Tips & Tricks Bypass Fat32 4gb File Limit In External Media

[D3viL]

Get Past The 4GB File Limit On An External Hard Drive For The Xbox360:
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First off as we all know the xbox360 will not read NTFS external drives so that sucks because we all would like to play some HD content on our XBOX. Problem is that most exceed the the 4GB file size limit for FAT32.

Until now the only solution was to burn dual layer disc's but those cost a lot of money and require a re-encodement of the video files which will often make it lose quality. You can also stream the video but if your not on a windows or you don't have a good connection this can be a problem...

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+. Thatt is a type of you guessed it FAT File System that will be read by the XBOX and will not have a 4GB file size limit!

The only problem is that the file system in windows will not read on by its self. So in lies a new problem, I did some more searching and found a little software called MacDrive it works on XP, Vista and Windows 7. What this program does is let you format a windows based NTFS or FAT32 drive to the HFS+ format and not only does it let your windows base computer see it but It will all so let you put files in it that are over 4GB limit of a normal FAT32 drive. So you can play any type of video content supported by the 360 even if it is over 4GB.

Instructions :

• It is very easy to use and to get set up, you need to chose a HDD, I chose a seagate Free Agent 320GB external drive as my weapon of choice other drives will work fine for this too.

• Step 1 - Install MacDrive on your computer, let it restart.

• Step 2 - Start "Macdrive" by clicking the icon from the start menu or desktop.

• Step 3 - Click on format and repair mac disk, Click modify Mac volumes than choose "Next".

• Step 4 - Click on the external usb HDD you want to use and than click on initialize disk. Click on "free space" then "new volume". Name the drive.
  Note that this format will erase the drive you chose, so make sure you chose the right one! And if you have any data in the drive make sure its backed up!

• Step 5 - Make sure format is Mac OS Extended (HFS+). Press OK.

Now your done :w00t:!
Once its done formatting the drive upload you favorite film on there and test it out!

Also this was my first post in this site, hope to be a great part of the community!
Enjoy!

 

[GoofySpyLORD]

Thank You @Mr.Lonely for this wonderful Trick

 

[Smit90]

Thank You for this information

 

[Andrewxeeffigy]

Very cool. Usefull information

 

[hai.nguyenly83]

thank you

 

[Unkn0wnOne]

Cool, will try on xbox

 

[storas]

Cool, but why even bother with FAT32 anymore?

 

[YankeeFan]

you can format a drive using exfat and it will be read by both Mac and Windows. I have a 1 tb external that I back up both mac and windows, But I think the winner with MacDrive is the going over that 4gb threshold Mr. Lonely pointed out.

My 2 cents.. any change.. donate to the charity of choice.

 

[vdogeek]

Thank you @Mr.Lonely , good read!

 

[Elzer]

Mr.Lonely Thank You for this good information

 

[kenzaki]

my external hdd cant be detected in my pc but in my laptop it works fine but slow. please help

 

[exotic]

Nice artickel, thanks a lot!