Using FAT 32 formatted external HD with iMAC

just bought an iMac. For my PC, I have a 150GB external harddrive that is formatted for FAT32 and connected via Firewire. Can I plug in the HD into the iMAC and read/write my files? I've read something that says I can't write to the drive, or the files need to be smaller than 4GB. I have MP3 files bigger than this. If I need to, I can read the FAT32 disk, and copy to iMAC, then re-format into MAC format (what ever that is), and write the data back. Can I do this, or am I on the wrong track? Help an ex PC guy out?

Yes you can connect and use this drive just fine. It's NTFS that Macs can't write to. FAT32 does have a 4GB file limit but this applies to PCs as much as Macs. I doubt you have 4GB mp3 files, they would be days long! 
Mac file system format is called HFS+ but within Mac OS it's called Mac OS Extended. You can leave it as FAT32 if you wish to use it between the two machines or format to HFS+ with Disk Utility for Mac-only use.
cheers
mrtotes

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