Copying files from Mac to PC
Ron Knights
Posts: 2,138
in The Commons
i did this once, back in 2007, when I bought my first Mac. Now I'm thinking about getting a PC for my DAZ3D stuff only. Would I be able to copy my DAZ installations from a Mac disc over to a PC formatted hard drive? It would certainly save me a lot of time.
I think I started with a straight copy back in 2007, but eventually I switched to a DIM install from scratch. I'd made a mess of my stuff before I got the new Mac.
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For the most part, almost everything should be platform agnostic except for specialty programs (rare as they are), and you will have reinitialize m4 and v4 to get morphs to work.
nemesis10, thanks. I may not get a new PC for several months. I'm just trying to think ahead.
the tricky part is going to be the copying. mac os x uses HFS file systems, and windows uses NTFS file systems. a mac without special drivers or apps can't read a NTFS disk--which your new windows drive will be--or write to one.
i don't know how large your daz library is. but your best bet might be to pick up an external USB drive, format that as FAT32 or exFAT, and copy your files from your mac to that, and then either use it for your daz library, or copy the files from it to your windows machine. if you're running a fairly recent version of os x on your mac, you'll be able to read and write to both formats. if you're running an old version, you might only be able to read and write to a FAT32 drive. exFAT is friendlier, as it can handle files larger than 4 GB. FAT32 can't.
if you decide to try this approach to transferring your files, i recommend using your windows machine to format the USB drive. sometimes os x's disk utility doesn't do the most windows-friendly job.
good luck!
j
If both computers are connected to a router, then it should be straightforward to copy the files over the network, that way the different partition formats are not relevant.
I have used external hard drives on my Macs from the very beginning. Often, the internal hard drives are not big enough for my DAZ stuff and other data. Yeah I'd format the drive on the new PC. I prefer to at least have my data on a different drive than the one that handles Windows or Mac OSX. It's much safer for me.