Xbox 360- Media Hard Drive

[RJB_666]

I'm just looking at buying a portable hard drive, a western digital or a fujitsu siemens. I was hoping somebody could tell me if any portable hard drives would be compatible with the usb portable device feature on the xbox 360. Would just be looking at using it for media and not game content.

[Polarbert]

Yes just make sure its formatted in FAT32 and not NTFS.

[RJB_666]

So i'm guessing once files are on a hard drive then i can't convert the hard drive to fat32 with out deleting them all first. It's just i already have a hard drive but it's in the other format.

[Polarbert]

Yeh pretty much. You need to format it to FAT32 for it work.

FAT32 can be crap as well though. Something I discovered when I tried to move a HD file to an external HDD which then couldn't be moved because the file was too big.

What I've done to get around this is connect my PC wirelessly to the Xbox and can then stream across the media.

Again only if its in the right format for the xbox.

[RJB_666]

Thanks for the advice, i have tried streaming though the modem but the sound seems to be out of sync when i do this. By the way whats your gamer tag on the xbox? You seem to be mentioned quite a lot on this forum about the xbox.

[Silverbullet767]

If you have a PC on the same router as the Xbox, then you can stream movies and music, just make sure you have windows media player 11 on your PC and make sure the external HDD is added to the list.

[RJB_666]

Silverbullet767 said:

If you have a PC on the same router as the Xbox, then you can stream movies and music, just make sure you have windows media player 11 on your PC and make sure the external HDD is added to the list.

Yeah i've tried this, the sound doesn't play in sync though. I've used a usb stick and that works perfectly on it. But wanted something with a bit more space.

[Polarbert]

GT is same as username on here.

It will work fine if its formatted in FAT32, but you'll never be able to have files on it larger than 2GB ish.

I've got one and it works fine. Films, music all work great.

[spants]

format it on a mac to allow larger than 2gb files (or use "macdrive" program on xp)

Tony

[mrmr96]

I was in your boat a couple of months ago. Basically I tried streaming from a media centre PC but it was too much hassle. So I started putting photos/music/video on USB. Which is great as you can sync to PC and then plug straight into the xbox. However, like you, I was frustrated by the small capacity.

I recently bought a Western Digital 'Passport' external hard drive. It is basically a laptop harddrive in an enclosure, so it's 2.5inches wide, super small,light and quiet. It's bus powered so runs from the power from the USB slot on both PC and xbox.

Mine is the 320Gb version. It's absolutly perfect. Being bus powered means it is just as convinient to use as a USB stick.

Here's a photo:


I've been using it successfully for several weeks. I have only good things to say about it.

If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer.
Cheers

[Rob P]

Slight O/T but I'm busy trying to use the xbox as a media centre and cant get it play itunes music.

400 out of 4500 songs are available which I think is down to DRM.

Whats the work around? Never use Apple?!

[Polarbert]

spants said:

format it on a mac to allow larger than 2gb files (or use "macdrive" program on xp)

Tony

Does that work on the xbox?

[RJB_666]

Right, cheers for that. Western digital passport drive it is then. Been looking at it for months, i might get the 500 gb drive they've just brought out. Everything i use tends to fill up too quickly. Did you have to format the drive in FAT32 when you got it, or was it compatible with the xbox out of the box.

[Polarbert]

RJB_666 said:

Right, cheers for that. Western digital passport drive it is then. Been looking at it for months, i might get the 500 gb drive they've just brought out. Everything i use tends to fill up too quickly. Did you have to format the drive in FAT32 when you got it, or was it compatible with the xbox out of the box.

I recently bought a 640GB Mybook and it was formatted in NTFS. I'd assume the WD would be the same.

[RJB_666]

By the way polarbert added you on the xbox, under rockyrich666.

[Polarbert]

Ah right, that makes sense now. I got the invite when I was in a 16 player GTA 4 game so thought it was a randomer.

[mrmr96]

RJB_666 said:

Right, cheers for that. Western digital passport drive it is then. Been looking at it for months, i might get the 500 gb drive they've just brought out. Everything i use tends to fill up too quickly. Did you have to format the drive in FAT32 when you got it, or was it compatible with the xbox out of the box.

It worked straight out of the box.

[RJB_666]

mrmr96 said:

RJB_666 said:

Right, cheers for that. Western digital passport drive it is then. Been looking at it for months, i might get the 500 gb drive they've just brought out. Everything i use tends to fill up too quickly. Did you have to format the drive in FAT32 when you got it, or was it compatible with the xbox out of the box.

It worked straight out of the box.

Cheers for the advice, i think i'll go and tell santa what i want for xmas. Unless i get impatient i will be on amazon later.