In the future I will be purchasing a Mac Book.

Right now I have files on my current PC, that I share with my parents.

My question is, if I purchase fire wire would I have to install software on the PC to transfer the files from the PC to the Mac Book.

Or is my other, cheaper, option to buy a jump drive to just transfer files that way?

Thanks!

 

How much data are we talking? And how experienced are you? Could you set up a share on the PC and just copy them over the network? If less than 16 GB of data, you can get dirt cheap thumb drives that will hold it all too (easier and faster.)

You mention buying firewire. You will not be able to plug a firewire cable into the PC and have the Mac see it as a hard drive so not sure where you are going with that.

 

have to agree with gobbles. use a thumb drive if you don't have a ton of data.

 

I had a friend recommend that. So he'll get a nice hand upside the back of the head.

The information isn't more than 16 GB. Probably around 4 or 5.

Thumb drive it is.

 

Just burn a DVD or transfer it via TCP/IP. OS X comes with a utility that automates the process.

 

simba, what is that utility? i have a pc that is shared on my network of macs, but i usually can't pull any files from it.

 

Migration Assistant. It's in Applications -> Utilities

Note that it's designed to move from another machine to a new Mac, not do network file sharing. For that you can use any number of services.