Adding some storage capacity to your Xbox 360 is really easy to do. The best part about using a USB hard drive with your 360 is that YOU have control of what content you have on it. With the factory Xbox hard drive you cannot load any content to it unless its acquired from Live or ripped form CD's. That does not do much for us that want our MP3 collection on our Xbox 360's now. I'm not up for re-ripping my CD's again, nor am I satisfied with streaming as the only means of accessing MY media. I do bring my Xbox all over the place and would LOVE to be abut to use MY content. Hear that Bill, J Allard or Major Nelson.. I bet I am not the only one . I don't think the horse is dead yet, is it? Well I will just keep saying it till its delivered via Live or the mod scene works it out.
Another bonus when accessing your music and photos from the "portable device" applet on the 360 is you actually have file view. I was first frustrated with the fact that if I actually could get all of my music onto the stock 360 drive it would be displayed to me in various predefined filters like: artist, song, genre and so on. The problem with that is I already have my music database highly organized; just how I like it. After the filters is all a big mess again. Fortunately when accessing data on the USB device it resorts to a more familiar file view with your existing folder structure as the organization.
All you need is the following:
- A hard drive of your choice. The drive of choice is not important as long as you can get a USB 2.0 adaptor for that type of drive.
- A USB 2.0 to ATA adapter for type of drive you will be using.
If your using a laptop 2.5" drive that has a form factor height of 9.5mm or less then our $19.99 Ultra slim USB 2.0 case is perfect and looks great atop the 360's stock hard drive. But just about any USB 2.0 adapter will work.
If you are using a 3.5" IDE drive you will need the appropriate USB 2.0 adapter for that drive.
If you are using a drive larger that 32GB in size you will need Partition Magic or some other drive/partition utility that supports larger FAT32 partitions.
This is a really simple process. First assemble the drive with the USB adapter. Next plug the unit into your PC. If your running Windows XP most USB adapters will be automatically recognized and installed. If you are running an older operating system you may need to install a driver for the adapter
Next create a new FAT32 partition on the newly installed device. Again if the drive is larger than 32GB you will need to use a utility like Partition Magic to create the volume. If the drive is smaller than 32GB you can accomplish this via the "Computer Management" snap in found in the Control Panel -> Administrative tools. Last you need to format the volume. Same rule applies for formatting as well; if it is larger than 32GB you will need some other utility like partition magic to format. Windows does not support creation and formatting of devices larger than 32GB.
Windows 98 can create and format partitions up to 127GB. If you have 98 installed or a 98 boot disk with FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM you would have all you need for up to that 127GB mark.
Once you've got it all done you should be able to load content to the drive via windows. Plug it into your 360 and go to media and select portable device and bam.. there's YOUR media.
This is a quick tut on using USB 2.0 hard drive with the 360. As soon as I get a little more time I will add a few more utilities that work and a more detailed step by step for those with little PC background.
Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1832 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:21 am Post subject:
Nice. I posted that as news a few minutes ago but then changed the news so I saw 200 or something and it was already in the news way ago.
forahobby 360-HQ Legendary
Joined: May 22, 2003 Posts: 12329 Location: NSW, Australia
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:30 am Post subject:
you reminded me to make a topic about it.. Search engines always pick up forums much better for some reason.. Well i suppose since they are standard practice now for sites.
Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1832 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject:
Yeh just reading old news stories and blogs etc... You cannot play videos so stuff that! Plus only WMV for streaming no DivX/XVid so looks like i'll be using my Xbox for a long time (Come on Xecuter/SmartXX/Sunday etc...)
jiggysmb 360-HQ Elite Member
Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 488 Location: Baltimore
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject:
slickdeals.net had those for $8 or $9 a few weeks ago. _________________ LED Rings $6 (doesnt include LEDs) LED ring pic
forahobby 360-HQ Legendary
Joined: May 22, 2003 Posts: 12329 Location: NSW, Australia
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 4:59 am Post subject:
Quote:
slickdeals.net had those for $8 or $9 a few weeks ago.
Thanks for the info Jiggy.. As im sure you know the more the better.. heheh
have a great xmas guys..
Joined: Feb 20, 2006 Posts: 67 Location: Baldwin, New York
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:09 am Post subject:
what if I used a external harddrive that has a usb port and I have a usb line would I still need a ATA adapter _________________ You have the right to remain black. Everything you say will be misqouted and used against you in the court of law.
sjohn V.I.P. Lifetime
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1389 Location: Alabama
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:25 am Post subject:
In that case it works perfectly fine, just drop it in and away you go. _________________
Bonechilla 360-HQ Member
Joined: Feb 20, 2006 Posts: 67 Location: Baldwin, New York
Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject:
so I would not need portion magic?? _________________ You have the right to remain black. Everything you say will be misqouted and used against you in the court of law.
XboxXXX V.I.P. Lifetime
Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1832 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:59 pm Post subject:
Bonechilla wrote:
so I would not need portion magic??
Windows XP will format for you! Although applications like partition magic are faster and do a better job. But still I always use XP, only time I use Partition Magic is when my drives are having serious issues which XP just fails at.
Bonechilla 360-HQ Member
Joined: Feb 20, 2006 Posts: 67 Location: Baldwin, New York
Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1832 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 6:25 am Post subject:
For storing media files, yes!
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. I don't think the horse is dead yet, is it? Well I will just keep saying it till its delivered via Live or the mod scene works it out.
etc...)
