XBox 360: External Hard Drive not registering

hxcguitarhero · Mar 21, 2009, 07:12 AM

I have two external hard drives full of various content that I would like to be able to access with my Xbox 360. One of them connects fine, but the other one does not show up. Any ideas why this would be happening? Is there any way to get it to show up? I heard there is a codec or something that you can download onto a hard drive to make it accessible, but so far I haven't been able to find any information on it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Tipstaff · Mar 21, 2009, 09:55 AM

There's 2 possible reasons for this.

1) A lot of 2.5" external drives (ones that use laptop drives), pull power from the USB port to power the drive. However, some external boxes can require more power to run, beyond what 1 USB port can provide, or the same could be said for the hard drive being used, where the initial amount of power is greater than what the external box can provide, or again the USB port can provide. The latter problem usually crops up with drives larger than 100GB where they need a little bit more than 500mA to spin up or run. To get around this you have 2 choices: 1) get yourself a 2 USB to 1 USB cable, where you plug 2 USB connectors into the 360 to draw 500mA from each port, and plug the one USB plug into the box, or 2) if the box supports it you can get yourself an external 5v (500mA) power supply.

2) The other issue is one that I don't know if Microsoft has changed yet, but it used to be that the hard drive needed to be formated in FAT/FAT32, and not any other file system. As far as I'm aware the 360 still doesn't support drives that are formated in NTFS.

[hobo]eclipse · Mar 21, 2009, 10:04 AM

the mac file system HFS+ worked when i had a 360 in 2007, had me a nice 250GB passport that worked well. are both drives using the same filesystem?

Judas · Mar 21, 2009, 05:39 PM

i've yet to find usb flash drives.. or external hardrives all formated with fat32 to work with the xbox... everything lights up like it's working but the xbox360 memory information page just continues to show the same old single hardrive.

Tipstaff · Mar 22, 2009, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [hobo]eclipse

the mac file system HFS+ worked when i had a 360 in 2007, had me a nice 250GB passport that worked well. are both drives using the same filesystem?

For some reason the 360 can see HFS/HFS+, but I can't remember if it's there by default or not, or part of the optional media update. Still don't know why they support a file system that isn't theirs, but they don't support NTFS. Go figure. As for the WD Passport, most brand name portable drives are formated, by default, to FAT32 in order to make them compatible with different operating systems that they might be used on out of the box. This is why the 360 sees it. 'Course, if you ever format it in Windows XP or Vista, both those OS will redo the parition to NTFS, and to get it back to FAT32 you'd need to use a 3rd party utility to do so.

As for that update I mentioned, from what I remember there is one you need to download in order to get the 360 to support AAC files being played from portable devices, such as the iPod. To get that codec you need to go into the Game Marketplace, and look for something called "Optional Media Update". Don't know if this would help you out though.

[hobo]eclipse · Mar 22, 2009, 01:54 AM

Isnt the ipod HFS+ ? I thought i read this is why 360 is able to read it. ipod\apple compatibility.

Mar 21, 2009, 07:12 AM	#1
hxcguitarhero DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	XBox 360: External Hard Drive not registering I have two external hard drives full of various content that I would like to be able to access with my Xbox 360. One of them connects fine, but the other one does not show up. Any ideas why this would be happening? Is there any way to get it to show up? I heard there is a codec or something that you can download onto a hard drive to make it accessible, but so far I haven't been able to find any information on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Mar 21, 2009, 09:55 AM	#2
Tipstaff HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Torauna Posts: 6,773 Rep Power: 190 System Specs	Re: XBox 360: External Hard Drive not registering There's 2 possible reasons for this. 1) A lot of 2.5" external drives (ones that use laptop drives), pull power from the USB port to power the drive. However, some external boxes can require more power to run, beyond what 1 USB port can provide, or the same could be said for the hard drive being used, where the initial amount of power is greater than what the external box can provide, or again the USB port can provide. The latter problem usually crops up with drives larger than 100GB where they need a little bit more than 500mA to spin up or run. To get around this you have 2 choices: 1) get yourself a 2 USB to 1 USB cable, where you plug 2 USB connectors into the 360 to draw 500mA from each port, and plug the one USB plug into the box, or 2) if the box supports it you can get yourself an external 5v (500mA) power supply. 2) The other issue is one that I don't know if Microsoft has changed yet, but it used to be that the hard drive needed to be formated in FAT/FAT32, and not any other file system. As far as I'm aware the 360 still doesn't support drives that are formated in NTFS. __________________ Portal: The Flash Version _________________________________ Brain: So, you sacked the cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker? Mr. Sackett: The second cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker I've sacked since the sixth sitting sheet slitter got sick.

Mar 21, 2009, 10:04 AM	#3
[hobo]eclipse ...just bummin 'round Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 2,907 Rep Power: 112 System Specs	Re: XBox 360: External Hard Drive not registering the mac file system HFS+ worked when i had a 360 in 2007, had me a nice 250GB passport that worked well. are both drives using the same filesystem?

Mar 22, 2009, 01:54 AM	#6
[hobo]eclipse ...just bummin 'round Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 2,907 Rep Power: 112 System Specs	Re: XBox 360: External Hard Drive not registering Isnt the ipod HFS+ ? I thought i read this is why 360 is able to read it. ipod\apple compatibility.