PS3 External Hard Drive for Movie Viewing Help Needed - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

TSXCman · 02-22-2010, 08:50 PM

Hey guys,

Has anyone here used their PS3 as a media station, with an external HD plugged in USB for the file sources?

I have been trying to get this working at my house and am running into an unknown problem that I am hoping someone can help with.

I had to format the 160gig drive from NTSF to Fat32 with Fat32formatter.exe. That completed and my properties now state that I have 1 Volume that is completely Fat32.

With the drive empty, I created "Videos, Pictures, Games, Music" folders. In movies I put on many formats of videos that seemed to play back while connected in my computer.

I plug in the HD into the PS3 Slim and into wall for power, the HD turns on because it recognizes a USB socket. No HD comes up in my PS3 menu, I tried rebooting and still no recognize, also searching for media servers. I only get BD data, Search for Media Server, and the name of my Computer (recognizes my WMP connection to listen to music on my 360).

I have helped a friend out who was nearly in the same position and he had 100% success, I followed same path and still no recognition of drive.

Any ideas PS3 owners?

TopChed · 02-22-2010, 10:24 PM

I never tried using an external drive, but I've had success streaming all of my videos and songs to my PS3 using a free mac application called PS3 Media Server. I dunno if that helps you at all, but it's always seemed easier for me to stream it over wifi than worry about formatting a drive.

TSXCman · 02-22-2010, 10:33 PM

Thanks for response, I already prepped for using a HD, but if I can't figure it out I will move to streaming.

I use a PC but I have seen programs for it, some people complained of choppy movies

Esoteric · 02-22-2010, 11:00 PM

Name your folders "VIDEO" "PICTURE" "MUSIC" etc, and drop the "s" you have on the end.

TSXCman · 02-22-2010, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esoteric

Name your folders "VIDEO" "PICTURE" "MUSIC" etc, and drop the "s" you have on the end.

brb, I hope its that easy.

I didn't mention that I tried:

PS3/Video

PS3 being the parent folder.

*UPDATE*

Tried making:

Game Video Music Picture as parent folders. No Go

Esoteric · 02-22-2010, 11:07 PM

Oh, don't use a parent folder.

Get rid of PS3/VIDEO and just use VIDEO

Esoteric · 02-22-2010, 11:11 PM

The PS3 File Structure should be

VIDEO/FOLDERNAME/FILENAME.EXT

or simply

VIDEO/FILENAME.EXT

Esoteric · 02-22-2010, 11:22 PM

That's odd. I formatted a hard drive FAT32, then put in folders called VIDEO, MUSIC, PHOTO, etc, and it works fine.

TSXCman · 02-22-2010, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esoteric

Oh, don't use a parent folder.

Get rid of PS3/VIDEO and just use VIDEO

I'm currently in that kinda setup. I dropped the PS3 earlier.

I've seen this exact setup work before but its still not reading

TSXCman · 02-22-2010, 11:47 PM

I have to assume that the Format did not go completely. The properties state its in FAT32, but it did take a few days for the program to finish, and I'm thinking a possible computer in sleep mode or something could have shaken up the process. maybe I'll redo it with swissknife or another alternative program than FAT32Formatter.exe

Esoteric · 02-23-2010, 12:42 AM

It took you days to format a hard drive? Sheesh, it took me under about 20 seconds to format my 500 GB drive with FAT32Formatter. That's brutal.

Rathji · 02-23-2010, 06:29 AM

Try a quick format. It shouldn't have taken that long so maybe there is something wrong with the disk?

You could run chkdsk /f/r to check for and fix errors but I would be surprised if that did anything noticeable.

TSXCman · 02-23-2010, 12:01 PM

I couldnt get swissknife or fat32formatter to run on my real computer, kept having script errors. So i got out the 7+ year old laptop to format with, which took 2 days.

It took 5 hours or so for my friend to do it on a newer comp for a 1TB if i remember right.

I will try reformatting and error check probably after the russian game by now because of exams.

Rathji · 02-23-2010, 04:18 PM

What OS are you running?

NiklasSundblad · 02-24-2010, 02:00 PM

I had a similar problem with my 360... when you made the partition, make sure you make sure the partition is "primary" and not "logical." If you have a PC, I used Easeus, not the built in windows feature. It's free.

TSXCman · 03-06-2010, 06:07 PM

Update:

Ran some new programs and learned that the hard drive wasn't actually converted in FAT32, even though it was labeled as so. Tried some more formatting programs, none worked, finally just borrowed a mac, plugged it in and formatted it from their operating system and it is now recognizable on my PS3

Thanks for the suggestions everyone