Boxee Box can't read external hard drive as source

[Ashke]

I've got the Boxee Box up and running, and have had some success with files through Samba shares, but I decided to attach my media hard drive directly to the Boxee Box via USB. When I do, I get the notification that I've attached a storage device, but nothing comes up in the file source list. The hard drive works fine via Samba or direct connection to my Mac or PC, and if I put a SD card in the media slot it shows up as a local file source, so I'm a bit mystified.

I'm not using any sort of arcane filesystem, either. I can't recall offhand if it's formatted NTFS or Fat32, but it's definitely one of the above.

Anyone have any thoughts on getting it to recognize the drive as a potential file source?

[ingoldsby]

Yeah, I didn't see mine at first either - I think it showed up after I rebooted.

[Ashke]

Tried that, and a few other things, with no luck. The USB ports are definitely working, and it's definitely detecting an attached device, but it simply will not allow me to use it as a file source.

If the hard drive needs to be formatted to something specific, it'd be nice to know... The boxee box support page has a bullet point for info about attaching external storage, but no actual link to a page about it.

[jecebn]

Mine is formatted in Fat32 and is working fine

[Ashke]

Turns out this is definitely a Boxee 1.0 issue, because we just rolled back to the firmware it shipped with and the hard drive connects without a problem.

Since no one else has mentioned having this problem, I'm guessing it's something particular conflicting between my external drive and 1.0. Wish I knew what it was - I don't really want to go out and buy a new drive in the hopes it'll work better.

[PabloPabloPablo]

I've got the same issue, Google brought me here.

I have two external USB drives I was playing around with both of which work on my Windows XP laptop. The unpowered 1TB drive works fine but the 2TB powered drive attaches but doesn't show as a source. I can connect it to a PC though and share it without an issue.

I'll carry on playing though and report back if I get it working.

[darcilicious]

For issues like this it might be helpful if you include the following information about your external drives:

External or USB-connected for power
Brand/Model/Size
Format type (NTFS, FAT32, HFS+, etc)

[suedeface]

I have a 2TB WD usb powered passport drive (NTFS) that works fine. My other 60GB laptop USB powered drive (Seagate I think, in enclosure) isn't recognized at all. I've formatted it to NTFS and tried FAT32 and nothing works. My computer, xbox, and PS3 all have no issues seeing the drive. I've switched usb cables and ports with no success.

[shayz]

Hi,

Could you post the disk information? If you're PC is running Windows, running chkdsk should do the trick?

[quietguy]

USB Powered
Western Digital Passport 500G
HFS+

Was working in 0.9 but not in 1.0. I reverted back and it is working again.