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Some drives are not auto detected but the TV knows all about them, the brand, the size, etc.
How do you access such a drive? I can understand not having access to a drive the TV can't see. I don't understand why you can't access one the TV knows about it or why USB isn't one of the Sources.
Anyone? Thanks - rev
What file system did you format the drive with? It may be able to see the physical drive, but it can't read the filesystem. You'd need to check the TV manual to see which filesystems are supported (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, etc.)
It's NTFS and that system is recognized. I know that from playing movies on drives the TV auto detects.
Huh? If the TV can play movies from the drive, then isn't it working? You need to explain exactly what you are doing. Is it a smart TV? Are you using a specific app?
Make/model of the TV and drives might help too.
The TV can play movies from other NTFS drives that were auto detected. That's how I know the format is supported. It's not a format issue. It's an access issue. The drive in question is not auto detected so no media player is automatically invoked but the TV recognizes it and knows what brand and what size it is. In computer terms, it would be like seeing the drive in Disk Manager but not getting a drive letter in Explorer.
Ok, so what are the differences between the drives? Like which ones work, and which don't? Do they have an AC adapter or are they USB-powered? You didn't give any make/models, so we're flying blind.
For your computer reference, it could still be something like an unsupported file system. The drive would be physically detected, but the OS couldn't read it. Without more details, it's hard to give an answer.
Some devices have problems with drives larger than 4TB. That's another possibility.
What are the File Extensions of the movie files?
And are they same as a known working type?
You might have nailed it when you mentioned the size. The visible drive that's inaccessible is 5TB. I'll check the manual but I've got a feeling that's the problem.
Working drive is WD Elements 2TB USB powered, inaccessible drive is Toshiba no model 5TB PSU powered. My TV is a Sansui 50" AND it supports all the common extensions.
That's why it's important to give us details. I've also seen issues with some old devices and drives larger than 2TB.
You guys don't need details, you know everything!
However, just to make you happy I'll provide everything next time and I've got a doosey coming up.
Seriously though, thanks! Now I have to split 7,000 movies across about 5 smaller disks!
The 5TB drive might work if you made the partition smaller. No guarantees though. Also, Microsoft has tweaked the NTFS format at various times during Windows "upgrades", so that can also affect things.
Will I have to copy everything off before creating the partition?
If the partition has enough free space, you might be able to shrink it.
You'd want to. If something happens during the repartition, you probably won't be able to recover the data.Quote:
Will I have to copy everything off before creating the partition?
You'd have to shrink the original partition, and then create/format a new partition from the unallocated space. Even then, as jdc2000 mentioned, this still may not work.
A 5TB partition would require a GPT partition table, not MBR. Even if you shrink the current partition, it would still be using GPT. Your TV may not be able to recognize GPT.
The only way to change that is to re-initialize the disk (I.E. wipe it out) and then use MBR. That limits you to 2TB, even if the physical disk is 5TB.
Basically, there are 2 main issues that the TV can't see the larger drive.
1. It can only read MBR partitions (2TB limit - software)
2. It cannot read 4K sectors (4TB limit - hardware)
We don't know which is causing the problem. If the TV can't read 4K sectors, even repartitioning wouldn't fix that.
Without losing data? My movie collection really is 7,000 and goes from a to z across several disks. I did leave some space for expansion but I don't think it's enough to shrink the current partition by a useful amount.
The only way to make sure you don't lose data is to copy the data to another drive. Any time you mess with partitions, you run the risk of losing data.
Again, you would need to find out the hard drive limit of your TV. I've never seen a Sansui TV, so you'd have to look up the model number. There are several possible reasons that it doesn't see the 5TB drive.
That's what I thought, and the drives are fairly full so shrinking is out. I didn't leave much space because they don't make movies like they used to and I didn't anticipate adding many more. I'll have to rtfm and if I don't find the answer, I'll just try it and see.