Kodi Community Forum

[/b]I want to make a media player with XBMC that other people in my family can simply plug in their hard drive and choose a movie from it.

Unless I misunderstood you first have to add everything to the library before you can watch?

This is a bit of an issue because more than 6 hard drives will be connected to the device at different times to watch a movie and then take away again.

Is there a way that they can simply plug it in, choose a file from their hard drive and play it?

The hard drive inside the computer will only be 200 gb and the hard drives with movies will be way over that number.

Any ideas?

Go to videos and choose files. That way you can access the USB device.

But you wont have the possibility to get fanart etc.

Maybe each hard drive could have its own section within XBMC. Custom 1 - Hard Drive 1, Custom 2 - Hard Drive 2, etc. That way each drive's contents is kept seperate and you get metadata/fanart. Just update the library each time the drive is connected

When you hot plug a drive, you should get a pop-up window in XBMC to allow you to select the type of media that you want to access from that drive and it will then list them for you to select and play. If you don't get the pop-up, you can just go to Videos > Files and the drive should be listed; select the drive and it's contents will be listed and you can select and play the desired files(s).

In either case, when you are done with the drive, go to Videos > Files and open the context menu for the drive and select "Safely remove" before unplugging it.