A "Switcher" has music on his discredited Dell . . .

[RHPConsult]

My longtime pal, The New Switcher, has his music now on a flash drive, generously provided by a "smart" Winderz "expert" . . . he says to me.

When I shared his screen via iSight . . . he lives 1800 miles away . . . the flash drive was on the DT all right, but it couldn't be recognized by iTunes in its "Add to Library" window. So I checked GET INFO and found that, if course, it was formatted in DOS.  

Suggestions, please.

My friend doesn't have Windows on his MB-Pro, but he does also have all the songs still on his Dell.
 
What's the process for getting all of them imported from D(ell) to M(ac)?

[Paddy]

Dick, can you see the actual files on the drive? You should be able to do that. If so, simply drag them all off into a folder and then try dropping a few of the music files on iTunes. I assume they're MP3s?

Macs have no difficulty reading and writing to MS-DOS (FAT-32) formatted drives. In fact, it's easier to format a drive FAT-32 on a Mac than it is on a Windows XP or Vista machine! (it's an option in Disk Utility - it's no longer an easy option in Windows)

He could try reformatting the drive - in MS-DOS (FAT-32) on the Mac and then trying again on the PC.

The other option would be to burn CDs/DVDs, depending on how much music we're talking about here.

[Xairbusdriver]

The drives format makes no difference, it's just the file's format that matters. Don't use iTunes for much, but I'll bet even it can read/import just about any music format around (mp3, mp4, aif(f), wav, etc.). Just open the drive, or have him do it (he needs to know this kind of thing, anyway) and have him drag each music file into an open iTunes 'library' folder just for these songs (at least until he knows where he wants to put them). He can see the drive on his DT, double-click to open it, there will probably be a few folders in there. Many of them will be useless, but at least one will have the music files. Command-a to select all of them and drag them into the iTunes library. Done.

No need to reformat the thumb drive, IMHO. It's already read/writable by either a Windows or Mac computer. If he reformats it before retrieving his music, he will probably erase them. If he reformats as a Mac drive, many Windows computers will not be able to use it.

[Paddy]

Just to be clear (it was 2:36 a.m. when I posted - LATE for me!), I wasn't suggesting that the drive be reformatted if the files were actually on it and able to be retrieved, which like you Jim, I suspect they are.

It was a last resort sort of suggestion - if all else fails.

[RHPConsult]

Hmmmm . . . let's see now, "Drag and drop." I think I know how to do that.  


Well see during our iSighting this morning.

Nothing beats expert help . . . especially when one is waaay out on the edge of technology!

Oh my!  

Thanks guys.


PS (later): The task was completed w/o a hitch . .  . After all, it's a Macintosh!  and, thanks, again.