@jay24080906v1x1 wrote:
Thank you for your help. The laptop and desktop are quite old so will they have the file sharing ability?
They should, because Windows SMB file sharing has been a standard for many years. Looking quickly on Google, if those PCs are up to 15 years old they should have it.
@jay24080906v1x1 wrote:
In regards to the seagate external storage, when I went to apple to seek technical support, they said that because the hard drive was originally initiated on a windows os, the Mac wouldn't be able to read it. Is there any way to find this out before purchasing the iMac. Obviously she doesn't want to buy it, take it home and realise after plugging it in that it's doesn't read it.
As I said in my earlier reply, it depends on how it’s currently formatted. In recent years, many Seagate external drives have been formatted as exFAT, which lets them work with PCs and Macs out of the box. If hers is older, it might have been formatted with a Windows-only format. In other words, the Apple Store person assumes it was originally initialized in Windows, but that is not necessarily true.
The way for you to find out is plug it into a Windows PC and find out the formatting there. I don’t have a PC in front of me right now, but Google found these instructions:
How to check the file system (FAT, FAT32...etc) of the hard drive
@jay24080906v1x1 wrote:
Obviously she doesn't want to buy it, take it home and realise after plugging it in that it's doesn't read it.
If you check the file system using those directions and it is a format that a Mac does not read out of the box, as I said in my earlier reply, it’s possible to buy software that will add that capability to the Mac, and then it will be readable. However…
There is another, big question here. Are those files both valued and irreplaceable, and is that Seagate drive the only place where the photos exist? If the answer to those questions is “yes,” then there is no backup, but there needs to be one in case that aging drive fails. That means she should have at least one more hard drive anyway, as her backup. If she does not have a backup, then she should buy a new external hard drive and copy the entire contents of the Seagate drive to it. (And ideally, learn how to use backup software to keep the backup current.)
That would solve two problems at once. First, she would have a backup, which is essential if she doesn’t have one already. Second, a new external drive is likely to be formatted as ExFAT out of the box (before buying, make sure), so that would allow her to unplug it from the PC after copying the Seagate’s content to it, then plug it into the Mac and use it there.
After creating a backup on a drive that works on a Mac, it will be possible to format the old Seagate with a Mac-friendly format and copy everything from the backup back to it. Now she will have two copies of the photos, on external drives that both work with a Mac.
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