Getting a Mac to talk to a PC.
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Good Day and Happy New Year.
I have a question.
Flatmate who has been using my mac for the last few months has brought a PC and now im trying to help him move over his files (photos and music) to his computer.
I tried added my external Hard Drive to his computer - It sees item added and knows its a Storage device but it doesnt show in his COMPUTER area. Only under devices.
I then tried a Wireless Network between our two computers.
Seems ok,Both computers see it, but on my mac when i type the password in - it just hangs and doesnt want to connect.
He has a new HP computer running Windows 7.
Im using my mac book pro and running Leopard (i think) - about 2 years old. - So not the update thing they had a few months ago.
is it poss for macs and pcs to talk. any suggestions.
Thanks
I have a question.
Flatmate who has been using my mac for the last few months has brought a PC and now im trying to help him move over his files (photos and music) to his computer.
I tried added my external Hard Drive to his computer - It sees item added and knows its a Storage device but it doesnt show in his COMPUTER area. Only under devices.
I then tried a Wireless Network between our two computers.
Seems ok,Both computers see it, but on my mac when i type the password in - it just hangs and doesnt want to connect.
He has a new HP computer running Windows 7.
Im using my mac book pro and running Leopard (i think) - about 2 years old. - So not the update thing they had a few months ago.
is it poss for macs and pcs to talk. any suggestions.
Thanks
0
Comments
prbly easier if you just format the external drive on the pc.
peer to peer networking between a mac and a pc is not the easiest thing in the world, but if you have a network the mac should work fully with windows file and print sharing.
Connecting between OS X - OS X is best served by AFP, OS X to windows has to use SAMBA. In the sharing preference pane if you click on file sharing on the right hand side and then click the options button you'll get the option to enable Samba. http://idisk.me.com/paul.beattie/Public/Pictures/Skitch/System_Preferences-20100102-145625.jpg You'll have to elaborate some more on what password you're putting in, I'm not too sure. Windows 7 has some very fickle file sharing when I used it, doesn't seem like you can just share a folder like a dropbox essentially. Also if the amount of data is substantial you might want to think about using Ethernet and turning off Airport, transferring via wireless is slow on my 802.11N network let alone a 802.11G one!
As for the hard drives. OS X tends to use a file system called HFS+ Journaled. Windows uses NTFS. OS X can't read and write NTFS without third party drivers, the same goes for Windows and HFS+. The best option in that instance is to format the drive using disk utility as FAT32. While this generally works well, any files over 4GB will not copy across as FAT32 can't address files bigger than 4GB.
P.S. The update thing for OS X they released is well worth the purchase. At £29 you'd be crazy not to for the speed improvements it brings.
It isn't ideal (compared to an external drive or via the network), as upload speed will be slow, but it does give the added benefit of having the files backed up (which they should be anyway).
Agreed and it is only £20 now.
System Preferences / Sharing.
Take note of your computer name.
Now, go to File Sharing and add a shared folder, the one with his stuff in. Allow Everyone read access, this should cut out the headache of username/password request.
Press Options and ensure "Share files and folders using SMB" is ticked and enable / turn on your user account.
Now, back on the Windows side. Start / Computer, to open up Windows Explorer. In the left column, go to Network and browse to your Mac. You should hopefully find the new shared folder. It may prompt you for your username & password if you didn't share the folder with "Everyone" access.
Try temporarily disabling Windows' firewall.
yep - i've just tried this only from the opposite direction.. can confirm it works. shared out a folder on my windows 7 machine, then went to the mac, typed in the windows comp's IP address through the Go To Server dialog on the mac, then it threw up all the shared folders which i was able to access.
You could also try with an RS-232 Cable. Google that. Good Luck.
I got them to network to each other (on my mac it said it was connected to this connection i made on the pc)
but i couldnt work out how to send a pic from the mac to the pc.
i couldnt find export or move to (PC NAME)
i went under networks and computers and there wasnt the pc computer there.
The simplest way for me would be to do this via hard drive.
Can i buy a small harddrive tomorrow (the one i tried using recently is a hard drive which is also my time machine)
So if i buy a hard drive - just connect to my mac - insert pics - and this will work with a pc - just dont format the drive to a mac.
Will that work?
or can i use a (modem cable - ethernet ??) to connect the two machines together - not much thought has gone into this?
or is there a cable i can buy? - cheap enough?
With so many files to copy, Ethernet is better.
i didn't have to go and amend any settings... the most complicated part of it was setting up the shared folder on the windows machine and that was easy. but if it still doesn't work out for you then use the USB drive method... it should work fine... if its a small enough size then you can use a USB pen instead of a full external HD.
you can't just plug 2 machines together like that, at least not with an ethernet cable. everything has to go via a router or bridge and doing something simillar to what you're trying now... btw, can you know the IP address of each computer. can they ping each other?
yeah, i know.. just can't be bothered digging out the cable and setting it up. i can watch a bit of the assassination of richard nixon while i wait
As for sharing on Windows 7 you need to disable the firewall or work out how to allow the Mac complete access or find out Samba ports. Second to "paste" files onto the Windows 7 PC you need to enable public sharing to get rid of the password prompt. That's in Network and Sharing Center, Advanced Sharing Settings, and turn on the public folder sharing. Then you need to turn off password protected sharing in the Network and Sharing center as well.
Yes, format it for Windows in FAT32. That way both Windows and Mac can read and write to it. The downside is no file can be bigger than 4 gig IIRC. OS X can only read NTFS, not write to it.
The first thing you need to do is to calculate how much much data you have. Under 16GB and you might be better off buying a USB stick instead of a hard drive. Most of them should already be FAT32 formatted.
Can OS X format a drive in FAT32? Vista and W7 can only format a drive to 32GB in FAT32. A third-party tool is required to format to the full capacity.
Yes. Disk Utility calls it 'MS-DOS' format or something. Don't know how it copes with big drives though. Never tried it with anything other than USB drives.
both computers know something is there.
Under Windows - In network - it says Local Area Connection but No Internet Access.
Under my Mac it says under network settings:
Build in Ethernet - Self Assigned IP (shows a connect icon) and sys connected.
also says
Configure - Using DHCP
IP Address. 169. blah blah
Subnet Mast - Number
Router - Empty
DNS Server - Empy
Search Domains - Empty
How do i send via this ethernet.
When i look under computers section - no mention of the other computer.
i do appreciate all your offers and help by the way.
Thanks a lot.
Teehee, my thoughts exactly
Anyway I'd have thought the easiest option for the OP is to transfer the files over a LAN or WLAN. That way you are guaranteed to be able to transfer anything you want as you could set up an FTP server on either or both of the machines. I use Filezilla Server (which is free, and available for Windows, OS/X, and Linux) which ensures I can freely transfer files to pretty much anything able to connect over my WLAN.