External hard drive in FAT32 format doesn't appear in XMB?

Hi guys,

I have an external 300gb USB Seagate drive and I'm hoping to use it with my PS3.

I have read the usual instructions regarding formatting as FAT32 etc, the drive is already FAT32 (from the factory) and I have created the folder structure:

PICTURE
VIDEO
MUSIC
GAME

But when I connect the drive to the PS3 by USB it does not appear at all. Yet when I plug my 4gb Kingston pen drive it picks it up straight away.

Any suggestions? Like I say - it is already in FAT32 format so as far as I'm aware it should work.

Thanks in advance for any help! :thumbup:

300 GB is a bit big for FAT32. It if really is pre-formatted for the PC (manufacturers mean WINDOWS when they say PC), it's probably NTFS which isn't supported by the PS3. If it IS FAT32, it may be too big for the driver in the PS3 (many folks assume limits on types of drives and filesystems that eventually get exceeded... for example, Microsoft couldn't even use FAT32 on drives larger than 30-some gigs for quite a few years).

So check the drive - if it's NTFS, reformat it as FAT32. If it is FAT32, repartition the drive to chop it into smaller pieces, format the partitions as FAT32, then try it again.

Thanks, got it all sorted last night. Looks like it is a problem with some Seagate drives as I eventually found other people that had the same problem. Although it was definitely formatted to FAT32 it just would not get picked up by the PS3, so I formatted it to NTFS with Windows, then BACK to FAT32 using fat32format.exe and it then worked fine!! So I now have a single 350gb partition, all working a-ok. :thumbup:

Well, that's good to know (that the size isn't an issue). Weird about the original format not being recognized. Maybe they forgot to set a reserved field correctly - third parties often have trouble with the poorly documented MS standards.