Hatrack River Forum: Flash Drives PCs/Macs

This is topic Flash Drives PCs/Macs in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :

My brother is preparing to take the MCAT and my former roommate has alot of software that he used to prepare for that same exam. Problem is its all on my roommates PC and my brother needs it on his laptop which is an Ibook, I believe it runs OSX.

Using a flash drive to transfer the files should not be a problem between the two computers right, or are there compatibility issues? I mean assuming you want to be dumb and drop $200+ on a 10gig flash memory card. Apparently the files in total are several gigs but I am not sure how accurate that is.

I guess what I really need to know is there any reason why the files would not transfer properly between a PC and a MAC?

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :

The transfer will have no issues, but if you use a card instead of a drive you'll need to make sure both computers have a reader.

This doesn't mean the software will run, though. If it is pdf/word/whatever files, those will be openable just fine (assuming the correct reader software is installed), but running windows software will not be possible on the ibook without using virtual PC (the ibook does not have an x86 processor in it, so unlike recent macs, it cannot run windows natively).

Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :

Apparently I just need to transfer pdf files from my friends PC laptop to my brothers Mac laptop. So if they both have adobe acrobat everything should be fine?

Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :

Yeah, that will work perfectly fine. [Smile]

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :

He won't need acrobat reader, Macs come with a very capable PDF reader called Preview. The version in the most recent OS X is better than acrobat reader.

Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :

Thanks for all your help. [Smile]

Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :

I transfer files between my PC (Dell) at work and my Mac at home on a flash drive all the time. No problems whatsoever. PDF and Word and Excel and PowerPoint all work just fine.

Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :

<shameless plug>

I ditched Adobe Acrobat reader for Foxit Software's "Foxit Reader". It launches and runs significantly faster, and I haven't been bothered with annoying update messages as much as Adobe used to.

</shameless plug>

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

*seconds plug for Foxit*