Connecting an External USB Hard Drive to Raspbmc
#1
I am very new to the raspberry pi/linux world and know little to nothing about code, so bare with me. I also apologize if this solution is posted somewhere else, as I have searched with no luck.

I just recently purchased a raspberry pi specifically as a media center to digitally play all my movies. I would like to use an external hard drive to store all the movies that is directly connected to the pi via USB. I have downloaded raspbmc onto a SD card and have had no issues running XBMC. However, when I connect the external hard drive directly to the raspberry pi, I am having trouble accessing the folders inside the drive where the movies are stored. The drive shows up under the videos tab on XBMC but I get an error the reads "path not found or invalid" under a remote share window. After tooling around online for a solution I have been able to access my computer's hard drive and the external while it's connected to the computer via the windows network smb. While this works fine, this is not my intention and I would prefer not to rely on my computer at all. I've also come across going into the rootfile system, media and my external shows up there as well. However, it does not allow me to view any of the folders in the drive and acts as if it is empty. I have also attempted this with a flash drive with similar results. From what I've read, I believe external drives need to be mounted but am unsure how to do this.

I have found several similar issues on various forums that all mention things such as codes starting with sudo and various other names, but am very unfamiliar with how to even start entering or searching around those areas. I'm hoping someone can provide a very simple walk through on how to mount an external hard drive.

Thanks in advance.
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#2
Seeing as this thread has been viewed almost 400 times and nobody has replied in any sort of attempt to help. I have been able to figure out my problem myself. For anybody who is in the same boat and looking for a solution for how to mount an external hard drive in layman's terms, visit the two links below. There is very little nerd speak and is pretty easy to follow.

http://forum.stmlabs.com/showthread.php?tid=2862

http://kwilson.me.uk/blog/force-your-ras...starts-up/
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#3
Thanks, good to know when I get my pi in.
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#4
(2013-02-17, 00:47)CySox Wrote: http://kwilson.me.uk/blog/force-your-ras...starts-up/

I have a couple questions...

1. Is this method above still required to do--to have your Raspberry Pi mount an external hdd every time it boots (being it has been connected/disconnected) or was this addressed in a recent update?

2. I was looking to have my External hdd plugged into my Pi and only disconnect when adding media to it from my Mac. I was wondering if when I turn on/off the Pi my External will power on with it? How about when the Pi shuts down to the red light standby mode will the external shut off as well?
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#5
Have one question people. I have my hdd connected to router asus n66u, and my raspberry connected wit hcable to router. The disk is ntfs, because thats the only filesystem i know how to transfer files to from windows. I stream movies from the hdd to raspberry today over ethernet.

My problem is, movies over 20 gb is unwatchable, it stay and loads every 20 sec or so. So i looking for a better solution....

Should i connect the disk to raspberry via USB instead ( max 480 Mbit? ) and transfer files from computer to HDD via network-raspberry? Or should i format it at it is connected to router, to ext3? Means problematic to transfer files from pc ( win7) ?
Or is it something else I should do?
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#6
If the net connection doesn't work adequately for you, then local mounting the HDD would be better, and it doesn't matter which format you use as long as you've managed to mount it and write to it.
Derek
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#7
It have been working very well until now when i tried bigger mkv`s ( 23+gb). Should that big files work flewless?
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#8
(2014-04-15, 10:04)jolle1 Wrote: It have been working very well until now when i tried bigger mkv`s ( 23+gb). Should that big files work flewless?

NTFS is inefficient with linux. That may be the problem. Formatting it to ext format would be more efficient.
Overclocking may help.

You might want to transfer the file (or a cut down sample) to sdcard or a USB stuck (that is formatted with ext3/ext4) and confirm that plays,
just to be sure it is the disk that is the bottleneck.
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Connecting an External USB Hard Drive to Raspbmc0