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Author Topic: Partition External Usb?  (Read 134 times)

a_denikey

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Partition External Usb?
« on: April 09, 2008, 03:38:00 AM »

I just bought a 160 gb external hard drive so i can use it as a video library and play it on my 360. So far I have about 88 gbs worth of video i want to put on the external drive. i heard that if it's more than 32 gb you need to partition it. how do i do this?
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Scan-C

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2008, 03:18:00 AM »

You need to format it to HFS+. Get MacDrive and point it to your external HDD and it'll do all the magic biggrin.gif
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a_denikey

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2008, 04:42:00 AM »

i thought the 360 only read in the default format FAT36?
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Scan-C

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2008, 05:49:00 AM »

You mean Fat32 but it can read HFS+ too.
If you still want to use FAT32 you can format your drive in Linux. The 32GB Limitation Windows has is only there to force people to use NTFS. Linux allows you to use FAT32 up to 2TB. Once it is formatted Windows can handle the drive aswell and of course the 360. Only problem with this method is that a single file can not be bigger than 4GB. That's why I recommended HFS+. No filesize limit and the 360 knows the format.
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a_denikey

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2008, 12:13:00 AM »

ok i just used partition magic because that's the program that came with the hard drive. i didn't see the HFS+ option under formats so i just did the FAT32. i did the partitions i think about five of them and put a few videos and songs in each one. when i plugged it into the 360 it only read the first partition. everything in the first partition played fine with the exception of one video which had a codec not supported by the 360. but how do i get it to read the other partitions? all the partitions were under 32gbs. i think the highest partition was like 31,000.4gbs
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scuba156

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2008, 05:40:00 AM »

i think you mean 31,000.4Mb's.

the xbox cannot read a second, third or fourth (and so on) partition from an external device.

partition magic cannot format a drive to HFS+. HFS+ is a macintosh HDD format, and must be formatted using either a mac, or the windows application MacDrive
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a_denikey

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2020, 02:29:00 PM »

nope i had it right, gbs. there wouldn't be a point to have a 31,000.4mb partition. i couldn't even stick one movie on it. it's a 160gb drive so each one got cut into 31,000.4gbs or 31,000.2gbs except the first which is 27,000.9gbs. and if the xbox can't read the other partitions then what was the purpose of using a partition? would it not have read any of the files at all unless i did the partition? do you think if i merged the partitions the xbox might still be able to read it? or is there something else i need to buy because i've heard people using an 300gb external as a full home theater system on their 360 and it read everything.

This post has been edited by a_denikey: Yesterday, 10:40 PM
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Scan-C

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2008, 10:13:00 AM »

I think scuba read that as 31000 (thousands)  wink.gif
The purpose of a partition is to make the drive usable. the HDD has to be partitioned or else where would a pc seek for the partition boot sector, know what filesystem to use etc. Your PC can't do a thing without a partitiontable and that's true for the 360 too. In short no HDD works without a partition.

You can try to merge them and the 360 might handle it just fine but there's still the filesize limit. I mean 4GB for a movie isn't to much these days.
Where's the problem in downloading MacDrive and formatting the drive with HFS+?
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a_denikey

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2008, 11:57:00 AM »

so i tried merging the partitions unfortunately it erased everything on it. but at least i didn't erase it from my computer. after recopying to the external and using no partitions the 360 read everything just fine. music, pics and video. i'm guessing you don't even need to do partitions anymore. but thanks for the help you guys
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scuba156

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2008, 01:14:00 PM »

yes i did read it as 31 thousand. and where did i say the xbox cannot read partitions at all? i said it cannot read 2 or more partitions, it will only see the first partition as the OS cannot mount more than one partition via the USB ports.

i still recommend MacDrive and formatting it as HFS+
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subarudog

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Partition External Usb?
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2008, 05:15:00 PM »

I have got a Mac Mini Intel Core Solo 1.5GHz running OS X Leopard 10.5.2. I formatted an external Maxtor 320GB usb HDD to read on an Xbox 360 using "Disk Utility" under the "Utilties" under "Appliactions".

The settings were:
.select partition tab under the usb hdd
.select '1 Partition' under volume scheme
.give it a meaningful name like 'media'
.under format menu select 'Mac OS Extended'
.under options button select 'Apple Partition Map'
.click 'Apply'

Now copy some media to test on the xbox 360.
all should work.

This is not to go against the excellent guides done by the Windows guys. BOTH METHODS WORK WELL.
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