Should USB Flash Drive work with HD200?

[carlgar]

I have a 16 GB Flash drive that I cannot get the HD200 to see. It is formatted to 64k blocks in the NTFS. Does anyone have a USB Flash drive working with the current Beta firmware? If so, any suggestions why mine does not work with the HD200. It does work with all my other systems. I have tried it with both the front and back USB ports.

I got my 160GB Passport essential to work, but only on the back usb port. It generates more power than the front one. It is not useful to me because it is formatted using FAT and will not handle files larger that 4 GB.

I also got an 1TB external USB disk formatted to 64k block in NTFS and it works properly. I only tested it on the front USB port.

At this point I would really like to use the Flash drive for viewing files in stand alone mode but get no indication that the HD200 knows that it is there. Any suggestions or ideas as to what the problem might be?

[bcjenkins]

If you have any linux exp, telnet in and take a look at some of the log files.

I have used high capacity formatted flash memory just fine.

B

PS - For the power problem on a portable HD you could also get one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013LQD7Y

[carlgar]

I do have unix exp. but its been 20 yrs and I am very rusty.

I did get a 2GB USB flash drive to work. It is my oldest and is too slow to use for readyboost on a Vista system. I tried a 4GB that i have used for readyboost and it did not work. I believe the 12 GB was advertised as readyboost ready. It must be lack of power or a speed issue. Neither one of those really make sense to me, since the back USB port can power a passbook disk. Speed seems likely, but I would have expected my external USB disk to have been faster. But I do not know which is really faster.

Do you know anything about the speed of your USB drive? Thanks for the info and the link.

[HeadHodge]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I have a 16 GB Flash drive that I cannot get the HD200 to see. It is formatted to 64k blocks in the NTFS. Does anyone have a USB Flash drive working with the current Beta firmware? If so, any suggestions why mine does not work with the HD200. It does work with all my other systems. I have tried it with both the front and back USB ports.

I have sucessfully used my 8Gb GeekSquad Thumbnail and 16Gb Sandisk Thumbnail with both the front and back USB ports (even both at the same time). I've formatted and tried using my Thumbnails with NTSF, FAT32, and Ext3. They all seem to read ok, but Ext3 is the only format I've been able to write to. Also I've always used the default block sizes when formatting the Thumbnails. I think for NTSF and FAT32, it's either 4K or 8K blocks. Have never used 64K blocks.

Not sure what you mean by Beta firmware? My HD200 is using Software: SageTV V6.5.18.1 and Firmware: 20090702 0. I don't even know how to obtain and load a non-released version.

One thing I've learned (the hard way) is that when I have problems browsing the network and accessing the USB ports with the HD200, doing a hard boot by pulling the power cord solves a lot of my problems (albeit sometimes only temporary). I found and tried a BusyBox command using Telnet to "reboot" the system. Although it successfully reboots the system, it still doesn't work the same as doing the power plug reboot.

[carlgar]

By Beta firmware, I meant the beta that has support for wireless. There are instructions on how to get beta firmware for those that test beta versions. See http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...4&postcount=28 if you want to see them.

I do pull the plug when in doubt. I had to use that method to get any of my USB drives seen.

I may try a reformat with different block size just for kicks. The 2GB flash that worked is in FAT format.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I do have unix exp. but its been 20 yrs and I am very rusty.

I did get a 2GB USB flash drive to work. It is my oldest and is too slow to use for readyboost on a Vista system. I tried a 4GB that i have used for readyboost and it did not work. I believe the 12 GB was advertised as readyboost ready. It must be lack of power or a speed issue. Neither one of those really make sense to me, since the back USB port can power a passbook disk. Speed seems likely, but I would have expected my external USB disk to have been faster. But I do not know which is really faster.

Do you know anything about the speed of your USB drive? Thanks for the info and the link.

SanDisk Cruzer in 4 or 8GB. I have also had them be HFS (Mac), NTFS, and FAT formatted and they loaded fine.

B

[HeadHodge]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

If you have any linux exp, telnet in and take a look at some of the log files.

I have used high capacity formatted flash memory just fine.

B

PS - For the power problem on a portable HD you could also get one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013LQD7Y

I use this USB Powered Hub to power my USB devices. Haven't tried it on the HD200 though (but I think it should work and it's not too pricey).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by HeadHodge

I use this USB Powered Hub to power my USB devices. Haven't tried it on the HD200 though (but I think it should work and it's not too pricey).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product

Thank you for the link. The hub does like the best direction to go for now. I was thinking that a powered hub would be better than the cable that would tie up both of the USB ports. It also has some leds that should give me a better idea of what is going on.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by HeadHodge

I use this USB Powered Hub to power my USB devices. Haven't tried it on the HD200 though (but I think it should work and it's not too pricey).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product

I was after a cable I could throw in a bag when I travel with the HD200..

B

[HeadHodge]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I was after a cable I could throw in a bag when I travel with the HD200..

B

Does it work? If so, what drive are you using with it?

Regards