Bitterman – 1 hour ago  » 

REPASSAC I think you misread what I wrote, the drives are not even recognised. A USB stick in FAT32 with movies, music and pictures can be inserted into the FVP and all works fine.

If I connect a USB drive it is not recognised as a valid USB device unless it is a single partition NTFS formatted drive, and then it takes just under 1 minute to be seen.

The HUMAX documentation states that FAT32 is fine.

Hi Bitterman, I don’t think there’s a hardware problem, although clearly the fvp4000t has software issues. The fact that the drive will work fine when formatted by the fvp4000t also shows that there is not a problem with the drive.

A ntfs drive was recognised immediately on plugging in, but I could not find any files. A drive with two ntfs partitions was recognised, but again no files. In both cases it was as if the drive was recognised as being present, but the file system/s not, although the fvp4000t did write hidden files to both single ntfs drive and the first partition of the two ntfs partitioned drive.

A fat32 drive was recognised immediatley and files found. A two partitioned fat32 drive was also found immediately, files found and shown as two detachable drives.

A two partition drive, ntfs first and fat32 second. Only the first ntfs partition recognised and no files found. The second partition (fat32) simply not available.

Personally I would steer well clear of exFat. Also ntfs has its problems. I would also steer clear of a usb caddy for the time being, one of my older caddies had problems with newer drives and being recognised properly. I’m assuming the drive you formatted on the fvp4000t that did work was a portable. If so and you’ve nothing of value on it, take this drive and delete the partition/s. Create a single fat32 partition, put/copy a video file you know works on to it and importantly remember to disconnect the drive safely before simply pulling the usb plug out of the pc. This should now be recognised as a detachable drive on the fvp4000t and you should be able to see your video file.

If like me you are using a newer windows version, you may find you cannot format the drive as fat32. I only have exFat and ntfs as options. It’s possible to use a command line to format, but risky if you don’t know exactly what you are doing. Use an older version of windows or a third party software to delete the drive and format it fresh as fat32.

Once you get one drive working properly you’ll be able to figure out what’s happeniong with the others. Let us know how you get on.

Hi Bitterman,

if command line fails and only Seagate/seatools etc. works then clearly there is a problem with the drives. Some enclosures/caddies aren’t always 100% compatible and need manufacturer’s drivers to work with Windows, in this instance the fvp4000t is likely to have problems even if other legacy systems just see a partition and are happy to use it.

It’s a while since I’ve used XP,however I’d have thought using disk management (control panel, system, admin?) you’d be able to delete the partition/s and format to fat32.

It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of external drives to use hidden partitions and/or sometimes specific drivers.

I’d advise you google for ‘minitools partition wizard’ and use this to wipe the external drive completely, remove all partitions, even test it if you’re inclined and then put a single fat32 partition on it. I cannot imagine that this won’t work.

If minitools fails then the seagate tools have messed up your drive and you’ll probably need to use the seagate tools to wipe/clean/fix whatever it is.

For what it’s worth, I still do not think there is a hardware problem with your fvp4000t, although as previously mentioned there are clearly software issues.

For completeness I repartitioned my drive again, this time with fat32 first and ntfs second. The drive/partitions were recognised immediatley and shown as two detachable drives and initially no files found, however after around 30 minutes files were shown on both the fat32 and ntfs partitions. It’s likely that I did not wait long enough the other day for the fvp4000t to index and present the files on ntfs. I’m already well aware that access to networked media is at best very flaky and ntfs falls into the same category in my experience.

Assuming minitools works for you, I’d advise, once happy, to shrink the fat32 parition, create a ntfs and use that for files larger than 4GB if necessary bearing in mind that some of your legacy systems may not be able to read ntfs. It must be frustrating that the H3 expresso has no problems, but it uses entirely different software and was designed primarily as a media player whereas the fvp4000t is primarily a freeview box with a media player bolted on and Humax have tied themselves up in knots again in trying to lock down content.

let us know how you get on