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can i transport apple lossless between pc & mac?

I bought a seagate external usb drive for backing up the apple lossless files i am accumulating in my desktop. The manual cautions against using the external drive to share files between pc and mac operating systems. I'm hoping that this is less of a concern with itunes music files, since i would hate to have to rerip all my cds if i decide ultimately to implement a mac in my hi fi, after having used itunes for windows to rip. For that matter i would hope i could revert to pc should i regret the mac choice. Will the operating system i use to rip lock me in for future playback?
wkraft
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
I was thinking the same thing Kennyt suggested. That is, if you're going to run an iTunes based system try networking the computers. We do this at work with an old iMac as the music server with 500gigs of storage. That way PCs and Macs can play them through iTunes.
herman
1,974 posts
 
When I bought my Mac Mini I asked the geek at the Apple store about this and he told me to use Apple formatting. He said that even though the Mac would read/write fat32 that "eventually" it would start to have problems and I would lose data. I have no idea if that is correct.

Even if the drive is networked won't it have to be formatted in fat32 so both machines can use it?
armstrod
498 posts
 
If the machines are networked all the disk format issues go away as the networking software handles all that. I think Wkraft was talking about connecting the external USB drive directly to both a Mac and a PC for backup purposes. If that's the case, my post above applies.

Herman, there used to be major issues with the way Macs handled FAT32, but I've found OSX 10.3 and above to be rock solid.
wkraft OP
8 posts
 
thanks for the info. it seems that establishing a network will be the solution. Any tips on making a mac network with a pc will be appreciated.
vegasears
922 posts
 
I switched from a pc to mac last year. I transfered all my music from the pc with my seagate portable hardrive formatted with fat 32. I have had it connected to my mac all this time and it has not given me any problems.
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