I just wanted to transfer files from my peripheral 2TB hard drive to my Mac

You should be able to just plug the USB hard drive into the Mac, then copy the files over.

Out of the box, Macs can read NTFS (the Windows system), but cannot write to it. That should be OK for this, as reading is all that you need to do.

If the old hard drive connects via USB-A, you'll need a USB-C adapter. Apple has a $20 USB-C to USB-A adapter cable. You can find many other adapters on Amazon (and elsewhere), including USB-A hubs that are designed to plug into a USB-C port, and that give you four or more USB-A ports for plugging in USB-A devices.

Barney-15E wrote:

I'm not sure what advice you are seeking? Is there any reason to not keep them on the hard drive?

If the PC hard drive is using NTFS (which seems likely), and the OP does not want to have to install a third-party NTFS driver to enable writes, that would be a good reason for copying files to another drive. Presumably a Mac-formatted one.

If the OP desired, he or she could then erase the original drive, formatting it using a Mac filesystem. Ir probably would be a good idea to make sure that the data existed in at least TWO other places first.

I have a USB Fantom hard drive that contains old Microsoft office word files , photo files, slideshows, etc. I am a long time PC user. Now using the Apple product, want to transfer all files onto my new Mac Ventura. How is this done?

Drag and drop?

I'm not sure what advice you are seeking? Is there any reason to not keep them on the hard drive?

Where to drop them?

Documents go in Documents, or wherever you'd like.

If you want to use Photos, use the import command in the File menu to import the photos into Photos.

Slideshows depend on what they are. Video files can also be imported into Photos, or put them in a folder in your Home, like Movies.

Or, make a Slideshows folder somewhere and save them there.