HT2477: Mac Basics: The essentials
Learn about Mac Basics: The essentials
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Helpful answers
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Apr 22, 2013 4:47 AM in response to Rob54Whitby Barney-15E,Just plug them in. If they don't show up in the Sidebar or on the Desktop, choose Computer from the Go menu in Finder. You can also set them to mount on the Desktop with the Finder preferences (cmd-,) in Finder.
Jump drives are usually formatted FAT32, which OS X can read and write.
If the external drives are NTFS, then OS X can only read them, not write. You can add a third-party driver like NTFS-3g or Tuxera to write to those drives, or you can reformat as HFS+ (Mac OS Extended), but that will delete the data currently on them.
If you need to use the external on both Windows and OS X, and you can reformat it, use exFAT. It handles larger files than FAT32 and is read/write by both OS's.
You'll need Office for Mac to edit the word, excel files, or you can use one of the free alternatives, Open Office, Libre Office, Neo Office.
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Apr 22, 2013 4:56 AM in response to Rob54Whitby Yellowbox,Hi Rob,
In Finder , go to Finder > Preferences > General and look at Show these items on the Desktop.
'External Drives' may be what you are looking for to show USB and external discs to show as icons on your Desktop.
A USB memory stick, formatted as purchased, will suit pc and Mac. Well, it did for me! Copy files from pc to USB, then copy from USB to Mac. Put them in a convenient folder on your Mac (e.g. My pc files) then decide what you will do with them. Pages will open ms Word, Numbers will open ms Excell (with some warnings!)
Regards,
Ian.