Topic: How To Guide (Read 77 times)

88 Ecko Unltd 88 · « **on:** December 14, 2007, 11:15:00 AM »

This here is a guide on how to create a FAT32 partition that exceeds the 4GB limit, and still works with the Xbox360. Here we go

#1 - First of all we download Knoppix (Linux LiveCD)

Link of Mirrors of Knoppix

#2 - Once downloaded we burn the Image onto a CD

#3 - We restart the computer with the cd in the drive

#4 - Once booted into Knoppix we set a Root Password (it is the Penguin Icon next to the K at the bottom)

#5 - Now click on the big K at the bottom left and go under System -> GParted

#6 - In GParted now find your HDD that you want to format -- top right corner
IPB Image

#7 - Once you find the HDD that you want to format right click and select FAT32, after that is done go to Apply and it should take a minute or two to format

#8 - After we are done in Knoppix we restart back into Windows

#9 - Now put your HDD in an External Enclosure and plug it in

#10 - Now in Windows go under My Computer and check if it recognizes it

#11 - Put the files you want your Xbox 360 to read (only 360 readable files wmv, hd-wmv, dvix, mp3, etc)

#12 - Plug it into your 360 go under your Video tab and see if it reads it

^^^
picture was taken with my IPHONE

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there you have it, a FAT32 HDD that exceeds the 4GB limit and works flawlessly with the 360

BTW there is a Live Gparted Cd that you can download that is only 30Mb that you can burn onto a CD but I preffer Knoppix just because if something would ever to happen i can fix it with Knoppix <-- Long live LINUX

--Have Fun--

Please Comment if your Successfully or Unsuccessful

88 Ecko Unltd 88

bucko · « **Reply #1 on:** December 14, 2007, 02:03:00 PM »

If you have a Mac Mini just use HFS+, you wont be used it on windows but it's good filesystem as well. Something I need to do, but I wanna use my 120GB 360 HDD first lol, wish I could store stuff on it.

cerealkillajme · « **Reply #2 on:** December 14, 2007, 02:21:00 PM »

QUOTE(bucko @ Dec 14 2007, 04:39 PM)

If you have a Mac Mini just use HFS+, you wont be used it on windows but it's good filesystem as well. Something I need to do, but I wanna use my 120GB 360 HDD first lol, wish I could store stuff on it.

You can use HFS+ in Windows if you have Macdrive installed. Macdrive can also be used to format it. That is how I have my external HDDs done.

Good guide though 88 Ecko Unltd 88

88 Ecko Unltd 88 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 14, 2007, 05:01:00 PM »

tnx for the props cerealkillajme

don't really like the fact that HFS+ doesn't get recognized by Windows unless you have MacDrive witch is only a trial software unless purchased

Hope everyone finds the guide useful!!!

Mi|enko · « **Reply #4 on:** December 16, 2007, 02:56:00 AM »

So, I just did this, and it's Fat32. . . but the problem is, I run into not being able to put any 8gb files on it, as Fat32 just isn't built to handle that large a file. So, granted, all of my divx movies can be thrown on their just fine, but that's pretty much it. My wmv-hd's are too large. Now, is it because of that filesystem window? Because I just took it formatted straight to Fat32. . . guess I'll check it out again.

88 Ecko Unltd 88 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2007, 06:23:00 PM »

backlashcs - as for your question on why linux can format fat32 correctly is because it is better

.. as for not handling hdd over 30gb i think you need to look at the pic above, the hdd i have is 75gb in fat32 and here is another pic that i will post witch is the xbox music player with 6301 songs on it, a total of 32gb of hdd space

(its not a great picture but w/e it something)

Mi|enko - hmm... i haven't tried putting any hd wmv's on the hdd yet mainly cuz i don't have any .. but i will obtain one as soon as possible just to try it out (give me a couple of days)... have you tried putting the wmv on the hdd over knoppix that might do the trick

FCTE · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2007, 07:38:00 PM »

I just use Gparted.

Mi|enko · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2007, 01:37:00 AM »

QUOTE(88 Ecko Unltd 88 @ Dec 16 2007, 08:59 PM)

backlashcs - as for your question on why linux can format fat32 correctly is because it is better

.. as for not handling hdd over 30gb i think you need to look at the pic above, the hdd i have is 75gb in fat32 and here is another pic that i will post witch is the xbox music player with 6301 songs on it, a total of 32gb of hdd space

(its not a great picture but w/e it something)

Mi|enko - hmm... i haven't tried putting any hd wmv's on the hdd yet mainly cuz i don't have any .. but i will obtain one as soon as possible just to try it out (give me a couple of days)... have you tried putting the wmv on the hdd over knoppix that might do the trick

It's a filesystem limitation.

CODE

FAT32

The original File Allocation Table (FAT) file system was introduced in 1977 and generally applied to floppy disk storage. It was later modified to work with hard disks and other removable media. FAT had a problem however; it could only manage spaces up to 2GB in size. As Windows came into being and programs became larger, the 2GB barrier became a serious problem. Thus, in 1996, with the OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2) of Windows 95 (also known as Windows 95b) came a FAT enhancement known as FAT32.

The two major features of FAT32 that improved upon the original FAT (or FAT16 as it's sometimes known) are the disk efficiency and size of the disk supported.

Files are stored in clusters on the disk. The size of the clusters depends on the size of disk. Under FAT, drives over 1.2GB used clusters that were 32K in size as the file allocation table itself could not track more clusters because of it's 16-bit structure. The 32-bit structure in FAT32 allows disks of that size to use 4K per sector. This improves efficiency as a file, no matter how small, will always use at least one cluster and the space in the cluster not used is wasted. FAT32 doesn't start to use 32K clusters until the disk goes over 60GB in size and can handle disks up to 2TB (terabyte or trillion bytes); though not all operating systems can deal with disks that size even if the file system can.

There are many other features changed between the two but these are the major ones to be concerned with.

The problem that many encounter now is one of the limits of FAT32 that's being run into: file size. The original FAT (FAT12) had a maximum file size of 32MB, FAT16 has a maximum file size of 2GB, and despite the much larger hard disk size supported by FAT32, the maximum file size only doubled to 4GB.

This is largely why a movie file larger than 4GB in size might not be able to be copied to a hard disk with lots of space. The hard disk is probably formatted using FAT32. There is no quick solution short of converting the hard disk to the NTFS file system.

Took that from cknow.com, but I was already aware of this limitation. I just thought maybe you found a way around it. Oh well. Looks like the only way is HFS+, but the problem is, I'm usin' Vista Ultimate x64, and MacDrive isn't compatible with it. I'm not installing a different OS just to use MacDrive. . . but, if 1 were to get osx installed on their pc. . . hmmmmmmm. Bah, too much trouble.

88 Ecko Unltd 88 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 19, 2007, 08:09:00 PM »

Hmm i guess your rite i tied a 10Gb movie and it didn't let me... ohh well i dont really watch hd movies anyway but i guess i should start

backlashcs · « **Reply #9 on:** December 25, 2007, 05:32:00 PM »

With no luck have I gotten this to work. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I have my 300gb sata drive in an external encloser, went under linux and formated the whole thing clean with fat32 and then put a few movies on it to test it out, and still no luck getting the 360 to recognize that anything is even plugged in. Can anyone shed some light on something I might be doing wrong?

FCTE · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2007, 02:03:00 AM »

I don't think it works with multi-partitions. The 360 dashboard is very basic and nothing like a full operating system so it doesn't have the ability to search for things like that.

88 Ecko Unltd 88 · « **Reply #11 on:** December 26, 2007, 08:08:00 PM »

have you tried formating the drive while its inside the computer or while it was attached via usb... if you tryed via usb try puting it inside your pc thats the way i did it ... if non of that works try downloading Swissknife its a free formating tool for windows witch i found several days ago

hope this helps

Martinchris23 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 15, 2008, 11:46:00 AM »

Nice guide, however it doesn't do what it says on the tin.

QUOTE

This here is a guide on how to create a FAT32 partition that exceeds the 4GB limit

No it doesn't - all you're doing is using another utility to repartition a disk as stupid MS decided that 32GB was the largest FAT32 partition you could create. Any number of free Windows utilities will do this for you.

Your guide just confuses people as FAT32 cannot breach the 4GB barrier, however it's formatted. You've gotten file sizes and partition sizes mixed up here.

HFS+ is the way forward and works perfectly well on the 360 with files over 4GB in size. The MacDrive software isn't exactly expensive and is worth every penny.

scuba156 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 15, 2008, 01:58:00 PM »

or even better than MacDrive, is to plug it in to a mac and use disk utility. that is if you have a mac, which i do

Author Topic: How To Guide (Read 77 times)