Possible numpty question...

Dyson · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:00

This may be a stupid question, but, I have an old HDD from a previous Vista build that I'd like to get a few files off of. Is it possible to just pop the drive into a usb docking station and take what files I want from that drive?

I'm now on a Mac, with an old XP lappy also, will this present a problem getting files from the Vista drive?

Hope I don't look too stupid, and someone can help me out.

Many thanks

JHeaton · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:05

I'm not sure about the Mac (do they have built-in NTFS tools?), but if you've got a dock (USB, I assume?) then it should be recognised by XP and show up as another local disk. Some docks can be a bit iffy with what they do and don't recognise, though.

Dyson · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:19

JHeaton said:
I'm not sure about the Mac (do they have built-in NTFS tools?), but if you've got a dock (USB, I assume?) then it should be recognised by XP and show up as another local disk. Some docks can be a bit iffy with what they do and don't recognise, though.

Thanks for the reply. I haven't got a dock yet, just wanted to check the theory before I got one.

Weazle · 24 Jun 2010 at 13:16

Mac OS X can read NTFS but can't write to it from what I've heard:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050521110452194&lsrc=osxh

I've played around with my mate's drive as he uses his for music and I had to convert the drive from NTFS file system to FAT32. Once I got it into FAT32, the Mac could read the drive from a USB or Firewaire drive caddy. FAT32 only has a max of say 32gb on the disk size so I had to use some other utility to increase but I don't remember what it was sorry.