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TFOAF · Last edited by TFOAF on Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:37 am; edited 1 time in total

I have it plugged it, powered on, and plugged into the USB port. The Xbox does not recognize it. What could be the problem?

CollidgeGraduit · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:58 am Post subject:

External what?

And I'm assuming you've gone through the standard troubleshooting. Xbox 360 FAQs/troubleshooting guide, Google, MS website, etc.. already found some suggestions, and ignored them?

dmorris68 · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:01 am Post subject:

A 5 second Google search returned tons of hits, one of the first was someone asking the same question. The answer was the XBOX360 supports only FAT32 partitions, so as long as your HDD is formatted FAT32, it should work.

Make sure to format from the command-line (format.exe) or a 3rd party utility, because the GUI formatter in Win2K and up will only format to 32GB by design.

manOFice · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:02 am Post subject:

it's probably not formated with FAT32

TFOAF · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:31 am Post subject:

Crap. Is there a way to format it to FAT32 without losing data? Or is there a way to make a second partition on the drive specifically for FAT32, and leave the other partition NTFS?

CollidgeGraduit · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:33 am Post subject:

Google does have information on partitioning your drive as well

dmorris68 · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:42 am Post subject:

I know of no way built-in to Windows to non-destructively convert NTFS to FAT32. Some 3rd party tools might do it, but I'd suggest backing the drive up to your PC, formatting FAT32, then copying the files back over.

Be advised that FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit, so if you have files larger than that you can't store them on that drive without compressing, encoding, or breaking them up.

TFOAF · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:19 am Post subject:

ILoveToys · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:35 am Post subject:

Yes you can foafy.....

TFOAF · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:06 pm Post subject:

I just tried shrinking my current partition, and it said "Access is denied." WTF?

tylerc · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:36 pm Post subject:

Guys, why are you posting? Don't you know FOAFY isn't going to take any advice we give him?

doylnea · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject:

CollidgeGraduit · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject:

tylerc · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject:

merked.

TFOAF · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:03 am Post subject:

yes .yes. yes. yes. yes. i did. i just said there was a different problem where it said access is denied when i tried shrinking my volume. holy shit.

theysayjump · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:59 am Post subject:

I thought I'd keep this in here, even though it's only semi-related.

I bought a 750GB internal HDD and an External Enclosure. Put the 750GB in my computer and put my 250GB into the enclosure.

The External shows up only if it's turned on before the computer is turned on (or if it's turned on and you restart). If it's off and the computer is on, when I turn the External on it doesn't show up in My Computer.

Is this normal?

dmorris68 · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:47 am Post subject:

No that isn't normal. USB drives are plug & play in XP and Vista, when you turn it on it should appear. Could you have somehow disabled removable drive support in Windows or the BIOS?

theysayjump · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:05 am Post subject:

I have it connected via eSATA. Is there much of a difference in speed between USB and eSATA?

hehehhehe · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:40 am Post subject:

dmorris68 · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:57 am Post subject:

Ah, okay. Yes eSATA is many times faster and is the preferable connection type if you care about performance. An external eSATA drive will function at the same speed as in internal drive. USB is much slower, but generally more fool-proof.

Your SATA controller (presumably you're using the one on your mobo) must support AHCI and hot-swap. Not all SATA controllers support hot-swap, but anything recent should. Otherwise I'd look into an add-on SATA card, they're cheap. I have a couple of Rosewill 1x PCI-e SATA cards in different machines for eSATA purposes.

Motherboard AHCI support is typically disabled by default in the BIOSes, and if you enable it after Windows is installed, it will blue-screen on the next boot -- you have to manually get the AHCI driver installed or else reinstall Windows. I'd have to dig up the instructions I last read on the Notebook Review forum for doing so, but I'm sure if you Google for "install AHCI driver on Windows" or something similar you can find several references.

theysayjump · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:13 pm Post subject:

Thanks guys.

The external enclosure came with an eSATA adapter to stick in the back of the computer and plug into an empty SATA slot, so that's how I have it connected.

I checked my BIOS and saw nothing about AHCI at all and I had a quick look at how to install the driver or to find it but came up short (I was distracted after a few minutes though, so I'm checking again).

dmorris68 · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:23 pm Post subject:

What mobo do you have?

It's not always referred to as AHCI in BIOS. And some older boards just won't support it at all.

As far as enabling AHCI drivers in Windows, which version of Windows are you running? If Vista, the driver should already be installed but is disabled, you just need to change a registry setting before enabling AHCI in BIOS. With XP however you must install the AHCI driver if AHCI was not enabled when XP was installed. This varies from system to system, but usually involves manually installing the chipset drivers *before* enabling AHCI in BIOS. This sometimes requires some manual trickery because some driver installers won't install AHCI support when AHCI is disabled in BIOS.

If you can't figure it out, gimme your system specs and I can try to find instructions.

theysayjump · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:41 pm Post subject:

This is my motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138041

I'm also running XP SP3. It was an nLite setup I did with updates from May I believe.

hehehhehe · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:19 am Post subject:

Your chipset (nforce 4 ultra - plain nforce 4 didn't support it but supposedly the ultra does) is supposed to support AHCI, but if your bios doesn't show the option, I guess you're out of luck.

I did read that you can still install some experimental drivers to get the how-swap ability in XP if you want to try that. I don't know if I would, unless I was doing a new xp install or it was a spare PC.

Or wait for dmo to come up with a solution... I'm going to experiment a little with eSATA myself to see if I get BSOD w/AHCI.

theysayjump · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:44 am Post subject:

Hmm.....interesting read. Sounds a bit risky doing it the experimental way, but let me know how yours turns out.

If it wasn't for the fact that I reformatted my OS drive just a few days ago, I'd reformat and try to install the drivers then, but I'd really rather not. I can live with it like it is for now.

So if a workaround is not found and I have the external on and recognised by Windows, what's the proper procedure for unplugging it? Turning it off and then unplugging it or what?