Is it possible to use a Plug and Play external Hard drive on the Foxsat HDR.

Thanks Mastanlem

Not sure exactly what you mean by 'plug and play' or precisely what you are looking to do, but you can use an external drive to archive and play back material originally recorded on the main hard drive. However it needs to be formatted in EXT3 if you wish to have files larger then 4GB. Once plugged in, you need to call up 'media' and then press the red button to 'change device', and toggle until USB1 appears at the top. You can then copy to (using file manager), or play back from the external drive.

Hope this helps

So would this (top one) IOMEGA 500GB 3.5 EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE be suitable.

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/cat...al-Hard-Drives

Thanks for reply. I want to copy over programs from the HDR and also view them from the external Hard drive via the tv, using a preformatted drive.

mastanlem

Thanks. Would this need to be formatted or can I just transfer the programmes from the HDR to store and play back at a later time.

mastanlem

Drives you buy are normally formatted FAT32, if you want to archive HD files it will need formatting to Linux EXT3

mastanlem & boyzie,

Any drive should work - you'll find that the portable drive versions (generally available up to 500GB) will work by being powered by the HDR via the USB cable, which is very convenient. Those described as 'desk top' are available with much bigger capacities, but need to be powered by an external power supply (which will come with the drive).

You will need to format them in EXT3 which is a linux based format. If you look long enough you will find various threads which advise how to down load some free software which you then burn to CD to boot your system up in linux to create the EXT3 format on the drive.

See Here :-

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...6&postcount=19

To be honest it all looked a bit scarey to me, so I plumped for the easy route, by purchasing Partition Manager 10 for £26 (on-line) - see link below:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-personal/

See also my post #14 on the link below:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1165630

You may be lucky and find an old trial version from a previous copy of PC advisor (I think) - otherwise you will have to fork out like I did. However I felt it was well worth it, as the software works in windows and the process is very easy. However if you're a whizz you may be able to save youreslf some money by using the free software that's out there.

Hope this helps

thanks for the advice. Not sure about formatting to EXT3 so will ask the local PC shop to format for me.

mastanlem

Thanks jonboy.

Just a word of caution some drives used in USB external boxes have power saving software and as a result they don't work properly with a hdr. It's sometimes possible to disable the power saving feature by downloading a patch from the drive makers website.

Thanks Graham,

That's something I wasn't aware of.

Regards - Jonboy59