Cant see some folders on external drive

I had the same problem with an NTFS external HD so I reformatted it with FAT32. I would not use NTFS with a mac because mac cannot write to NTFS, just read, and it doesn't always read everything that is there.

Yep. Although it is the most common file system for PC's, NTFS is actually a proprietary standard owned by Microsoft, & it doesn't make all the details of its structure publicly available. As a result, it isn't entirely reliable unless (surprise, surprise!) it is used within Windows.

If you don't like that, complain to MS, not Apple.

If youo have a camera with a large enough card in it, you might do it that way. Or with an iPod. Of course, I am Mac oriented, so I assume you can drag and drop to these devices, as you can on a mac. Just throwing it out there.

Depending on the size of those files, you can do it in several moves.

You might look at the drive with the PC & see if there is something different about the files/folders you can't see from the Mac, like a different security or DRM setting. This is the kind of stuff MS doesn't make available to third party vendors, & may have been what the Apple rep was talking about. You may be able to change those settings such that the Mac can see the items.

If not, & you have room on the Mini's drive, you can network the two computers & try to transfer the files to the Mini that way.

I will get right back to you. This may be it.