my mbp is totally dead, i have a time machine backup, and naively, thought i’d be able to view jpegs etc on a windows pc. But, the pc doesn’t recognise the hddrive. The external drive is a wd mybook.

Is there a simple way of extracting the data, or, am i tied into another apple??

Also, any opinions on new mbp vs a mac mini and ipad. Is there a compelling arguement for one over the other. We just use the thing for browsing, banking etc.

Cheers

Hi aa, the time machine is formatted HFS+, windows doesn’t understand that. If you boot up your windows machine with a ‘live distro’ of Linux (doesn’t change the hard disk) it usually can read the disk (not usually write).

The idea of Mac Mini + iPad over MBP is an interesting one. Depends on how much oomph you require. Browsing – iPad. Banking etc – Mac Mini (as long as you can get to the telly/monitor you use it on!).

EDIT: found this which may be of use for reading disk in Windows (not write) for free: http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html

thanks adam, thats good info.