Hooking up an External HDD to DVR or DVD player.

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
Hey everyone.

So I have come across a slight problem that I am hoping might have a quick fix that is alluding me.

I have a HDD external'er (One of those devices that I can connect HDD to it making them external storage). I have a ton of junk on there; much more than I could just transfer around.

Both my upconverting DVD player and my Dish Network DVR have USB connections and I decided to try hooking them up with the HDD to try to play things through my sexy HDTV.

First I tried the DVR. It recognized it and told me that I need to reformat the Drive and lose all the data. I don't really understand why or how the HDD can be formated for every computer I own but not the DVR. But, Whatever, the DVR has a ton of storage already I can survive with out that. I can just get another HDD whenever I find one cheap and just format that guy to the DVR.

So then I try hooking it up to my Philips DVD player. I go through the menu and all it tells me is that the "Card" is empty. That is all I get out of it.

So now I am completely at a loss. What can I do to get one of the two to work for me? Like I said, I can't really take off all the junk and start fresh.

Before I completely start monkeying around with everything and trying a bunch of my completely off the top of the head guesses on what to do I thought I might ask the AT collective knowledge. I started to google around but I figured you guys might be able to help me out a little quicker.

Thanks everyone.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
76
The DVR has to format it for two reasons. One it runs linux and only will support that file system on the drive. Two it encrypts the video so that it cannot be used by anything else but that DVR, blame the mpaa.

The dvd probably only accepts fat32 drives.
 

sivart

Golden Member
Oct 20, 2000
1,786
0
0
Buy a WDTV and you can hook the drive up with no problems. Most 'brand' name DVR's and DVD players use the USB port for very specific functions and probably won't play back any videos on those drive even if it can via a DVD.

The DVR may use the drive as additional storage playing back only material it records.
 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
Really? That kinda blows. I have Dish Network's 722k brand spanking new DVR which came with my system. I really don't even use it all that much except for the occasional movie that starts just as I am going to class or what not.

I really only was trying to hook it up so I can run stuff off the HDD onto my TV.



For both who responded:

This FAT32 you speak of... would I just need to put the drivers on the external? or something along that line?


Thanks again.
 

Cardio

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
903
0
76
No you can't just put drivers on for FAT 32. It is a specific type of format for the drive. FAT 16, FAT 32 or NTFS are MS format types. Other operating systems may use completely different format methods. One type cannot generally read another type of formating.
 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
No you can't just put drivers on for FAT 32. It is a specific type of format for the drive. FAT 16, FAT 32 or NTFS are MS format types. Other operating systems may use completely different format methods. One type cannot generally read another type of formating.
Damn. What about a partisan?
 

sivart

Golden Member
Oct 20, 2000
1,786
0
0
If you want to be able to play media from your external hard drive easily, you probably should look at the WDTV -- Link

I'm not saying that you can't get your Dish DVR to do it, but it would probably take a lot of hacking of the box and then you would lose your support / warranty with Dish.
 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
So yeah, I just decided to drag my desktop into my living room and just hook that up to the TV instead. All problems solved.

Thanks all. fark DVR's and DVD players. Hello Desktop with an huge ass HD monitor.