NBOX digital media player

[Adrian Brentnall]

Sorta-diy - in that I'm trying to set it up myself

Has anybody played with one of the NBOX Media Players?

cheap for what they are - mine works fine playing files from a SD card, and/or a USB flash Drive, but can't seem to recognise an external USB Hard Drive.....

Any idea why this might be ? Have tried with & without external 5v PSU direct to the Hard Drive - but no joy.... Hard drive is 60gb, formatted NTFS and works fine to/from a PC....

It's not easy to find a Support / Manufacturer's site for this thing - which is why I'm asking here

Thanks Adrian

[Huge]

That's probably what the problem is. A lot of these dumb devices can only use FAT file systems.

[Adrian Brentnall]

Ah - that's interesting...

WinXP seems not to like the idea of formatting it as anything other than NTSF. Offers the option of ex-fat, and then says 'no can do' when I tell it to do it....

[John Williamson]

XP can't make a FAT32 partition bigger than 32 Gb. The ability was removed by Microsoft to encourage NTFS usage.

Download and burn the Ultimate Boot CD, which has a couple of DOS based partition managers on it that will happily make FAT32 partitions of any size, which XP can read perfectly well.

[Adrian Brentnall]

Hi John Thanks for that. I found mention here

the suggestion to run format from a command line prompt - which seems to be running at the moment (41% complete so far).

I'll report back later! Thanks

[Adrian Brentnall]

>

That plan didn't work - now trying a total format using a utility called FAT32Format...

Did a 'quick format' under this utility earlier, but the 60gb USB Disk was still not recognised.... so the 'slow format' is a last-ditch attempt!

Box works fine from USB Memory stick and SD Card - just won;t talk to the USB disk.....

[Tim Downie]

>>>>> Of the suggestion to run format from a command line prompt - which

You might need to delete a partition first before recreating a new partition and then formatting the disk. Worth a shot. I think it's fdisk that you need to do the deed.

Tim

[Adrian Brentnall]

>>>>>>>>

Hi Folks I let the slow FAT32 format do its stuff - then copied an avi file across to the disk (that WinXP reports as FAT32 format) - still no success - the NBox doesn't see it.

Then I used Easus to remove the partition from the disk, and create a new FAT32 partion, then format that partition. Copied an AVI across - still no joy....

So WinXP can see the USB Hard drive, but the NBox can't..... Have emailed the Chinese seller of the NBox - but not holding my breath

Never mind - perhaps the thing to do is invest in some more large SD cards and run like that.... - 'was only USD 20 for the NBox after all!

[John Williamson]

Probably a limit in the firmware or hardware, given what you've already tried.

Cheaper per megabyte to use USB sticks. They're a bit more robust, too, IME.

[Huge]

Oh, well. Sorry.

[Adrian Brentnall]

Might be the best plan.... - thanks

[Adrian Brentnall]

Don't apologise - it _should_ have worked

Looks like memory sticks / cards is the way to go.... Thanks for your suggestions Adrian

[andrew]

Reviews elsewhere suggest it works fine with FAT and NTFS drives up to at least 1TB, so if yours doesn't, it's probably faulty. Even though it is cheap, you should expect it to work, so ask for a replacement.

A

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks - still waiting for a response from China.....

Somehow, if Windows can see the hard drive then I'd imagine that the Nbox should also be able to recognise it..... wouldn't you think ?

No stated restrictions on the ebay listing or manufacturers' websites about HDD format requirements. The disk spins up (I can hear & feel it) but the big blue 'access' light comes on & doesn't flash (as it would if data were being transferred...

A USB memory stick works fine....

Odd!