PS3 external drive help?

david12795

david12795

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I recently bought a 1.5 TB USB external drive to play movies off of my PS3. I tried converting the drive from NTSF to FAT32 and it is now still NTSF and has a capacity of 393 GB?

can someone show me the proper way to change it back the way it was before and convert it to FAT32, the proper way? i tried using a how to guide but that went downhill.

im currently using a windows XP.
 
FAT32 isn't intended for drives larger than 32 GB. Microsoft placed limits in the OS as such drive capacities entered the consumer market to avoid problems but most other companies didn't want to license NTFS or found the overhead for NTFS' extensive feature set to be too much for their applications, such as media players.

A third party formatter may solve your problem. For example: http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/

Microsoft has a 64-bit lightweight file system called exFAT that is intended to solve this problem. It is supported as an add-on in XP/Server 2003 and is native in Windows 7. There isn't much support for it outside of Windows as the need isn't severe yet. As SD cards and other multiplatform flash devices with greater than 32 GB capacity become more common it is likely that exFAT support will be added.

It could take a while. Even the Xbox 360 doesn't support exFAT yet. If you have critical data in a larger than 32 GB FAT32 partition, be warned that it could go bye-bye without warning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
 
I really don't know what you did but deleting the FAT32 partition you attempted to create on the drive shouldn't cause it to no longer function. Just reformat it as NTFS.

I assume you hooked it up to your XP desktop and attempted the FAT format that way, just do the same thing again with NTFS instead. Give some details as to what exactly you did. Going back to NTFS shouldn't be that hard.
 
Also, you will ONLY be able to copy 4GB or smaller size files onto the FAT32 drive. So, if you have some HD movies, you cannot do that.

The better option is to stream via PS3 Media Server (depending on what you are streaming and if you are hardwired or wireless)
 
[quote name='doubledown']Also, you will ONLY be able to copy 4GB or smaller size files onto the FAT32 drive. So, if you have some HD movies, you cannot do that.

The better option is to stream via PS3 Media Server (depending on what you are streaming and if you are hardwired or wireless)[/QUOTE]


I didn't know you could do that. I'll have to try that.


All I do is throw my movies I want to watch on an 8 gig thumb drive and play it off the thumb drive.
 
I took my original ps3 80GB hdd and made it my external drive with GParted. For any files that is bigger than fat32 limit I either burn to a dvd. Or use ps3 media server to transfer files directly to ps3 hdd, the software works with xbox 360 too.
 
i will be putting tv shows on my external hard drive, which is about 200 MB. when you say its 4gb limit, is it the limit PER file or ALL the files?

also , i used COMPAPPS swiss knife, which didnt really help except delete my other HDD while i had it on =/
 
[quote name='david12795']i will be putting tv shows on my external hard drive, which is about 200 MB. when you say its 4gb limit, is it the limit PER file or ALL the files?

also , i used COMPAPPS swiss knife, which didnt really help except delete my other HDD while i had it on =/[/QUOTE]

4GB PER file. Apparently you formatted the wrong drive before also. You should be able to stream small files like that easily over PS3 Media Server.
 
I stream from my Media PC using Tversity to the Xboxes in my house and it works great. It's hit or miss for me on the PS3, though.

SwissKnife should work fine, I use it regularly. I see you had a problem with it so you could download some form of Linux live CD, like Ubuntu, boot with it, and then re-format. Although, if you don't understand SwissKnife, that may be out of the question.
 
ah so can anyone help me? id like to fix the 1.5 TB drive FIRST. but if i convert it to FAt32, will it be able to read/transfer fiiles onto my desktop and ps3 (and vice versa)?

right now, i am not sure what it is right now, i messed up horribly. id be grateful if any body had a step by step guide. i am completely lost due to the internet guides.

also, if i turned my 1.5 tb drive into a FAT32, does it lose A LOT of space? its giving me 393 GB right now.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']I stream from my Media PC using Tversity to the Xboxes in my house and it works great. It's hit or miss for me on the PS3, though.

SwissKnife should work fine, I use it regularly. I see you had a problem with it so you could download some form of Linux live CD, like Ubuntu, boot with it, and then re-format. Although, if you don't understand SwissKnife, that may be out of the question.[/QUOTE]


I haven't tried my 360 yet but PS3 Media Server beta, I think it's version 1.20 works great. I would assume since it's "PS3 Media Server" it won't work with my 360 but I'll still try it.

And OP why are you trying to convert a 1 TB drive to FAT32? You're asking for more trouble than it's worth. There is no way for XP alone to convert FROM NTFS to FAT32 without losing A LOT of your drive space, hence it's only giving you 300 to 400 gig. As stated before Win XP cannot format FAT32 over 32 Gig. You will need extra software to be able to take advantage of all your space.

Supposedly you can create large FAT32 partitions with a program called gparted, it's free, google it. I've never used it so I can't answer your questions regarding it. Google is your friend.

Hopefully your drive is a western digital drive because WD has come up with a utility for this exact type of job and it SHOULD work.

Link: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...3RleHQ9Zm9ybWF0IHRvIGZhdDMy&p_li=&p_topview=1


For future reference, there is a simple command line(Start>Run>Type in "cmd") command "convert" which is a simple way to convert FROM FAT32 TO NTFS.
 
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[quote name='david12795']is there a way to convert it properly to FAT32 without using a program? im currently on XP.[/QUOTE]

No. NTFS is Microsoft's proprietary file system and for some reason they don't want to build-in the function to change back to FAT32.

The only way to do it in XP, that I know of, is to try the FORMAT command. Open a command prompt as administrator and type:

FORMAT /FS:FAT32 x:

where X: is the logical letter of the external drive shown in explorer, but you'll probably just get an error message after a few hours saying the volume is too big. your best bet is to download something that will do it for you in a GUI. You're going to have to delete the NTFS partition on the drive before you do anything, too, so using a 3d party program will make that much easier than doing it on a command line.

Gparted should work great. You have to download it and burn the iso to a CD then boot with it. It's just like using any other HD setup disk. If you need to know how to burn iso's, download and install iso recorder. It's easier than easy.
 
damnit, I had some stuff written and it got erased!
ah well, basically I was explaining how I changed a external 250gig HD ntfs to fat32 by using the run command like bmulligan posted. I was also using XP (SP2) so yea 32gig is NOT the limit. I used the formatted 250gig external hd fat32 to do a system back up for the ps3. It worked fine. Then I switched it back to ntfs using run command again. Not sure about 1.5 TB!
 
All right so for the past week, I have been trying to convert my 1.5 TB back to ntfs with this program called 'swiss knife'. This is also the program I used to convert it to fat32. Anyway, I think I may have fucked up my drive because I deleted the partition :/ and i tried to convert it back to ntfs with that program but the program crashed when I did it.


Can someone show me the proper way I can change it back to normal, the proper way? Help would be greatly appreciated. I'm on a windows XP
 
[quote name='david12795']All right so for the past week, I have been trying to convert my 1.5 TB back to ntfs with this program called 'swiss knife'. This is also the program I used to convert it to fat32. Anyway, I think I may have fucked up my drive because I deleted the partition :/ and i tried to convert it back to ntfs with that program but the program crashed when I did it.


Can someone show me the proper way I can change it back to normal, the proper way? Help would be greatly appreciated. I'm on a windows XP[/QUOTE]

Is the drive seen by your OS? If so, you should be able to go into Disk Management and add a logical drive there.

ALSO, PS3 Media Server DOES work with XBOX 360, although I feel that it works MUCH better for the PS3.
 
[quote name='doubledown']Is the drive seen by your OS? If so, you should be able to go into Disk Management and add a logical drive there.

ALSO, PS3 Media Server DOES work with XBOX 360, although I feel that it works MUCH better for the PS3.[/QUOTE]


Yes it is recognized by my computer. Do I just right click and format to there? I think i have done that, but ill try again.

EDIT: What allocation unit size should I put it as?

ok so here what has it asked me to do, which of these should i check/uncheck? i know this should be easy for me but i want to be precise because i think my drive may be "bricked", even though its recognized.

33kvgxw.jpg
 
I am reading this thread via android while driving. So bare with me. Can you screenshot your drive manager. I am pretty sure we can get u back to 1.5 or at least what is considered 1.5
 
[quote name='br0ther06']I am reading this thread via android while driving. So bare with me. Can you screenshot your drive manager. I am pretty sure we can get u back to 1.5 or at least what is considered 1.5[/QUOTE]

drive manager? explain please? its located in J:/. if that's what's you mean.

[quote name='doubledown']Follow this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000[/QUOTE]


thanks, ill try and see what happens. also, whenever i plus in my usb drive, it shows the icon of the drive. it doesnt show the icon now that i have messed it up. will formatting it fix it?
 
Disk management was what I was meaning sorry for the confusion. The site posted should get u back to good. Let us know either way.
 
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