Forum:External USB Drive

I Try to connect an external hard disk into the USB port on the back of the Screen Play Pro, but the Screen Play Pro says "loading" and seems to be frozen! It's a 320GB Seagate HardDisk NTFS. I read the drive on the computer.

thank you
 * Unfortunately, the iomega forums are being moderated on a part time basis, so it is going to be a while before you see any responses. Here was my response:  These are tests to try so we can narrow down what the problem is. If you are willing, try formatting it using the FAT 32 format utility and see if the screenplay will recognize the drive then. If it does recognize, format it on another computer without Avira to NTFS. If it still recognizes it, plug it into your computer with Avira and put a movie on it, then see if it is still recognized. Let me know what you tried and what happened at each step.


 * By the way, when you initially plug in a USB drive, it can take up to a minute before the SreenPlay recognizes it and makes it available.--JCoug 06:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

To add my experience: I've attached an Iomega Prestige 1TB desktop hard drive to the USB port.

The drive is a "powered" desk top hard drive. You can not attach a "USB powered" device as the SPP doesn't supply the necessary power. However, in testing out the unit I did run a Freecom 80meg USB only unit off of a powered USB 2.0 hub conected to the SPP. The hub, therefore, supply the necessary power for the Hard drive. The Freecom could not be recognised without the hub.

Both drives are NTFS format. There was some copy isssues when I first connected up the Iomega Desktop drive. I used it as the backup device prior to updating to firmware 1.8 and had issues copying very large directories. Since the firmware update (more relevantly the newer NTFS driver) I have experienced no problems what so ever.

As the SPP contains all my music, photo, & videos, I needed a backuop device for re-assurance. I keep the two drives in step via a simple XP freeware disk syncronisation tool running on my network's central laptop. This can be time consuming as the copy is via the lan cable & laptop rather than just over the USB. I'll have to look into Linux tools that could do the same synchronisation and run on the SPP locally. Hope this helps. --craslett 23:06, 12 July 2009