USB drive on the home theatre

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Wipeout

330 posts

Ultimate Geek

#70166 19-Oct-2010 18:33

Hi there. So I've got a Panasonic SC-PT980GN-K home theatre. It's nothing special tbh, but enough for my needs. The dvd player has a USB drive in the front of it. So I assumed that if I plug in my external harddrive, it would read it and I will be able to watch files off it. I get an error on the plasma - "no device".

Any ideas, suggestions?

freitasm

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#393729 19-Oct-2010 18:54

Perhaps the drive is formated as NTFS and the player only recognise other formats, such as FAT32?

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grolschie

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#393730 19-Oct-2010 18:54

What make and model is the DVD player?

Wipeout

330 posts

Ultimate Geek

#393732 19-Oct-2010 19:07

freitasm: Perhaps the drive is formated as NTFS and the player only recognise other formats, such as FAT32?

How can I tell which format is on my hard drive and on the home theatre bud? And is there any way for me to format both so they work together? Btw, I've tried another hard drive and got the same result.

@ grolschie the model number is Panasonic SC-PT980GN-K.

grolschie

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Ultimate Geek
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#393756 19-Oct-2010 19:50

According to the specs, it supports mpeg4 and divx via the USB terminal. I would imagine the drive needs to be formatted FAT32. Formatting it (which erases the contents of it) on a Microsoft Windows PC should give you an option of of FAT32 or NTFS if the drive/partition is small enough (max 32gb). Otherwise, something else (e.g. formatting from the command line) is needed to format the drive.

Wipeout

330 posts

Ultimate Geek

#393764 19-Oct-2010 20:10

grolschie: According to the specs, it supports mpeg4 and divx via the USB terminal. I would imagine the drive needs to be formatted FAT32. Formatting it (which erases the contents of it) on a Microsoft Windows PC should give you an option of of FAT32 or NTFS if the drive/partition is small enough (max 32gb). Otherwise, something else (e.g. formatting from the command line) is needed to format the drive.

I see, thanks for that. Do you think you can point me to a link where I can read about formating things like that? I've tried google, but I don't really know what I'm looking for. I can imaging being able to format something like a harddrive, or usb stick, or a usb drive on the computer. But how do I go about doing the same on the home theatre - ie, how do I connect my pc to the home theatre? Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I'm not up to play with this. Although if you point me in the right direction, I will be able to follow instructions ect. :>

elldizzle

91 posts

Master Geek

#393786 19-Oct-2010 20:52

This should give you all the information you need.
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/format-usb-ntfs/

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alvin

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#393788 19-Oct-2010 20:56

Hi wipeout,

i think your usb drive can only be up to 32GB, so an external hard drive won't work. i tend to use my pen drives when playing avi files off the dvd player. try using a pen drive..

alvin

freitasm

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#393789 19-Oct-2010 20:58

Wipeout:
freitasm: Perhaps the drive is formated as NTFS and the player only recognise other formats, such as FAT32?

How can I tell which format is on my hard drive and on the home theatre bud? And is there any way for me to format both so they work together?

Plug the external drive to a PC, open Explorer, right-click the drive and select Properties. It will tell you if it's NTFS or FAT32.

To format, right-click the drive and select Format, then select FAT32. However note FAT32 has a 32GB limit size so don't waste money using a drive larger than that. For testing is ok to format a large drive as 32GB.

Remember that if you format the drive everything is erased and be careful to not select your system drive and format it by mistake.

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gumdigger

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Ultimate Geek
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#393792 19-Oct-2010 21:05

I dont think SC-PT980 supports hard drives, HTIB mostly support only flash based storage devices.

Wipeout

330 posts

Ultimate Geek

#393793 19-Oct-2010 21:07

Alvin, thanks mate, you were spot on. I've transferred a movie onto a 4gb usb stick and it worked. :>

Thanks everyone. :>

Edit: It's a shame a larger drive can't be operated through that USB port. hehehe...

grolschie

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Ultimate Geek
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#393816 19-Oct-2010 22:36

You can format drives/partitions that are larger than 32Gb in FAT32, but you either need a utility to do it, or do it from the command line i.e. the command "format [driveletter] /q /fs:FAT32" where [drive letter] is your HDD (e.g. "f:") - you don't want to get that wrong and erase the wrong drive though.

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Wipeout

330 posts

Ultimate Geek

#394009 20-Oct-2010 14:59

haha... thanks for that advice. I'll stick to a flash drive and wait until my mate finishes my media computer so I can have all of my movies etc on there. :>