Why is it so complicated to transfer files to a Mac?

NTFS is read-only support on macOS, and I wouldn’t expect all possible NTFS file formats to be readable.

I’d be looking at using a file share and the local network too, not swapping hard disks around.

Particularly not a failing hard disk, of course.

If you're using very old zip and unzip tools for compression, those are limited to ~2 GB. You’ll want zip 3.0 or later (as available), and unzip 6.0 or later (as available). Older zip and unzip versions are capacity-limited. If you’re using something else for compression and decompression, ignore this.

if you’re getting past the decompression and to the files themselves, or if you’ve swirched to transferring cia,file share, the Windows media files involved may be using formats not supported by Mac, or formats requiring file format conversions.

The add-on VLC app, can play back a wide variety of media formats, and can convert formats.

The normal process is to use Migration Assistant. To simply state "Migration assistant is.... I don't even start to complain" is not helpful. It would be useful to tell us what the problem you experienced was, then we could respond to it. In case you did something different, here is the process to do what you want to do. You first begin by starting the process of setting up your new computer. You will be asked if you wish to transfer files. Respond YES and follow the instructions you will be given.

·      You will be told to turn both computers on and activate Migration Assistant in the PC. (You need to have already downloaded it to the PC.)

·      The computers should be connected with a cable to facilitate the transfer. Wi-Fi is not suited for a transfer of so much data and corruption often results. If you must use it, make sure the two computers are located close together.

·      You will be given several options of what to transfer. You will likely want to transfer your settings and preferences.

·      You can transfer all or none of your files. You do not have an option to select certain files to transfer. If you wish to do that, then do so manually. Obviously, you cannot transfer the PC's apps. Mac versions must be downloaded and installed

·      No data from the old computer is erased.

·      Allow for up to an hour for the transfer process to complete once you start it.

·      It should set up the new computer essentially the same as the old one, excepting for PC only files.

·      When that is successful, you can log into the new Mac with the user account and password you set up.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Migration Assistant is the usual means for local PC-to-Mac transfers, when starting out. That usually uses the local network.

If you want to be selective about which files get (directly) transferred, and don’t want to migrate most of your stuff (directly) between the PC and the Mac, set up a file share on windows or on a Mac, and transfer the files (directly) that way.

Set up file sharing on Mac - Apple Support

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-sharing-over-a-network-in-windows-b58704b2-f53a-4b82-7bc1-80f9994725bf

It’s fairly common to use a file server on an existing computer or server on he local network, whether that is a purchased and dedicated network attached storage (NAS) box such as Synology NAS or otherwise, or to re-purpose on old x86-64 PC using TrueNAS or other tools, or use a Windows PC, Linux box, or Mac box.

With the appropriate Time Machine server services offered by the NAS, that box can also provide automatic backups.

But… Given you’ve seemingly got most of your stuff stored in Google Drive, that’s going to require Google tools and apps and time to transfer, as that’ll be limited by whichever is the lowest performance of the ISP network link, of Google’s servers, of Google’s tooling, and of your local ISP router box and your local Wi-Fi or wired link.

If the local wired or wireless network is at all unstable or flaky, or the ISP link for Google Drive transfers, that’ll make these transfers more problematic.

You should be able to unzip files downloaded from Google Drive. I do it regularly. I suspect you may be having a problem because you're trying to do too many at once. Try doing it in smaller batches.

You might also consider getting an external drive that is compatible with both computers and moving everything to that. Hard drives are pretty cheap these days.

Update: My apologies, I missed in your first post where you said that the drive had been formatted as ExFAT. If you formatted the drive using Windows, this is apparently (or at least so it's said) due to Windows using an allocation size that macOS can't recognize. Try formatting the drive to ExFAT using Disk Utility on your Mac; make sure it uses MBR, not GUID.

If Disk Utillity can't even see the drive to erase it, then there's a deeper problem somewhere.

Normally this isn't terribly difficult, but with so many little differences in how different systems actually do disk formatting, it can become more complex, particularly when you need to deal with large files sizes.

Regards.

farkas147 wrote:

Yeah the external drive would be a good idea, but seems nothing is compatible with Mac...

Are you saying that there are no external hard drives compatible with Macs? If so, you've been misinformed.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage

Adding to what the others have said, Windows by default formats drives using the NTFS file system which being a Microsoft-proprietary format and not completely documented often has issues working on a Mac. If you format the external drive as ExFAT instead, then you should have no problems having it work with your Mac.

Regards.

varjak paw wrote:

No, you don't need to buy a new drive. Just format the existing one with ExFAT instead of NTFS.

I had been thinking that everything was stored on the old hard drive. But of course you're right.

No, you don't need to buy a new drive. Just format the existing one with ExFAT instead of NTFS.

If your using a HDD rather than a SSD which APFS it's primarily designed for, the performance on the spinning platters is terrible, almost unusable.