mongflex

Use your Xbox 360 as your home entertainment system. Watch your videos and pictures with your Xbox 360 and also listen to all your music as well.

Now I’ve tried to use the Xbox 360 media center and to be honest it sucks as far as file format is concerned. I have some videos that are not able to be played through it and I just don’t like the interface since it over complicates it for nothing.

The simple solution to this that I found was to use your Video Library, Music Library and Picture Library that is found under your My Xbox menu. When selecting any of those you are given 4 different options on where the data is stored. I’m going to show you how you can use the Portable Device option using an external hard drive to store all your media to view and listen on your Xbox 360.

A lot of people thinks that the only way you can use the Portable Device option is by using a usb key. Well actually you can use a USB external hard drive but you must make a small adjustment to make it work.

The Xbox 360 can only read Portable Devices that are formated on a FAT32 format and not NTFS. That is why your usb key works since it is by default formated as a FAT32.

If you are using Windows XP or Vista you will have a problem trying to format your external hard drive as a FAT32 or not be given the option period. There is a way around it!

First you must download this file here.

Extract the single EXE file to somewhere suitable, like C:\. Click Start->Run and enter cmd. CD to the where you extracted the fat32format exe, e.g. by typing CD /D c:\

Type this

fat32format f: (f: being the hard drive you want to format. It may be different for you like being the h: or d: which ever it is)

You should see this displayed

Warning ALL data on drive ‘f’ will be lost irretrievably, are you sure (y/n)

Before you go any further please make sure that you have backed up any information that is on your external hard drive as this will erase everything in it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

hit y and press enter. Your external hard drive will start formating and it shouldn’t take to long. Once its done your external hard drive is now compatible with your Xbox 360.

Now you can throw in all your music, picture and videos in your hard drive and put them in folders and stuff to better organize your files. plug in your external usb hard drive to your Xbox 360 and voila!

The cool thing of doing this is that the Xbox 360 is able to view several media format which makes it an amazing multimedia center for your home. Enjoy