Get past the 4gb file on an external hard drive for the xbox360
wmv hd files
First off as we all know the xbox360 will not read ntfs external drives so that sucks right because
we all would like to play some our wmv hd files on the xbox360. And most exceed the the 4gb file
size limit for fat32 as we know the xbox360 will read a fat32 drive no problem.
plus dual layer disc cost a lot of money and streaming can be a pain and some times the video
will lag even when its a lan line network.so i did some searching around and found out that apple
yes i said it apple on some of its computers and ipods use a file system called hfs+ is a type
of you guessed it fat file system(that aka will get you passed that 4gb limit).the only problem is that file system windows will not read on by its self.
so and thus in lies a new problem so i did some more searching and found a little software call macdrive 7
(http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/)
it works on xp and vista what this program dose is let
you format a windows base ntfs or fat32 drive it the hfs+
format and not only dose it let your windows base computer see it.it will all so let you put files aka wmv and wmvhd files in it that are over 4gb limit of a a normal fat 32 drive.so you can play wmv hd content
under the xbox360 media blade out of an external hard drive.the program (macdrive7)(there is a trial there but its only seven day)(step 1)is very easy to use to get you set up you need to chose a drive i chose a seagate free agent 320gb external drive for my weapon of choice other drive should work fine for this to.
(step 2)install macdrive 7 let it restart and you will see a peace symboled in the right hand corner next to the time at least in window xp.(step 3) double click
on the macdrive icon it will have list of stuff it dose
you will see create a mac disk there are two choices
click the format or repair drive tab.(step 4)it ask what would you like to do click on the second one that says modify mac volumes create format and delete mac volumes then click next.(step 5)chose your drive in the list that you want to format (note that this format will erase the drive you chose so make sure you chose the right one you want to change.)(step 6 click on initializes drive it then should ask you do you want to format this drive all data will be lost click next
it will then format your drive in this great hfs+ fat
format that will let you put wmv hd files that are bigger than that 4gb limit of normal fat32.
your are now done with this tut. just a quick note you do need to have this program in the computer to read
that drive if not it will not show up plus you will know what drive it is it put a little red apple icon next to the drive that is in this format after you are done you can just drag and drop wmv hd files strait in to this drive.plus you drive still has full function
in window like any other drive you might all so have in you system.i hope this has helped people get the most out of there xbox360 as possible. written by faithlesssoul aka frozenchicken in the #fw channel.
peace out

Great way to get around it!, but man your formatting really needs to be cleaned up in that post.

Nice, I don't have my Mac Mini on but surely OSX can format it as HSF+ as well for free in Disk Manager ?

I'm 99% sure it can. Oh, and nice find faithlesssoul.

Lol you act like you found it out yourself, tough luck buddy, no credits for you, cause I've seen it before, right here: http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php?t=301528

I too have seen it before... but he didn't claim to be the one who found it. And he didn't simply copy and paste from that article. He wrote a guide (which could be cleaned up ALOT) to help other people to do it also, and the guide IS by him (although he should credit the source he found the info as I doubt he found it out completely on his own).

Congrats on the guide, but you should really revise it so it's not one huge block of text.

Well sorry I didn't read the entire block of text. Maybe he did figure it out himself. Who cares, he didn't copy the guide directly as far as I can tell, so I don't see a problem with it. Even if he did see the shred of info around the net, which is usually "HFS+ formatted drives work on a 360", at least he turned it into a guide with a bit more info in it, it actually tells you step by step what you need to do to get it working, and AFAIK it's the only full guide to doing it, so...

yeah i can do it on my macbook dont see why it would be a problem

i did for the xbox scene and the windows user that do not have a mac. plus if you have a mac and
a pc windows base box you still only could see the drive it in osx not windows if you did not have that macdrive software. i do not claim to be the first i just did it help people that might be looking through the forums
and might be having problems with wmv filesor just do not want to network or do not want to burn big media
files so i hope in the end i hope it helps a few people thanks.

I wrote the original post on avforums (which was then copied to digital-forums by someone).
I'm glad faithlesssoul posted here cos my original post was made simply to share the good news so the more people know the better

Now if only someone would show me a way to play x264 on 360 I'll be well chuffed (without re-encodes/transcodes)

NOT POSSIBLE.

can anyone confirm if they can do this for an mp3 player that allows for a hard drive partition seperate from their music...[i.e ipods and creative zen visions]

it doesnt work ...stuck with fat32

No Luck.

I went to format a drive to htfs+ and installed Mac drive 7.0, the installation was flawless.
However, when I try to format a drive using 'modify mac voulmes' the mac drive 7 disk manager stops responding almost as soon as you hit the 'modify button'.

I am running a fully-updated Vista OS and VISTA can see all the drives which register as 'healthy' and are all currently NTFS.

My attempt at self-support has been a nightmare, i couldn't find a single entry anywhere about 'mac drive 7 disk manager not responding' or 'mac drive 7 won't list drives'.

If anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it.


tb

There are wmv-hd releases now if you do your research you can find 720p and 1080p releases. You can also burn a wmv-hd or .mp4 transcode of .mkv on a DL disc with UDF file format on Nero and it plays just fine w/o any tricks since UDF supports 4gb+ file size.

DL discs are what? $1.25 and under these days online, get some of those and burn .wmv or .mp4 with UDF and you're set.

Youve been probably warned in Macdrive Setup too. For me it was a driver conflict. Update your Spdt Drivers. Download is here:
http://www.disc-tools.com/download/sptd

I am a bit confeussed as to what all of this means. With this program, macdrive, and formating NTFS harddrives so that they look like a mac drive or ipod if you will, we will be able to have an external drive of any size loaded with media and just conect it via usb and not have to deal with streaming anymore?

Thats right.. If you dont want to pay for macdrive check out this guide.. Its pretty a good solution imo.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=633883

Has anyone done this and used their external drive plugged into the 360 to watch movies and such from the harddrive?

A lot of people have.. I did mine with the macdrive hack about a year ago.

How big of a harddrive are you useing, and did you buy macdrive as well? Has anyone done this useing the Linux method?

i have done this with 2 different HDD: one 2"5 160GB and one 3"5 500GB. formatted with mac (HFS+). works perfectly for video playback and music. some of my movie files are as big as 8GB. i ripped all my dvd to mp4 with handbrake (appleTV setting). it's the best i could do since the xbox can't play ripped dvds (iso or video_ts). mp4 look as good as original dvd on a very large screen (720P projector thru VGA cable).
also, no problem from windows to access files with macdrive. it's not slow and macdrive includes tools to check HFS+.

Where can I get macdrive for cheap? I know the website sells it for 60bucks but is their any place I can maybe get a dicounted version, or maybe one priced for students?

is there a way to format a partition only?

I know this topic is a bit old, but I'm having a similar problem with my 16gig Corsair flash drive... It works fine as Fat32, but when I tried macdrive and formatted it as HFS+, my 360 will no longer recognize it.
Any ideas?

same problem here ...date of manufacture 15/03/2008 (elite, falcon,Benq)

Pleased you are having success. Will get into them myself soon.

Does anyone know how to format back to FAT32 from HFS+? I can't figure this out and my trial for macdrive runs out tomorrow and the drive wont be readable on my pc.

So i have my drive formatted to HSF+ and was wondering if anyone can help me out. I have some movies i have stored on a NTSF drive in rar format.(HD-WMV) I want to somehow extract these movies stright from the NTSF drive onto the HSF+ drive. Is this possible with ANY programs availiable.

If not what are my options.
Thanks

Also another question. If my drive is formatted NFS+ will folders show up in the xbox360 or do the video files have to be root on the drive. Thanks