Copying files from WinXP tower to MBP

imiloaimiloa
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Greets. I didn't find an answer for this in the archives, so figured I'd post.



With Boot Camp & Parallels, I can finally retire and sell my old WinXP box. Question is: What's the best way to copy 300 GB of files from the internal WinXP drive to my OS X backup drive (using my Macbook Pro)?



I was going to use Ethernet over LAN, but that's not very fast and requires a WinXP reinstall, since the WinSock API is hosed on the PC (bleh, windoze...).



I know there are USB-based xfer options, eg: Move2Mac. Curious to know if there any free solutions?



2nd thought: With Parallels, could I mount the WinXP drive via external firewire case, and then copy the WinXP files directly to my OS X backup drive (also external firewire)??? This seems the fastest option if feasible. Much better than 3 days of Ethernet shuffle...



Advice?

TIA,

Chris

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by imiloa


    What's the best way to copy 300 GB of files from the internal WinXP drive to my OS X backup drive (using my Macbook Pro)?



    I was going to use Ethernet over LAN, but that's not very fast and requires a WinXP reinstall, since the WinSock API is hosed on the PC (bleh, windoze...).



    I know there are USB-based xfer options, eg: Move2Mac. Curious to know if there any free solutions?



    2nd thought: With Parallels, could I mount the WinXP drive via external firewire case, and then copy the WinXP files directly to my OS X backup drive (also external firewire)??? This seems the fastest option if feasible. Much better than 3 days of Ethernet shuffle...



    I did something like this a while back. I had a 1TB NTFS firewire drive and a 500GB FW drive and a powerbook. I had to copy the files from the 500GB drive (300GB+) onto the 1TB drive and format the 500GB one. I did the copying on a PC that had two FW ports. I then formatted the 500GB one with a Mac. Now, I had to put it back again so I had to format the 500GB one as NTFS and use the PC to put the stuff back. All in all, the process over firewire was pretty fast.



    This differs from your situation because you want to take stuff from the NTFS drive and copy it to a Mac drive and you can't use ethernet. Putting it inside a firewire case would seem to me to be the fastest option. You won't need Parallels either because Macs can read NTFS, they just can't write to them. If you only have one firewire port, you might be better with a USB2 enclosure. They are likely cheaper anyway.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    imiloaimiloa Posts: 187member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin


    You won't need Parallels either because Macs can read NTFS, they just can't write to them.



    That's sweet news. I'll try it! Thanks!
  • Reply 3 of 9
    imiloaimiloa Posts: 187member
    I put my WinXP NTFS drive in my external Firewire case, but I can't get it to mount in OS X 10.4.8 (which, in theory does read NTFS).



    System Profiler shows the NTFS disk as "Unknown Device" on the Firewire bus.



    Any thoughts? Do I need a special util/driver?



    If it matters, my external Firewire case is an ADS, circa 1998 or so. But my old OS 9 backup drive mounted just fine in the same case.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by imiloa


    I put my WinXP NTFS drive in my external Firewire case, but I can't get it to mount in OS X 10.4.8 (which, in theory does read NTFS).



    System Profiler shows the NTFS disk as "Unknown Device" on the Firewire bus.



    Any thoughts? Do I need a special util/driver?



    If it matters, my external Firewire case is an ADS, circa 1998 or so. But my old OS 9 backup drive mounted just fine in the same case.



    It should just mount but I see some people have had the same problems. NTFS support even read-only must be a bit flakey.



    One thing you can try is connecting direct to the PC through firewire:



    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...firewire+ip+xp



    but this can be slow and you probably won't be able to connect your firewire drive at the same time.



    Firstly open Disk Utility and see if you can mount it in there.



    The try relaunching the Finder with it connected (alt + right-click the Finder icon or force-quit).



    Then try logging in/out with the drive connected and if that doesn't work try restarting with it in. It could be that some mount command isn't being executed.



    Then try using the mount_ntfs command. The firewire device should have appeared in /dev - the unix list of connected devices. To get the ID of your drive, open a terminal (/Applications/Utilities/terminal) and type df and hit return. Look for the /dev/ entry that matches your external device. You can also use the command diskutil list.



    It will be something like disk0s1.



    Then you should be able to type something like:



    mount_ntfs /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes



    I don't know if you need to relaunch the Finder to get it to show. There are slightly different instructions on this page near the bottom so if those above don't work, try them instead. They suggest using sudo but I don't know if that's necessary:



    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...31031075607668
  • Reply 5 of 9
    imiloaimiloa Posts: 187member
    First off, beaucoup thanks for your help, Marvin! I didn't even know it was possible to direct mount NTFS partitions until you posted such.



    diskutil list shows the partition as /dev/disk0s1:



    #: type name size identifier

    0: GUID_partition_scheme *74.5 GB disk0

    1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1

    2: Apple_HFS MBP 74.2 GB disk0s2



    But when I run:



    sudo mount_ntfs -u myuserid /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/



    I get back:



    mount_ntfs: /dev/disk0s1: Invalid argument



    But it's clearly there:



    ls -l /dev/disk*

    brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 0 Oct 31 19:34 /dev/disk0

    brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 1 Oct 31 19:34 /dev/disk0s1

    brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 2 Oct 31 19:34 /dev/disk0s2



    One possible issue: There are two partitions on the drive I'm trying to mount. Might help if I delete one of them (20 GB partition w/ munged WinXP boot)?
  • Reply 6 of 9
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    If that list you posted is accurate, your GPT only has the EFI System Partition as well as an HFS+ partition, but no NTFS partition at all.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    imiloaimiloa Posts: 187member
    Chucker, yep, you're right. I just noticed that, too. I was reading 200 MB as 200 GB. Luckily, mount_ntfs prevented me from doing anything stupid with EFI.



    k. So it seems like OS X isn't even recognizing the drive, maybe because it has two partitions?



    Anyway, I'm going to try the Firewire network option Marvin suggested. Slower than direct mount, but if it works, I'm not going to complain. Still a lot faster than Ethernet...
  • Reply 8 of 9
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by imiloa


    So it seems like OS X isn't even recognizing the drive, maybe because it has two partitions?



    No, your MBR and GPT are probably out of sync.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Maybe you need to change the configuration on the hard drive. I can't remember what setting I use on the jumpers for the external enclosures. An internal hard drive on PCs is often set to master because older IDE controllers can't cope with CS (cable select) properly. I'm pretty sure both my external DVD drive and HD are set on CS. CS basically automatically determines the master slave configuration.



    You probably know what this is and how to change it but just in case, there's a set of 6 pins on the back of the drive and there is usually a metal bridge over two of them. They are marked M, S and CS. Pull the little clip off one of them and push it onto another set to change it. Probably best to match it to the drive you took out the enclsoure but I'm sure it's supposed to be CS.
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