External Hard Drive Mess

M

mjr77

New Member
Hi all!
I was hoping somebody can help me with a mess i've got in to with my Humax box and an external hard drive i've just bought.

My plan was to copy all of my music and photo files on to an external hard drive as my laptop is running out of space, then when i wanted to listen or view somthing i could plug the hard drive in to the usb port on the front of the hummy and it's all there.

I bought an external hard drive from amazon, put a couple of mp3 tracks on to it to see if it would work and nothing. The hummy didn't recognise the drive so i did a bit of digging and thought the NTFS format may be the problem so reformatted the hard drive as fat32. Still no luck and after lots of reading on various websites i'm now even more confused!

As a last ditch effort i realised that i could format the external drive on the Humax so though that would be a good idea! That seemed to work and now the Humax can read the drive but when i plug it in to my laptop to put files on it no longer shows in the Hard Drives list on the 'Computer' page. Its now showing as 'USB to Serial-ATA bridge' on the 'devices and printers' page.

What have i done as i can't access it anymore or seem to change it back! I'm no technophobe but this is beyond my understanding and experiance.

Any help would be most appreciated!
 
O.K. there are 3 possible format options that can be used on the External USB HDD they are NTFS, FAT32 and EXT3, all have pros and cons e.g.

FAT32 = will read and write on P.C. and Humax BUT won't allow a file above 4GB
NTFS = will read and write on P.C. BUT Humax will only read, not write (without some fiddling)
EXT3 = will read and Write on the Humax BUT not visible at all on a P.C. (without some fiddling)

There are a few options e.g. :-

1) get an ad-on program (like EXT2FSD) for the P.C.to be able to read/write EXT3
2) Use Custom Firmware package to add Humax write for NTFS drives
3) format the USB HDD in EXt3 and FTP files to it over the Humax's LAN connector

However, I think you may have another problem, because the NTFS and FAT32 attempts you made should have worked, If the USB HDD does not have a seperate power supply, it may-be that the Humax can't supply your drive with enough power
 
So i guess i've formatted the external drive using the Humax in to a EXT3 format?

Can i take the drive back to NTFS or FAT32 and if i do how do i get arround the problem of the Humax not being able to read it?

Thanks!
 
Yes, the Humax can only format in EXT3. If you plug the USB HDD into a P.C. it should let you re-format it to FAT32 or NTFS, The Humax can read NTFS, BUT it can't write to it, so you don't need to do anything to make the Humax read NTFS. If you still have problems when you get the USB HDD to NTFS, I would look at the possible power supply problem, by plugging it into a P.C. and listening carefully to the drive, you will hear it spinning. Try the same on the Humax, if if doesn't have enough power it probably won't be able to 'spin' the drive
 
Great, i think i'd like to take the drive back to NTFS and work from there. How do i now format it as NTFS as there no longer seems to be an option to do this? The only options when i right click on its icon are eject, create shortcut, troubleshoot & properties.
 
mjr77 said:
How do i now format it as NTFS as there no longer seems to be an option to do this? The only options when i right click on its icon are eject, create shortcut, troubleshoot & properties.
Click to expand...

SEE CAUTION NOTE IN RED BELOW BEFORE YOU START
In Windows XP the steps are Start >> Settings >> Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Computer Management >> Storage >> Disk Management (Local) >> Right Click on USB HDD >> Delete Partition (This step my not be required) >> Format

NOTE:- Make sure you select the USB HDD, It should not have a drive letter like C: D: E: etc.
 
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