Format your external HDD for PS3 usage

I bought a playstation 3 this weekend (insert evil laugh) and got some trouble letting it play my files on my flash drive.

So, here’s the “how-to”.

The short version

1. Format your external hdd/flash drive to fat32
2. It needs to have a “Video”, “Photo”, “Music” and “Game” folder and all the files have to be in those folders.
3. It supports a range of formats, including divx, xvid, wma, mp3, jpeg, mpeg4, … (it will not play all .avi files !) You can add support for some file formats in one of it’s menu’s (wma needed to be added).

The long version

1. Install gparted (go to system -> administration -> synaptic package manager and search for it) (or use “sudo apt-get install gparted”)

2. Open up gparted (“system -> administration -> partition editor” or in a terminal “gksudo gparted”)

3. In the top right corner there should be a drop down menu, pick your external hdd/flash drive there. (look at the size of the drive).

4. Right-click the partition and select “unmount”.

5. The right-click it again and choose “format to”, then pick “fat32”.

6. Press the apply button.

7. If it’s finished, unplug the external hdd/flash drive and plug it back in.

8. Go to the disk (in ubuntu it should open up by itself) and add the following folders.

“Game”     “Music”     “Photo”       “Video”

9. Add the files in the correct folder, let it copy, right-click the drive and choose “unmount”.

10. Jack the drive into your ps3 and either browse to “photo” “video” or “music” menu’s and you’ll be able to play the files (if the file type is supported).

ps: there are also linux themes available for the ps3 (google “ps3 themes”)

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2008

04/21

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How-to

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