You mean like music videos?

Prob be able to import them into iTunes if they are in a compatible format. You can specify that iTunes leave them where they are but just add them to the iTunes DB so that you can access them in one place.

Otherwise, can QT read them?

As for the NTFS bit, doens't really matter as OSX is able to read it (AFAIK) (as long as you haven't encrypted it or anything).

If QT fails then VLC is my choice of video player.

RE video - QT on it's own isn't all that good at reading different sorts of video files but if you install the perian add on, it gets a whole lot better. You can also get free drivers to read and write to NTFS, but I'm not sure how reliable they are under OS X Lion yet.

Jon

If you can reformat the drive as exFAT at some point in the future, that might be an easy option as it's read/writeable by Windows, OS X, and Linux.

I use MPlayerX now, I think Gav blogged about it a while ago. It's sort of like VLC, but with style.

To make the drive safe to unplug, either drag it to the trash, right click and select "eject", or highlight it and press command+e.

So I can plug my ext in and it wont suddenly delete it ?????

i have vlc on here it seems to work fine , i will check out the others.

not sure i want to go into the whole Itunes thing but we will see.

thanx for sharing


Paul

Re ntfs: OS x has had native read since 10.3 and native write since 10.6. The writing is turned off by default though and apparently is a bit buggy.

If you just want to play the vids then plug in your device and browse and try to open them. If qt won't open them I imagine vlc will. Anyway, nothing will get deleted or moved without you telling it to do so.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.851573,-1.532037

so i wont lose my music films data .ok
now what about my data,is there a quick fix for tranfering/reading my win files

Copy it over, format the external drive as hfs and copy back.

so now i need a new 2tb drive ok time will tell
thanx for the help

Paul

GNU/Linux can read & write NTFS just fine, thanks very much.

OK, I'm not sure what you're asking now.

What is it you want to do?

RE watching videos. Just plug'n'play. i.e. Plug in you NTFS HDD using a USB, browse to the directory and double click the video. It will start playing.

So...

Huh? Quicker than plugging in the drive and click-dragging everything over you mean?

Not exactly sure what you mean. Can you explain what it is you are trying to do and I'll let you know.

What are these files of which you speak?

Most data like pictures, music, documents and video isn't "Windows" - it'll work on anything.

As people have said, if you use a USB drive then you can just plug it in. It'll pop up on your desktop and you can read from it fine. No more danger of erasing the data than if you plugged it into a Windows machine - in fact probably safer

If you're trying to transfer something like all your emails across then it depends on what client you use. My easy solution to that is to use IMAP to sync various clients to Gmail. That can be a bit slow at first if you have gigs of them, but once it's done then all your machines stay in sync and it's all backed up to "the cloud".

Dropbox is also excellent for keeping files nice and safe and synced across multiple machines. Here's my referral link if you don't have one already: http://db.tt/2yPIePf - if you use that, we both get an extra 250MB of space (not that I'm touting or anything )

*shrug* Last time I tried use NTFS with Linux it would only read (probably back around 2004/2005), OS X was the same (2006). Things may have moved on, but I generally don't come across NTFS formatted drives these days.

On another note, if the external hdd isn't formatted in HFS+/UFS then you lose some of the UNIXy goodness ('hard' links, for example).

I just wanted to leave everything where it is and be able to access it , I think you have all answered that,
thankyou.

I have a new 500gig ext which i will use for time machine and other new back ups,


thanx for your help .

p.s. the reason for asking is that this MBA has only a 64gig ssd,so not a lot of room for media .

oohhh,this mac thing is getting out of hand ........ just bought an Ipad 64g wifi 3g 400€

Nice