Thanks for all the help.

You can.  best bet to get 360 Blaster to modification.  you can use almost any thing.. invloved media, pix, save game. and transfers back up games.  I have that one.. Thumb ups.

Perhaps someone in this thread knows the answer... I have always had mp3's on my pc, made playlists and shared everything to my Xbox 360 with the help of Windows Media Player 11. With the environment in mind I suddenly considered it a tremendous waste to have my pc running just to stream music while playing games on the Xbox 360 so I decided to purchase a 500 GB external harddrive. I briefly considered putting my music on my 360's own harddrive, but that can only be done by the time consuming and labour intensive and tedious act of ripping al my cd's, and furthermore as an early adopter I have a model with just a 20 GB drive. I also thought of buying a bigger harddrive for my 360 but it was too expensive for me and as I just wanted to use it for music I abandoned that idea and decided to buy an external harddrive.

Now here's the problem; after having copied my mp3's to my external harddrive and after creating new playlists I discovered that the Xbox 360 appears to ignore playlists on external harddrives. I took the same steps as with creating playlists for the mp3's on my computer, that are being seen by the 360. Can someplease tell me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

I have a "Seagate FreeAgent Desktop External Hard Drive 500GB - USB 2.0" and created a FAT32-Partition of about 190GB (more was not possible, I do not kno why). Unfortunately the 360 does not recognize the harddrive (my 1GB USB-Stick works fine, so the USB-Port can't be the problem). Is there a size limit for external harddrives? Please give me some suggestions.

The partion size limit for FAT 32 is 2TB.  I have a 500GB drive formated as FAT32 as one partition.  Make sure you delete all the partions on the drive.  Make sure all of the drive falls under free space.   Use a 3rd party program(some listed in thread already).   Format and you should see one large partiton. 

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

Thanks. I found the problem. There was a tiny unformatted space before the FAT partition.

Cool.  I had the issue before with a old drive.  It was like a 10 mb partition. 

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

Ok so i see alot of you have connected External Hard Drives to your consoles.

Lets say hyperthetically I bought a external hard drive that was 250gb and it had a power supply and i plugged this into my Elite 360 and it got red rings, i then turned my console off and when i try to turn it back on nothing happens...

Has anyone else had this or heard of this happening? I have just recieved my console back from repair as it stopped reading discs properly...

I've searched and found alot of people plugging them in with no problem and am a bit worried to call xbox customer support! HELP!

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WSkC

I would'nt worry about phoning c/s, it's all above board. But I can understand why you'd rather get advice off here cause it could mean sending away for a week or two. Good Luck!

 ManicPete1980 wrote:

I would'nt worry about phoning c/s, it's all above board. But I can understand why you'd rather get advice off here cause it could mean sending away for a week or two. Good Luck!

 

Cheers,

I'm gutted its happened just before GTA IV but hey at least i still have a pro console to use! I guess i'll just tell them it just stoped working or they might say it aint covered in the warranty!? That was my main concern.

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WSkC

What program did you use to format it to FAT32? I'm having the exact same problem and I have the exact same external hard drive as you, but I used Partition Magic and the 360 still won't recognize it even though my PC recognizes it fine.

hiya guys, i have an external 2.5inch hdd which works fine when connected to my pc so i know its working, but when i connect it to my 360 it doesnt show up, it is formatted in fat32 so what else could i try to resolve this problem?

cheers

adie

I formatted both my HDD to HSF+. The 360 can see those and there is no file limitations. Plus it don't take away alot of space like FAT32 does. Only downfall is if you running a windows PC then you need MacDrive or TransMac so your PC will see the HDD when it comes time to transfer stuff. Oh and if you got HD movies bigger than 4GB you'll be able to watch them because HSF+ don't have a size cap like FAT32.

I get that.  However, I have Vista and I can only format in NTFS or exFAT.  Am I missing something on how to format in FAT32/

 Glenjames wrote:

I get that.  However, I have Vista and I can only format in NTFS or exFAT.  Am I missing something on how to format in FAT32/

For HFS+
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

For FAT32
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

New to all of this, and going shopping.. after looking at 4 pages of these mixed responses my question is this, is there any particular brand of HD that works better?

Any drive should work as long as it is formated properly.  See my post above yours.
Western Digital My Books work and most store bought ones do.  Just do not format to NTFS. 

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

ok if i get a 500gb and have to format to fat32,how much of the drive will i be able to use??? should i just buy i smaller drive?

When I formated my 500 GB drive I had 465 GB free. 

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

Hi there,

I got a 500Gb external usb maxtor drive. I have a 400gb ntfs partition and a second 100gb fat32 partition on it also. The console doesnt see the driver as external memory.

Is it for sure i need to delete the partitions and create a big single 500gb fat32 to get it  working?

 

regards.

now i tried the following:

removing the 500gb ntfs partition, created a new 40gb partition with fat32 on it....this is the only partition now but i cant get it to work....the console doesnt see this drive.

 

anyone can help with this? i got a brand new maxtor 500gb external drive.

working now....seemed this only fat32 partition was extended instead of primary.....

Keep in mind that if you use FAT32 only the first partition would function and it cannot be larger than 32GB. Also you could use exFAT but keep in mind that exFAT is not fully compatible with the 360. It is just the luck of the draw if it will work for you.

You might want to check this out which could help you so that you get the entire 500GB instead of the 32GB.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

 DesertBear360 wrote:

Keep in mind that if you use FAT32 only the first partition would function and it cannot be larger than 32GB. Also you could use exFAT but keep in mind that exFAT is not fully compatible with the 360. It is just the luck of the draw if it will work for you.

You might want to check this out which could help you so that you get the entire 500GB instead of the 32GB.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

 

Hi - I guess I'm a little confused and raise a few questions that I hope some can add more detail. In an earlier post on this page one member said:

"The partion size limit for FAT 32 is 2TB.  I have a 500GB drive formated as FAT32 as one partition.  Make sure you delete all the partions on the drive.  Make sure all of the drive falls under free space.   Use a 3rd party program(some listed in thread already).   Format and you should see one large partiton."

Maybe I am missing something, but one has a 500 GB drive and the partiioin size limit is 2TB, however can access the majority of the drive after overhead and another says the partition cannot be larger than 32GBs. If that's the case then there would be 168 GB out of the 500 GB that would be unavailable.

What I hope one can do and correct me if I'm wrong is to download for example game videos (like pre-announce video of Halo Recon) to the 120 GB hard drive of my Elite first and then move that to a 500 GB USB external drive to free up my Elite's hard drive. It is my understanding that I can't on the fly chose the USB drive and have content download to it directly. If I rip a CD directly on the Xbox 360, I can then move that music over to the USB External Drive. Am I understading this correctly as far as using a USB External Drive hooked to the Xbox 360 Elite.

Now if the partition limit for FAT 32 is 2 TB (which is the format that the file system understands), can I use a 1 TB USB External Drive and use most of it's 1 TB size after overhead?

Now my other question is that once I have moved the Halo Recon video to the external USB hard drive, can I play that movie directly from there or do I have to move it back to the Elites 120 GB drive?

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Click here to add me as a friend.
Xbox 360 Elite

 Skier7667 wrote:

 

"The partion size limit for FAT 32 is 2TB.  I have a 500GB drive formated as FAT32 as one partition.  Make sure you delete all the partions on the drive.  Make sure all of the drive falls under free space.   Use a 3rd party program(some listed in thread already).   Format and you should see one large partiton."

Maybe I am missing something, but one has a 500 GB drive and the partiioin size limit is 2TB, however can access the majority of the drive after overhead and another says the partition cannot be larger than 32GBs. If that's the case then there would be 168 GB out of the 500 GB that would be unavailable.

If you format with Windows the max size is 32GB.  This is a Windows limitation only.   If you use the Ridgecrop link you can format up to 2 TB.  Or using another 3rd party formating tool.

What I hope one can do and correct me if I'm wrong is to download for example game videos (like pre-announce video of Halo Recon) to the 120 GB hard drive of my Elite first and then move that to a 500 GB USB external drive to free up my Elite's hard drive. It is my understanding that I can't on the fly chose the USB drive and have content download to it directly. If I rip a CD directly on the Xbox 360, I can then move that music over to the USB External Drive. Am I understading this correctly as far as using a USB External Drive hooked to the Xbox 360 Elite.

You can not copy Xbox Live Market place content to a USB drive connected to the Xbox 360. 

Now if the partition limit for FAT 32 is 2 TB (which is the format that the file system understands), can I use a 1 TB USB External Drive and use most of it's 1 TB size after overhead?

Yes if you use a 3rd party partitioning tool as stated above.  I also have a 750GB drive that works. 

Now my other question is that once I have moved the Halo Recon video to the external USB hard drive, can I play that movie directly from there or do I have to move it back to the Elites 120 GB drive?

You can not move the file to USB device.

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

 TechValkyrie wrote:

 Skier7667 wrote:

 

"The partion size limit for FAT 32 is 2TB.  I have a 500GB drive formated as FAT32 as one partition.  Make sure you delete all the partions on the drive.  Make sure all of the drive falls under free space.   Use a 3rd party program(some listed in thread already).   Format and you should see one large partiton."

Maybe I am missing something, but one has a 500 GB drive and the partiioin size limit is 2TB, however can access the majority of the drive after overhead and another says the partition cannot be larger than 32GBs. If that's the case then there would be 168 GB out of the 500 GB that would be unavailable.

If you format with Windows the max size is 32GB.  This is a Windows limitation only.   If you use the Ridgecrop link you can format up to 2 TB.  Or using another 3rd party formating tool.

What I hope one can do and correct me if I'm wrong is to download for example game videos (like pre-announce video of Halo Recon) to the 120 GB hard drive of my Elite first and then move that to a 500 GB USB external drive to free up my Elite's hard drive. It is my understanding that I can't on the fly chose the USB drive and have content download to it directly. If I rip a CD directly on the Xbox 360, I can then move that music over to the USB External Drive. Am I understading this correctly as far as using a USB External Drive hooked to the Xbox 360 Elite.

You can not copy Xbox Live Market place content to a USB drive connected to the Xbox 360. 

Now if the partition limit for FAT 32 is 2 TB (which is the format that the file system understands), can I use a 1 TB USB External Drive and use most of it's 1 TB size after overhead?

Yes if you use a 3rd party partitioning tool as stated above.  I also have a 750GB drive that works. 

Now my other question is that once I have moved the Halo Recon video to the external USB hard drive, can I play that movie directly from there or do I have to move it back to the Elites 120 GB drive?

You can not move the file to USB device.

 

Hi TechValkyrie,

OK I now understand why 32 GB or 2 TB partition size is possible and I read the MS Knowledgebase articles on that. I believe Windows 98 will allow a larger partition than 32 GB and I still have the Win 98 startup disk, however my Dell XPS 600 does not have a diskette drive.

OK, so I can't move anything that I download to my Xbox Elite 360 drive from Market Place or any content video from anywhere in Live. So what you are saying is that I can only move audio from a CD that I have ripped on the Xbox or a video on DVD that is in the correct format that the Xbox 360 will playback. I guess that's basically it. It appears you might be able to move not copy your gamer profile, but that might not be a good idea, plus its not a big file. Am I correct on this? What other data/files can I put on the extrernal USB drive?

I was hoping to off load videos that I've downloaded. For exaample I like to keep the development videos for Fable 2 which currently are on my 360's 120 GB drive. Rather than have it take space there, I wanted to move that to the USB External drive, but sounds like from experience you already know that is not possible - bummer!

Let me know and thanks so much to answser the questions in the above post.

 

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Click here to add me as a friend.
Xbox 360 Elite

 Skier7667 wrote:

 

Hi TechValkyrie,

OK I now understand why 32 GB or 2 TB partition size is possible and I read the MS Knowledgebase articles on that. I believe Windows 98 will allow a larger partition than 32 GB and I still have the Win 98 startup disk, however my Dell XPS 600 does not have a diskette drive.

OK, so I can't move anything that I download to my Xbox Elite 360 drive from Market Place or any content video from anywhere in Live. So what you are saying is that I can only move audio from a CD that I have ripped on the Xbox or a video on DVD that is in the correct format that the Xbox 360 will playback. I guess that's basically it. It appears you might be able to move not copy your gamer profile, but that might not be a good idea, plus its not a big file. Am I correct on this? What other data/files can I put on the extrernal USB drive?

I was hoping to off load videos that I've downloaded. For exaample I like to keep the development videos for Fable 2 which currently are on my 360's 120 GB drive. Rather than have it take space there, I wanted to move that to the USB External drive, but sounds like from experience you already know that is not possible - bummer!

Let me know and thanks so much to answser the questions in the above post.

If you want to save the music to the 360 hard drive, ripping an audio CD is your only option.   You can not save your own videos to the 360's hard drive.  

I have moved my profile to a memory card.  It is about 6MB now.

For files that will play from an external USB drive see Video FAQ.  See question 1-6 and 10. 

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Wist List: NTFS Support, Video Playlist.
ZuneHD 32/Zune 120 Owner.

Wow! I was just about to give up on getting an old 80GB hard drive formatted in FAT32 and be read by the xBox 360, but I got it to work thanks to all the posts from some very smart guys here in this thread!

I started with formatting as everyone else does I'm sure, with NTFS, then I used exFAT, then FAT32 from a PC running XP, that only told me that the drive was too large to be formatted by FAT32.

I downloaded 'fat32format.exe' and it worked like a charm.

However, I almost gave up at that point as well.  I plugged in my USB cable and the xBox still did not see the drive, at that point I was giving up.  But then I reseated the USB cable on both ends and it finally came up.

I think I might be using a flakey USB cable, but it is working now.

I only tested so far, just copying two music files from my PC and then having the Xbox play them.  It worked.

Now  I am copying my entire media files that so far doesn't take up the full 80GB that that drive holds.

I did not test copying any files from the xBox to the external hard drive.  At this point, I'm pretty happy!

Heck, I had Windows Media Center working great!  But at least now I can play some music in the background while doing other stuff in xBox.  If you run Windows Media Center, you are inside that program and can't do anything else on your xBox until you close out.  So it is a plus to have access to the files.  I also had access via the udp (I'm saying it wrong but you know what I'm talking about).

Thanks again!

Rob

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Rob
powerconduit
Astoria NY

 cuddlerob wrote:

Wow! I was just about to give up on getting an old 80GB hard drive formatted in FAT32 and be read by the xBox 360, but I got it to work thanks to all the posts from some very smart guys here in this thread!

I started with formatting as everyone else does I'm sure, with NTFS, then I used exFAT, then FAT32 from a PC running XP, that only told me that the drive was too large to be formatted by FAT32.

I downloaded 'fat32format.exe' and it worked like a charm.

However, I almost gave up at that point as well.  I plugged in my USB cable and the xBox still did not see the drive, at that point I was giving up.  But then I reseated the USB cable on both ends and it finally came up.

I think I might be using a flakey USB cable, but it is working now.

I only tested so far, just copying two music files from my PC and then having the Xbox play them.  It worked.

Now  I am copying my entire media files that so far doesn't take up the full 80GB that that drive holds.

I did not test copying any files from the xBox to the external hard drive.  At this point, I'm pretty happy!

Heck, I had Windows Media Center working great!  But at least now I can play some music in the background while doing other stuff in xBox.  If you run Windows Media Center, you are inside that program and can't do anything else on your xBox until you close out.  So it is a plus to have access to the files.  I also had access via the udp (I'm saying it wrong but you know what I'm talking about).

Thanks again!

Rob

Hi Rob,

I have MCE also. Yes when you are in MCE from the Xbox side, you can't access you are limited in whatt you can do, however you can see friends log on & off for example. However, you don't need to have MCE open to listen to music while roaming through the Xbox screens. Here's what you do:

Depress the Guide button

Scroll down and click on Select Music

From here you can select the Xbox's hard drive or your PC

Click on your PC and depress the "A" button

Now you can scroll through your PC's content either by Albums, Artists, Saved Playlist, Songs or Genres.

Select the mucic you want and it will begin to stream through the Xbox and through the speakers connected to your Xbox. If you play a game though, you will be warned about the conflict bettween game music and your music. However you can navigate all over the Blades and listen to the music you desire that's residing on your PC through the Xbox. Hope that helps.

If you are successfull in playing anything besides music from the USB connected hard drive on the Xbox, let me know. I was hoping to be able to create more space on my Xbox Elite's 120 GB drive by off loading some video content like game trailers etc., however from posts here, that appears to not be possible. So I'll have to be more selective as to what I keep on the drive.

It appears though that if you have music on your PC's drive, then getting the External for saving space on the Xbox is no big deal, since the music is on your PC's drive already and you can stream from there and not tie up space on the Xbox's drive. Maybe the idea of getting an external just for music is no big deal. Since we both have MCE, we can listen to music from the PC either through MCE or the way I described.

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Xbox 360 Elite

I currently have 431 mb  left on my 360 hard drive and i'm looking into buying an external drive because the prices on the 360 drives are ridiculous.  I keep reading posts that say you can't download xbox live content directly onto an external hard drive, but what about transferring files that you've already downloaded?  For instance, I have the Xbox Original Fable on my console, which takes up 3.2 GB of my 20 GB harddrive, if I could transfer that to an external hard drive, and then just load it from there when I wanted to play it, that would, of course, be a tremendous help in having available space to download new demos and arcade games.  The question is, CAN it be done?  Thanks a lot, any help would be appreciated.