Transferring files from Mac to PC

rose28454

I am trying to transfer some files from my Mac to my PC so I can save them to my external Hard Drive. I found a thread on You Tube that tells you how to do it with an Ethernet cable. So connected it all up and it works up to a point then says I need to speak to System Administrator.

This is the thread I used. Any ideas?

emptybox

I think it would have to be a cross-over cable rather than a patch one?
And you'd have to set up an 'ad-hoc' connection?
(never tried it myself)

Would it not be much easier to just transfer the files over your home network (presuming you've set up file sharing)? or via a USB pendrive?

saveallmymoney

Are both these computers not on the internet?

I think dropbox would be a great free solution for you.

securityguy

emptybox wrote: »

I think it would have to be a cross-over cable rather than a patch one?

Auto-crossover has been standard on all hardware since forever.

And you'd have to set up an 'ad-hoc' connection?

That's a wireless concept.

emptybox

securityguy wrote: »

Auto-crossover has been standard on all hardware since forever.



That's a wireless concept.

Oh well, apologies if I got it wrong.
As I said, I haven't ever needed to try it myself.

However
This howto suggests that you definitely need to use a crossover cable when connecting two Windows computers together. but not when you connect a mac to a Windows machine.
http://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers-Together-with-an-Ethernet-Cable

It seems Mac recognizes auto-crossover, but Windows doesn't.

Here's a couple of guides to make up for my lack of knowledge. :embarasse
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7116
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1887761/transfer-files-windows-mac-ethernet-cable.html

securityguy

emptybox wrote: »

This howto suggests that you definitely need to use a crossover cable when connecting two Windows computers together

Auto-crossover (auto-MDIX) is a function of age, not manufacturer or operating system: as you can see from this list, older Apple kit doesn't support it.

Two machines with GigE never need it (it's part of the spec). If one or both of the machines has a 100BaseT port, it'll depend on the age of it, with the cut-off being the early to mid noughties. Something less than ten years ago would be unusual if it didn't. 10BaseT-only hardware (which is probably now fifteen and more years old) won't support it.

But quite why the OP wouldn't just plug both the machines into their router is something of a mystery.

Mr_Toad

rose28454 wrote: »

I am trying to transfer some files from my Mac to my PC so I can save them to my external Hard Drive. I found a thread on You Tube that tells you how to do it with an Ethernet cable. So connected it all up and it works up to a point then says I need to speak to System Administrator.

This is the thread I used. Any ideas?

You mention an external hard drive. Why not just connect the drive to the Mac and copy the files straight on to it?

rose28454

Mr_Toad wrote: »

You mention an external hard drive. Why not just connect the drive to the Mac and copy the files straight on to it?

Tried that and it wanted me to reformat the hard drive. I still have files on my PC so want to be able to still copy from there aswell.
This is the You Tube clip I used but I get nearly all the way through and it says on MAC that I need Administrator permission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQaFNgU2cBU

securityguy

rose28454 wrote: »

Tried that and it wanted me to reformat the hard drive. I still have files on my PC so want to be able to still copy from there aswell.
This is the You Tube clip I used but I get nearly all the way through and it says on MAC that I need Administrator permission

Just type your own username and password.

It's highly unlikely you'd have set the machine up such that you aren't an administrator without knowing you'd done that.

Mr_Toad

rose28454 wrote: »

Tried that and it wanted me to reformat the hard drive. I still have files on my PC so want to be able to still copy from there aswell.
This is the You Tube clip I used but I get nearly all the way through and it says on MAC that I need Administrator permission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQaFNgU2cBU

Hmm......

I swap my external HDD between PC and Mac with no issues. Did you format the external HDD as NTFS?

They usually come formatted as FAT32 which both PC and Mac can read and write to. Your Mac can read NTFS but not write to it by default. OS X can write to NTFS but this needs to be enabled in terminal

If the files on the external HDD are copies of files on the PC and/or you could simply reformat the drive to FAT32 and then it will work on both. If they aren't copies then you'd need enough room to copy them to the PC while you do a format. Once done you can then you can put the files back and use it on both machines.

rose28454

Right. Managed to get past the password problem but now it wont let me drag and drop the files from my documents to the file called mac on my Mac to then be shared with the PC.