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External HDD format and PC compatibility

J

Jamie McD

Member
Hi All,

So, I bought a Seagate 2TB expansion drive to use for storing media and playing through my HDR Fox T2 (not yet got the custom firmware on it, but will do soon).

In a fit of overconfidence I used the Humax to format the Seagate drive (which I'd found hidden away as an expansion drive within the HDD folder in the Storage option of the media menu).

Then the Seagate mysteriously disappeared - can't find it anywhere via the Humax menus. When I removed the Seagate and plugged into a Windows 7 PC, it can only be found (not read, opened, written to or anything) as a device (no flaming use there).

(I don't know the first thing about Linux - can you tell?)

If my understanding is correct that if I put the custom firmware on the Humax it'll read files from an NTFS system, then I may just do that and try to re-format the Seagate box. Which throws up some interesting questions:

1. Why on earth did I think I could do this straightforwardly (hubris, some would say)? No answers please!

2. What will the Humax have done to my Seagate?

3. How can I make my PC find the darned Seagate box now?

4. Can anyone point me to a very simple way to re-convert whatever format the Humax has put on it back to NTFS, IF the custom firmware will read/write/play from and to NTFS?

Thanks for whatever help you can supply folks.

J
 
I think the Humax only copes with disks up to 1TB. That's certainly the case with internal disks. I'd use EASEUS Partition Master to repartition and format the disk - it should 'see' the disk OK.
 
Q2 Possibly formatted it Ext3
Q3 & 4. Stick it in your W7 machine and reformat it. Right click Computer, choose 'Manage', Choose 'Disk Management'. It should show up as a disk there. Right click it and choose Format.
 
Hi Trev,
Hmm - just tried that management option and though it sees the drive, when I right-click it the format option isn't available. Any thoughts?
Ta!
j
 
Will try EaseUS too, thanks Fenlander.

So, will the Custom Firmware allow the Humax to read and play files from NTFS format?
 
Hello, Blackhole and thank you.

So, creating some partitions, in NTFS, but each under 1TB should allow the custom firmware to find, open and play media from my external HDD? But it wouldn't copy stuff to it because it would need to be FAT32. Would it allow copying from the external?
 
Fenlander - thank for the EaseUs recommendation - I've now found the drive and re-NTFS'd it using partition master. Now to proceed with a clearer picture of what's required!
 
Jamie McD said:
So, creating some partitions, in NTFS, but each under 1TB should allow the custom firmware to find, open and play media from my external HDD? But it wouldn't copy stuff to it because it would need to be FAT32. Would it allow copying from the external?
Click to expand...
If you have the custom firmware and the appropriate package you can write to NTFS. As far as I know the size limit is 2TB not 1TB.
 
Hmm, created a (just under) 1 tb NTFS partition on the external drive, attached it to the machine with Custom Firmware on it, and it doesn't seem to recognize it at all. Would I need to partition off all of the drive just to get the 1TB recognized or am I missing something? Or, might it be that the use of the wireless dongle in the usb rear port somehow compromises the operation of the front USB or..deary me.
 
Some background info. the Humax will allow a USB HDD formatted in EXT3, NTFS and FAT32, See notes HERE, however it will only format a drive in EXT3 and will only format up to 1TB, although it will read and write to a 2TB drive. The custom firmware is only required for the Humax to write to an NTFS formatted drive. If your 2TB USB HDD does not have a separate power supply, it may be that Humax is not capable of supplying sufficient power for the drive to work property
 
Thanks for your input, all.
I am away for a while now so can't say for sure about the ntfs package though I think it is installed. It links to the hard drive of my PC OK, so I guess all is well there. But it should read it anyway, no?
The hdd has its own power supply too.
Hmm
 
One disadvantage I discovered of using an external HDD with NTFS is that the STB does not display how much free space is on the drive. I noticed this with a 2TB partition...
 
Another bit of the jigsaw which the OP may find useful is that there is a free utlity called Ext2Mgr (Google for it) which emables you to mount an Ext3-formatted external drive to a Windows system, and assign a drive letter to it. You can then read and write to it normally on a Windows PC rather than having to use NTFS. [There's probably a way of formatting a 2TB drive to Ext3 on a PC, so that it can be used by the Humax, but I haven't tried that].

WT
 
[There's probably a way of formatting a 2TB drive to Ext3 on a PC, so that it can be used by the Humax, but I haven't tried that].
Click to expand...
An easy way round this problem of formatting to ext3 on a Windows PC is to boot from a LiveCD. The CD needs to have gparted to make it easy - so I have a CD which boots into gparted (google is your friend) - see this link.
 
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