PS3 won't recognise external hard drive

irishejit

I've recently purchased a Western Digital 500gb external hard drive which i have all my films and music from the laptop on etc.

When I try to play these on my 80gb PS3, the PS3 won't even recognise the hard drive.

It has worked with friends 320gb external hard drives before right down to 1gb sticks.

Is there any way round this as I dont want to have to copy films one at a time onto a 1gb stick to watch them on the big telly instead of the laptop screen!

aidan_walsh

The HDD needs to be formatted as FAT32, so if it is using any other file system it will need to be reformatted.

CombatCow

You have to format it into fat/32, plug it in to your pc and right click on my computer,select manage and go to disk management, select it and quick format it into fat32.

irishejit

CombatCow wrote: »

You have to format it into fat/32, plug it in to your pc and right click on my computer,select manage and go to disk management, select it and quick format it into fat32.

aidan_walsh wrote: »

The HDD needs to be formatted as FAT32, so if it is using any other file system it will need to be reformatted.

Thanks guys. I assume doing this would wipe any data already on the HDD? I've nearly 200gb of data so far! Why oh why didn't i ask before i started!!!!:(

Penn

irishejit wrote: »

Thanks guys. I assume doing this would wipe any data already on the HDD? I've nearly 200gb of data so far! Why oh why didn't i ask before i started!!!!:(

Same thing happened to me. I had to delete everything (and in some cases transfer things back manually), format it, and put everything back on it.

Gadge

Once the HDD is formatted to FAT32, you'll have to make different folders to put your stuff into so it can be viewed by the PS3 properly. Make 4 seperate folders called Video, Music, Photo and Game and put whatever content into the appropriate folder and away you go.

irishejit

Gadge wrote: »

Once the HDD is formatted to FAT32, you'll have to make different folders to put your stuff into so it can be viewed by the PS3 properly. Make 4 seperate folders called Video, Music, Photo and Game and put whatever content into the appropriate folder and away you go.

The worst of it is that's the way i already had it set up!!! Was halfway there!

Penn

irishejit wrote: »

The worst of it is that's the way i already had it set up!!! Was halfway there!

You don't have to do that. When you reformat it, just highlight the Hard Drive (eg. under the Video Section) and press triangle, then scroll down to 'Display All' (I think it's Display All, something like that anyway)

Thats what I do anyway. Brings up all the folders regardless of their names, subfolders... everything. It just won't recognise filetypes that the PS3 wouldn't normally recognise anyway.

Stuxnet

irishejit wrote: »

When I try to play these on my 80gb PS3, the PS3 won't even recognise the hard drive.

you can stream these films from the hard drive when its plugged into your laptop or pc, save you hassle of moving them to pc, formatting HD and putting back on
http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

Paleface

Gadge wrote: »

Once the HDD is formatted to FAT32, you'll have to make different folders to put your stuff into so it can be viewed by the PS3 properly. Make 4 seperate folders called Video, Music, Photo and Game and put whatever content into the appropriate folder and away you go.

Alternatively you hit triangle when selecting the HD and use the display all option to explore it like any normal file system.

irishejit

BOBBY wrote: »

you can stream these films from the hard drive when its plugged into your laptop or pc, save you hassle of moving them to pc, formatting HD and putting back on
http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

cheers i must try that tonite. the ps3 does recognise the laptop wirelessly but til now i couldnt get it to work. thanks!!!

anto kerr

happened me didin realise u had to reformat it to fat32 i tough it was the hard drive an brough it back to the shop