new computer.

What is the exact name of the cable I need to connect my old hard drive from my macbook pro, which has been removed from the computer, to my new macbook pro? I need to transfere files from the old hard drive to the new computer.

No eSATA to USB. Just a SATA/IDE to USB adapter. Google SATA/IDE to USB adapter and you will get tons of links to buy them. Most likely your local computer electronics store has them, although they might be more expensive buying locally than online.
I have several. You can get either USB 2, which what I recommend, or USB 3. USB is backward compatible so a USB 3 adapter will work on a USB 2 port and a USB 2 adapter will work on a USB 3 port. Backward compatible in both directions.
I suggest a USB 2 type because there have been some problems with certain USB 3 devices, the USB 3 interface used isn't all that good in those certain devices. USB 3 is still fairly new where as USB 2 has been around for over 10 years.
synghem wrote:
Thank you LowLuster,
At the apple store they said I needed an esata to usb wire. But looking at wires on line has been confusing. Is sata the same as esata? How do I know if I need a usb 3 or usb 2?

What is a good way to transfer files from an old hard drive to a new one.

I am running low on space on my 80GB hard drive. I want to replace it with a 320GB hard drive. I was wondering what the best way is to transfer all of my files from the 30GB hard drive to my new 320GB hard drive. Not looking for any secure ways. I dont have many important things. Would appreciate help. Thanks.

HI,
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
Carolyn

Can I transfer Time Machine data from two separate hard drives into one new one?

I'm using a MacBook Pro as my primary computer. My 500 gig Time Capsule filled up a year or so ago, so I stopped using it with Time Machine for awhile so I could keep the data from those old back-ups. There were a number of things I deleted from my computer's very limited hard drive after they were backed up to the Time Capsule. I got a 1T external USB drive last year to use as my "filing Cabinet" to store files I didn't necessarily need all the time or that were filling up my small laptop hard drive--including my iTunes library--all organized in a way that made it relatively easy for me to find what I needed, even if I didn't remember exactly when I'd filed it or what I'd called it. I got another 1 terabyte external (portable) drive last July and dedicated it to TimeMachine backups and labeled it "TimeMachine".
Over the last couple of weeks, my friend has been helping me upgrade to Yosemite and clean up my laptop hard drive. Last week he cloned my laptop hard drive to a new 1T hard drive and I exchanged it for my old drive in my computer today. All good.
Here's the issue. We replaced my Time Capsule hard drive with a 1 terabyte drive with the idea of transferring the data from the old Time Capsule (500G) drive and the newer USB 1T "TimeMachine" compact drive to the new 1T Time Capsule drive and beginning using the latter for my Time Machine backups going forward. Originally he thought we could copy everything from each of my external drives (the old 500gig drive from my Time Capsule, the USB "TimeMachine" drive I've been using since July, and the "file cabinet" files) to my computer in their own folders and then start regular TimeMachine backups to the new Time Capsule drive, thus preserving all my old data and making regular backups going forward. The "file cabinet" data was no problem at all, but when I tried to copy my USB "TimeMachine" data to my computer, I was unable to. My friend found instructions for transferring old TimeMachine data to a new TimeCapsule, but I don't know if I can transfer the data from two separate disks to the new TimeCapsule drive. I'm afraid that one set of data will supersede the other and either my newer backups or my old ones will be lost if I try to transfer both.
Are my fears justified or is there a way to insure that no such problem will occur? Of course, my data will still be on those two older drives, but that won't do me a lot of good if I can't access it when I need to. Also, the 1T drive now belongs to my friend; he used a brand new drive he'd bought for himself for my new internal hard drive and plans to take my 1T "TimeCapsule" drive in exchange, once the data has been transferred, so he will, of course, erase that drive.

Should we be able to bring up the old (500G) Time Capsule Drive to rename it using a SATA to FireWire harness and then copy the whole thing to the new Time Capsule drive?
You can copy a whole sparsebundle from one drive to another. That is not a problem. Whether you can access the sparsebundle is something you should test before you even start though.
If it's on the Desktop and I don't tell Time Machine to exclude it from backups, will it just automatically back it up?
All drives you plug into the Mac are excluded by default.. you must include them. So no problems there.. but I hope I am understanding the question.
Will both volumes or directories (which is the right term?) show up when I open Time Machine?
No, Time Machine will only open what it is told to open... or its backup default location.
You can force Time Machine to open alternative/old/no longer used backups by (now I have a problem as things have changed somewhat in Yosemite and I consider it alpha release software at this point in time). The old method was to right click on the TM icon and select a different TM backup. easy. Yosemite seems to have made easy stuff harder.
Here it is on my current computer.. clearly not Yosemite.. Right click on the TM icon in the dock.. select Browse Other Time Machine Disks.. And supply the info of where that is located. Easy. If you cannot figure it out one of the other posters here (with more patience than me for Yosemite) will help you.
Or will we have to partition the new drive somehow--is that even possible?
I am getting more lost as I go down the list.. but the TC disk cannot be partitioned.
If you have included all those USB drives in the new backup on a Time a Time Capsule.. you have made life rather hard because now your files are stored another layer deeper than they were.
So to open a file from a disk you need to open the sparsebundle.. then dig down to the drive in question and then dig down to the backup.. and all of this means Time Machine has to work perfectly which is Yosemite is a very big ask.
I thought you wanted to just backup your old drives to central location.. which means copying the files to a separate folder on the Time Capsule.
One correction I need to make to my post, which will make my strategy make a bit more sense: my new Time Capsule drive is 4T
It makes it much harder.. and I have to pose a real question of long term .. if you have put a 4TB drive in a Gen1 TC.. did you also replace its power supply because I can assure you the drive might be ok but the TC itself will not last forever.. and what happens when it dies. The Gen1 power supply is already well beyond its normal life span and the vast majority are dead. When the backup device is unreliable and the backups on it are made that much harder to get access to.. is this a great plan??
If you are going to consolidate all your old files on one disk.. a task I find understandable. I have done much the same albeit the usefulness of files made on emac running OS9 may be questioned. A disk lying in the bottom of a draw is a more appropriate place for them.
You want those files as easily accessible as possible (at the point of recovery) and not buried inside a sparsebundle.. particularly not a sparsebundle from the old TC disk buried inside a new sparsebundle.. keep files as accessible as possible as you can run searches.. and that is best done on a USB 3 (or faster ie thunderbolt) drive plugged into a new(ish) computer.. not network. And since the files are not being accessed on a daily/weekly or even monthly or yearly basis.. keeping them in actively running TC network storage.. I would say is a waste of space. That is only my opinion of course.. you might consider it highly important that files you will never look at are available any time of day or night when the urge comes to track down that elusive pimpernel email you sent 10 years ago... but I find it hard to justify. What the case.. the problem with TM and things like Mail is you cannot search it.. you must restore the whole library/files/program even before you can access it.. that makes file recovery out of a sparsebundle double step process.
So.. summary.
If you want to store files on the 4TB drive in the TC.. that is not a great strategy but it can work.. simply create a folder named.. OldFilesEMac for instance.. and do a simple copy and paste of all the file to that location. Do not use TM.. Since you have already used TM.. and from what I am reading you have already done the backup with the external drives included.. then you are going to end up needing to erase the TC and start over.. which you may not be prepared to do.. which is fair enough. (I am coming across as overbearing school master.. apologies).
TM is to backup your main OS and current files.. not files from 10-20years ago.
Please do read the issues involved in Pondini..
See his FAQ. I recommend you read through Q14-17 so you understand what is involved in recovery.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I also recommend you read the first couple of articles here. http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Particularly so you understand the complexity of Time Machine.
And the articles here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Particularly Q3 on mixing data and backups on a TC.
I wish I could spend an hour or two face to face and work it out.. the whole strategy to do this.. !!

How do i transfer file from my external hard drive to my new mac

How do I transfer my files from my external hard drive (all files coming from a PC) to my new macbook pro?

What sort of files? Are you looking to transfer an entire user account or some data files?

Can't transfer data from one external hard drive to another?

I have just purchased my first Mac book Pro a few weeks ago and i seem to be having alot of trouble transfering data between my to hard drives.
One is a 500gb and the other is a 1tb both with movies and photos on them, i want to tranfer the last data from the 500gb to the 1tb and format the 500gb.
I have tried to drag and drop and copy and paste but nothing seems to work? The movies are in avi format too so not sure if that makes a differance or not but that is another issue i would like to sort. How to change the complete hard drive to mp4 or do i do them one by one?
Any help would be great as i dont want to regret this purchase so early in the piece.
Thanks to all in advance.

Yes.

How can I transfer my files and documents from external hard drive to my new MacBook Air?

I recently bought a new MacBook Air and I would like to transfer my files and documents which I already saved in my external hard drive to this new mac. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do it so far. I tried to drag some files but the rest of the documents cant be transferred.
I appreciate it if anyone could help me in thsi regard.

Describe exactly what you did when it failed and the error message you received that told you it failed. Dragging and dropping files from one drive to another will work. Having said that however, you need to be aware that trying to copy items with the same name will result in a warning dialog box offering several different options including canceling.
To better help you it would also be helpful to know about the external drive. Did you use TimeMachine to back up to that external drive? Did you copy files from another computer to the drive?

HT201553 How to transfer data from windows portable hard drive to a new MacBook air?

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