Use old Windows XP PC hard drive as an external hard drive.

Hello, I'm planning to buy a Mac Mini as XP is no longer supported. My thought is to use the old SATA 3.5 inch drive as an external drive in a USB 3.0 case to give access to what files and programs. There are a couple of Windows specific programs on there, so can I boot the Mini into Windows and readily use the external drive as if it was all part of a PC instead of a Mac? I'll get a new external drive for Time Machine backups.
Does booting into Windows come as normal or do you have to buy Office for Mac? Was planning to wait for the latest version of that before buying. But in the meantime would I effectively be able to boot into Windows and use the old drive and all the Office Pro Plus 2010 thereon? Have two machines: an old Windows XP PC and a new Mac all in one?
Thanks for any help and advice you can give (I'll be new to using a Mac, but have an iPad 3 and old iPod)

No, not the install disks. The disk is labelled 'Backup disc Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010'. I have the product keys. Would that work, and onto a Mac?
When I bought MS Office, the easiest was to download through the internet, but paid extra for the delivered backup disk (or disc, whichever you prefer).
Seems a shame not to be able to continue using something I've paid for. Grrr! Especially as there is probably a new version of Office for Mac coming soon so will wait to buy that not an old one.
Will the other, none Microsoft programs (but designed for MS not Mac) be accessible and hence run? Do I still need to buy a version of Windows or parallel system? (I thought that boot camp gives the ability to boot into Windows and comes with a Mac, not bought as an extra. And it works with XP as well as later versions).
Thanks

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Can I install Linux for Windows on my Apple Mac and afterwards use old windows programs as PageMaker on my new Mac. If yes where can I find Linus windows for Mac

Can I install Linux for Windows at my new Mac and afterwards use old Windows programs as Photo Shop and PageMaker on my Mac? If yes where at the Internet can I find Linux for Mac and Windows?

What is your definition of a "Linux for Windows" ?
There is Linux like Ubuntu which can be installed on a Mac
See the UbuntuForuns here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam
And there is Microsoft Windows which can be installed and used on a Mac with Apples BootCamp http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/ or through Virtualization apps like Parallels, VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox.
Windows Programs don't run in a Linux only in Windows.
Stefan

Is it ok to use old TC as a hard drive

I recently bought the newest 2 TB TC and I was wondering if it would advisable to use old 1 TB TC as an external hard drive?
From what I've read the avg life of a TC is around 3-5 years. I plan on using most of the storage for making home movies and possibly making iTunes wirelessly accessible. I just fear putting home movies on something that I don't plan to back up. It seems that people have a HD to back up a HD that backs up another HD or they are constantly purchasing a new hard drive.
In your opinion what is the best way to go about storing home movies/itunes? Use the 2TB as back up to mac and the old 1 TB? HELP!

Which model TC is it? 1tb can be Gen1, 2 or 3.
I would definitely discourage any use of it other than ebay for gen1 and 2. They are now 5years or more old and simply out of time.
The Gen3 is a lot faster and more solid .. but using a lower grade hard disk. Samsung Spinpoint.
You can open the Gen3 and put a 3TB drive in there and it will make it a fairly useful box.
BUT apple designed it so it is hard to backup. You do still need to have files backed up and if you move iTunes to a TC disk it is not so easy to backup and slow.. it has to be worked out. Not impossible to fix but it has an issue.. since Apple designed the TC for Time Machine and nothing else. Hence they built it without backup.
A proper NAS is the best.. look at Synology/QNAP for the top brands, but the all in one types like WD MyCloud are worth a look. They have a lot more tools and apps.. including media servers. Apple builds the TC with no apps and no ability to add them.. it manages SMB and AFP to store files.. and nothing more.
It seems that people have a HD to back up a HD that backs up another HD or they are constantly purchasing a new hard drive.
Drives are cheap.. your photo collection is a bunch of tiny magnetic variations on an aluminium plate. One tiny corruption away from destruction.. so think of backups as keeping the negatives.. you can then reprint the photos. And having a spare backup in a relatives house.. offers some security against fire and theft. It is no silly idea. If you keep priceless stuff.. like photos.. which might have a material value of very little.. on a few different locations it makes good sense..
I plan on using most of the storage for making home movies and possibly making iTunes wirelessly accessible.
Unfortunately iTunes is merely a library.. and the TC cannot serve it.. using wireless to access the library.. yes.. ok.. but for movies streaming over wireless you can have issues.. especially if the library is being played to another location.. Apple did not make iTunes flexible enough.. you must still have a computer running. And if you stream from the computer to somewhere else.. all being done over wireless the stream is going in two directions.. TC--Computer.. Computer--TC.. TC--Target (eg AppleTV). This is not going to work well unless you have some ethernet in there.
In your opinion what is the best way to go about storing home movies/itunes?
Use a Mac Mini with a very large hard disk as home server for itunes.
See iTunes: How to share music and video - Apple Support
And follow and read all the links.

Hi Im using OS Windows 7 Professional 32bit driver for apple ipad air in order to transfer photoes from ipad to hp laptop

Unable to transfer photoes from ipad to windows 7 laptop.
Error message
"This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)"

That is one heck of a post for a newcomer here. Your instructions worked like a charm, with one exception:
When uninstalling the Broadcom Device, I had to check the box to delete the driver, and then had to scan for new hardware to get the device to show back up. Then I was able to load the edited driver software.
I am not complaining, but very grateful, as I was pulling my hair out on this one.

Use old Windows laptop as second screen for Macbook Pro

Hi all,
I've recently bought a Macbook Pro (mid 2012, 13", 2,5 GHz). So I'm not using my Acer laptop anymore, but I've came across a discussion of people who extended their Mac screen on a Windows laptop. I've tried multiple VNC apps, but no decent results (lots of lag, only mirroring my screen and so on). So my question is: how can I use my Acer to act like a second screen (I prefer a LAN connection instead over WiFi)
Thanks a lot!

No can't be done.
I would like to see the links to anyone that says it can. So please post one or 2 of them. Thanks.

24GB SSD... cache, rapid start?, is it even used in windows 8?

I purchased a U410 from costco... it comes with a 24GB SSD, but the drive letter is D and has some mcafee bloatware on it.
I thought the SSD would provide some sort of cache for the larger HD, but not sure if this is configured.
Does anyone know if this SSD can be configured as a cache?

Hi
I actually DOWNGRADED the U410 I bought last month from Win 8 to Win7, cos basically Win 8 is toy system for kids. I HATE fingerprints on my screen.....
The U410 works fine with Win 7 Pro 64-bit (I had bought a license for this anyway) and almost all of the drivers for Win 7 64-bit are available on Lenovo's website. I had problems with the Touchpad driver, but solved that by simply using the Windows 8 64-bit driver instead (Synaptics) - works like a dream. Do not intall the recommended Win 7 drivers, they just mess things up.
The 24-GB SSD IS NOT an extra drive on these systems (I had hoped it was). It's too small to be a boot drive....took many hours of research to discover this. Basically, it's a fancy RAM drive (for those readers who remember the old DOS days of 640 KB memory and a paltry 384 KB RAM drive).
The Intel software does a good job of managing this, both under Win7 and Win8 - but have no illusions - you want SSD boot speed, buy a latpop with a SSD main drive!
BTW, I kinda like my U410 - but the touchpad software is a B***H.
Alistair
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Can't boot from windows 7 install usb drive created in bootcamp

So, my real problem is that my Windows 7 install won't boot after I installed some windows updates. I'm using OSX Lion and the latest version of Bootcamp. I've had Windows installed on my mid 2011 mac mini for only about a day. It had been working flawlessly so far.
Windows automatically downloaded and installed some updates and now it is broken.
When I attempt to boot windows I get a black screen that just hangs forever. No windows logo, no blinking cursor, no nothing.
I thought I could use my Windows 7 Install usb drive to maybe try and do a recovery or repair install but now my USB drive wont boot either. I get the same black screen.
Any ideas on why I can't boot even the install usb drive?
Note: this is the same USB drive I used to install windows the first time so it's definately capable. I've even used my install iso to re-create the usb drive installer and still nothing.

Install ISO means you burned DVD installer and did you reduce burn speed? otherwise it is a bad install.
3rd party updates? for security suite? stick to MS Security Essentials instead.

Can I use an old Windows hard drive with Boot Camp?

I have an old windows desktop that has FL Studio files I want to transfer to Logic Pro. I'm working on a Mac Pro with 4 hard drive bays and only 3 hard drives.
I understand that Boot Camp lets you boot Wndows, but can I install Boot Camp without erasing the hard drive? I just want to be able to plug my PC drive in, hold the option key, and choose to boot the Windows drive from time to time.
Alternately, could I make a disc image of my PC hard drive, reformat it to FAT and reattach the disc image?
Thanks,
Jon

You can, but it's illegal. A OEM version is designed to be installed on a new computer, not on a computer with an existing operating system, so you can install Windows from there but you should know that's illegal, so Apple doesn't support it. To do this legally, you have to get a full Windows 7 disc version and use it to install Windows.
If you need the steps to install Windows on the MacBook, read > http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/boot_camp_install-setup_10.8.pdf

MacBook Pro crashed while deleting old backups off partitioned external hard drive. Now only recognizes windows formatted half of drive. Can the Apple side be saved?

MacBook Pro 15-inch, Mid 2010
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB
Software OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)
I have an external hard drive:
2 TB Seagate Backup+Desk Media
Partitioned:
1TB - Windows NTFS
1TB - Mac (sorry I can't remember the formatting, whatever Mavricks asked me to use...)
What happened:
I was erasing 3 old backups from the Apple partition and my laptop crashed part way through emptying the trash. (it has done this many times before, where parts of the screen are frozen in square blocks displaced all over the screen. Screenshot not possible unless I use a separate camera).
When I force restarted my computer (holding down the power button) neither side of the drive was accessible. After running the Disk Utility and Verifying and Repairing the Disk Permissions and the Disk Itself (for the Windows side) I was able to access the Windows partition. However, upon attempting to do so with the Mac partition it tells me that it cannot be repaired. I have found many forums discussing SIMILAR situations but none with the same and here is why:
Up until this happening I could access ONLY the Windows partition when the drive was connected to either my Apple laptop in Bootcamp Windows 7 or my HP laptop in Vista, while my MacBook could access both sides of the drive. HOWEVER, after this crash, BOTH my Windows 7 and Vista can access both sides of the drive (so My files are still all there and accessible) but my MacBook Pro swears that the Apple partition is doomed.
Since the Apple side of my laptop is my primary workhorse I really want to figure out how to fix my drive.
So Questions:
1. Anything else I can provide to the experts out there to help me get this fixed?
2. Can I custom fix this via accessing the drive on either of the Windows systems?
3. Why would it suddenly show up in Windows when it became unaccessible to Mac?
Thanks All!

UPDATE:
It has been maybe a month since this happened.
After I made this post and was checking emails, walking away from computer, and then came back my Mac partition of the External Drive has shown up on the Desktop...
So, in the ever immortal way of asking the tech to come check the issue and the issue resolving itself, perhaps I should posted on the forum sooner...
NOTE: The disk still shows up as unusable in the Disk Utility and it appears that the files are read only (cannot make a new folder on this side of the external drive)
I still consider this a volatile issue because I do not want to lose the files on this half of the partition and I have not gotten a replacement drive yet (too much data to move to my computer and then format the current drive)

Using Current Windows-based External Hard drive on Mac

Hello,
I have a MacBook Pro now. I have BootCamp installed with Windows Vista. Working fine. I also have a Western Digital 160 GB external harddrive with data on it from my old Windows only computer. In other words, it is formatted with NFTS.
I want to be able to do one of the following things:
1. Partition the external drive in half so I can use half of it for new Mac data while keeping my old Windows data
2. Seamlessly use the external drive as is between Mac OS X and Windows being able to transfer data. Right now, if I boot into Mac OSX, I can see the drive on the desktop and actually see the files and folders. But if I try to drag anything to the drive, I get permission denied.
Any hints here? Basically, in a nutshell, I am going to have data from both Windows and Mac OSX that I would like to save on the same external hard drive
Thanks.

You won't likely be able to make one hard drive with two different partition types if it is already partitioned (partly anyway) in Windows in NTFS. Mac Disk Utility won't deal with the unpartitioned space AFAIK.
It cannot hurt to try in Disk Utility and see if it shows the 60GB only or refuses to mount at all which I suspect will be what happens.
Anything but My Book is the answer (I have seen at least a dozen My Book complaints here) - normally with macs there are a few trusted makers and one interface - firewire (NOT USB). I use LaCie drives - 3000GB worth - and for portable I have an OWC, they make very high quality cases and drives and nice and small.
I have a few others that I do not rely on like a 320GB USB drive that was $100 and the drive inside is worth more than the whole external drive actually cost which is why I bought it. And a small USB Maxtor for use with Parallels since Parallels won't see Firewire drives.

Transfer files from old computer, use old hard drive?

I've just purchased new HP Pavilion p6-2120 Desktop. I need to transfer files, programs, etc from my 6 year old Dell desktop. I realize I can use Windows 7 transfer program with flash drive, transfer cable or external hard drive to move the files.
As another transfer method, can I take the old hard drive from the Dell desktop & install it in the new HP Pavilion? Is the old hard drive (80GB serialATA, 7200rpm, DIM2,XPS2) compatible with the new HP where it will even work?
Since I'm not transfering that much is it best to just purchase a Windows 7 transfer cable?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

mikesimms,
Your theory is correct. If you want all the settings, email, documents, photo's, music, and other data files, use either the Windows Easy Transfer program. It will accept an external device or use the transfer cable.
If you want only the documents, photo's, music, and other data files then you could add the XP drive to the system (temporarily use the p6-2120's DVD drive cabling). You can copy files to the new folders.
I am a volunteer. I am not an HP employee.
To say THANK YOU, press the "thumbs up symbol" to render a KUDO. Please click Accept as Solution, if your problem is solved. You can render both Solution and KUDO.
The Law of Effect states that positive reinforcement increases the probability of a behavior being repeated. (B.F.Skinner). You toss me KUDO and/or Solution, and I perform better.
(2) HP DV7t i7 3160QM 2.3Ghz 8GB
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Custom Asus P8Z77, I7-3770k, 16GB RAM, WIN7 Pro 64bit, EVGA GTX670 2GB, 750W OCZ, 1T HD SATA 6Gb/s
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Converting old windows ntfs hard drives to mac

hello All
i hope that someone can help i have 3 old Ntfs hard drives, but my mac will not search thought them for files via spotlight, even though i have a program which allows the info to be read, peg something its called.
i want to convert the drives to mac, but is there a way to do which will keep the data on the drives and with out loosing the data or corupting it.
also i have a drive with window which i run boot camp and parallels, does that have to be nfts to work or can that be converted too?
i hope some can help
mike

Hi Mike and welcome to Discussions.
Spotlight can't index drives formatted to NTFS because OS X can't write on them (indexing involves writing on the drive) and so can't search them, but you can search them using EasyFind for instance because OS X can read NTFS volumes.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/index.html
I believe with MacFuse you can add write capability to OS X for NTFS.
I'm wondering if you couldn't convert your NTFS drive (while connected to a PC) to FAT32 which is read/writeable by OS X. But note though that FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB, in case that matters to what you use the computer for. And _make sure_ you have a backup before attempting this. There are various ways of doing it it depending on the OS of the PC. I believe Partition Magic can do this, but Google around.
also i have a drive with window which i run boot camp and parallels, does that have to be nfts to work or can that be converted too?
What do you mean by this - is Windows installed on the drive using boot camp?
/p

How to format new hard drive for Apple TV when you can't use old HD

I need to know how to format a new HD to install in my Apple TV where I can't use the old HD to clone or otherwise create the new structure on the new HD.
I have an Apple TV that was syncing to a Mac Mini that had a defective HD and logic board. I was unable to backup the Apple TV to the Mac Mini for some time before I had the mini repaired by AppleCare.
When the mini came back, it registered on the Apple TV as a new computer and I couldn't sync with it without losing hundreds of dollars of content.
All was okay until the other night when Apple's defective update for the ATV erased ALL my content. I updated it to 3.1 this morning, which Apple indicated might fix the problem. It didn't. The old content is all gone.
My ATV is out of warranty, so I removed the old HD and copied the files from the "Purchased" folder to my mini. That saved most 101 items that I purchased since 12/08 (but not all for some reason). I lost all content prior to 12/08 that I purchased, as well as some content since 12/08 that I purchased.
I need to keep the old HD untouched until I can purchase data recovery software. I'd like to just put a spare IDE HD in that I have into the ATV and just start over with what is in my Mac mini iTunes.
So, how does one do that? I'm not gifted with vast Unix knowledge or experience and I don't want to clone the old HD and risk losing more data if it writes to the HD for some reason.
Thanks.

Hi Atagahi,
Firstly, have you emailed Apple iTunes support indicating your issue? There have been instances in which Apple will allow re-downloading of all content you've purchased on the iTunes store.
Secondly, I highly recommend you get an external usb hard drive, attach it to your mini and use it as a Time Machine drive to keep your iTunes purchases safe. It's a fact of life that all hard disk drives will eventually fail. The Apple TV should never be used as any kind of permanent storage space; think of it as a 'temporary holding' zone. And as you've unfortunately already experienced, a glitch wiped out all content on the Apple TV.
As regards your original question, it seems like there have been folks who've done just that...taken the internal drive in the Apple TV out and attached it to a mac and copied files from the Apple TV hard drive. I have not had to do such, so I cannot offer any help here except for Linda's suggestion on googling the net for solutions.
Good luck and hope you get all your purchased content back Atagahi!
Message was edited by: Alec

Portable Hard drive formating for use with windows and mac operating system

Just bought a verbatim sure fire 500g 800 firewire portable hard drive for my new macbook pro. I have not did bootcamp yet because I am deciding on wether to use Vista or the new windows 7 that will be coming out soon. The drive is already formated HFS+, how do I format the drive so I can write both windows and mac files to it. Help!!!

how do I format the drive so I can write both windows and mac files to it.
Either format it to MS-DOS from the DIsk Utility, or install a tool such as MacDrive into Windows and keep the drive in its current format, or install the NTFS-3G driver into Mac OS X and format the drive to NTFS in Windows.
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External Hard Drive to be used with windows and Mac

I shall paint the picture;
I have a very nice mobile hard drive on it's way to me, and I shall be upgrading to leopard at some point soon after receiving it, my MBP has a 120gb internal HDD and the external on it's way is 160gb .
I will be using it as a time machine HD , but will also be using it to transfer from my mac to college/university PCs.
So, do any of ya'l out there know a good way of going about it? My thoughts are along the lines of creating a separate windows/mac partition because Time Machine I assume uses HFS+ and as far as I am aware, windows is unable to use this.
I am not 100% sure on this so any help or corrections or indeed alternate solutions are welcome.
Only requirements are that it's with my MBP and G-Tech G-Drive mini only, no extra bits and bobs.
Thank you in advance

A 160 GB drive may be a bit small to use to back up a 120GB drive with TimeMachine... and have a separate partition to use for Windows files. While your MacBook Pro's 120GB drive may not be close to full yet... it will likely continue to grow in time. TimeMachine keeps multiple copies of files that you change allowing you to go "back in time" to various points. It will use as much space as is available on the drive. You may want to keep a larger external desktop drive for your TimeMachine backup... or dedicate your entire 160GB to it.

Use old Windows XP PC hard drive as an external hard drive.

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