[valleyboy]

Hi,

I have been streaming media to my PS3 via Nero Media Home 4 (NMH4), files are stored on my laptops hard drive which is where my issue lies. The laptop hard drive is only 80 Gig, only 7 Gig is available free space, in light of this I have bought a 250 Gig external USB hard drive to store all my media files.

I have no issues with setup or streaming of media files that are stored on the laptop hard drive so I am rasonably satisfied that the software is set up correctly. However, I have trouble when attempting to share the media files on the external drive via NMH4, the PS3/NMH4/Laptop doesn't like streaming the files from this drive.

Currently, my only workaround is to copy the file that I would like to stream onto the laptop from the external drive, stream the file, then delete, which is time consuming and a bit of a pain. Can anyone help with this please?

Thanks,
Valleyboy

[Advertisements]

Hi valleyboy

I can not be to specific and will not have the absolute correct terminology.

With that said, the read/write speeds through USB are far less than going straight from the main drive.
In essence, the system will slow down the transfer speed and you will probably be getting hesitation, stuttering, and skipping.

I believe your only option is a larger internal hard drive.

Please wait for other responses.

123runner

[123Runner]

Hi valleyboy

I can not be to specific and will not have the absolute correct terminology.

With that said, the read/write speeds through USB are far less than going straight from the main drive.
In essence, the system will slow down the transfer speed and you will probably be getting hesitation, stuttering, and skipping.

I believe your only option is a larger internal hard drive.

Please wait for other responses.

123runner

[valleyboy]

Hi valleyboy

I can not be to specific and will not have the absolute correct terminology.

With that said, the read/write speeds through USB are far less than going straight from the main drive.
In essence, the system will slow down the transfer speed and you will probably be getting hesitation, stuttering, and skipping.

I believe your only option is a larger internal hard drive.

Please wait for other responses.

123runner

Thanks for this response. I have to say that this is what I am currently looking into (internal hard drive upgrade) as I thought this may be the case, but I'm no expert on these things hence my post for advice. If I can get away with utilising my current hardware somehow that would be great.

[123Runner]

Since you already have a USB external drive.
You can "clone" an image to the external.
Install the new drive in the laptop and the clone the image back.
Most drive manufacturers have tools to do this.

I have found Easeus To Do backup to be real easy to use.
It is also free.

[valleyboy]

Ok, this is interesting. I have just been looking into buying a 'cloning device' that comes with cloning software. Using this method I would plug the device into a usb socket, then plug the new hard drive into the device, then clone the existing hard drive to the new one, then swap the hard drives and hey presto. I understand this but have a question if I were to go down your route of using my existing external usb drive.....


Since you already have a USB external drive.
You can "clone" an image to the external.
Ok, I understand so far.....

Install the new drive in the laptop and the clone the image back.
Most drive manufacturers have tools to do this.
This is where I get a little lost. This would mean booting up the laptop with the new empty hard drive already inserted, and presumably the usb drive plugged in to run the OS prior to cloning back to the new hard drive? Will this work? How will the laptop start up from the usb device?

Also........more questions I'm afraid.......My usb drive is 250Gb, it already has lots of media stored on it but has enough free space to store the contents of the laptops hard drive. Could I add a partition to the usb drive that is just big enough to accept the clone data without affecting the files currently stored on it?

Thanks again
VB

[valleyboy]

Also, if anyone has any ideas on streaming from the usb drive, I'm all ears.

[123Runner]

I re-read what I posted.

At least you understand what I said, and it raised the questions.

I (unfortunately) was not watching what I was writing.
"cloning" versus "image" is different.
Cloning is making an exact copy of the drive. The drive would be bootable. You could not use the drive for anything else.

Imaging is creating a image file structure (done automatically) of the hard drive.
The image can be saved on CD or hard drive and moved between them. You can have more than 1 image on the drive because they are just files.
You can save other data to the drive as long as the image files remain intact.
To "restore" the image if the drive crashes, or you want it on another drive you would have to boot from the imaging softwares boot disk.
You would use something like Barts PE with Easeus on it.
Norton Ghost would also do the clone and image and has a boot cd to restore the image.
There are many other cloning and imaging programs out there that pretty much do the same thing.
Some are easier than others. I opt for easy.

The easiest is to use another USB enclosure with the new hard drive installed in that enclosure..
You can then use Easeus ToDo to "clone" the drive.
You would then remove the drive from the laptop and install the "new" drive and you should be up and running.

I hope that I cleared this up.
Again, my apologies.

123runner

[valleyboy]

Ok, thanks for the time you have spent responding.

I think I would prefer to go down the hard drive with enclosure and cloning route. Sounds more straight forward. Unfortunately, I need more support if possible? More questions.....

How do I know what type of hard drive to buy for the laptop? Laptop is a HP Pavillion DV5215US. I realise that I would need a laptop drive, but my understanding is that there are two different types of laptop hard drive?

Cheers
Valleyboy

[123Runner]

The cloning will be the easiest to do.

Looks like HP is keeping the type of drive their little secret. I suspect it is a ide drive.
HP gave me the Manual. It did not tell be a type.
HP gave me the Specifications. Still no type of drive.
Google search got me to a picture on Amazon. Picture shows ide

Lets see if we can get some system information.

Download and install Free Everest Home Edition
Open it.
1: In left pane expand Computer folder.
2: Click once on Summary
3: In upper menu, go to Report. Not the Report icon
4: And then to Quick Report-Summary
5: Save it in text file, and paste it in your next post.

DO NOT INCLUDE ANYTHING UNDER THE LINE THAT SAYS "DEBUG- PCI"

123runner

[valleyboy]

That is a nice piece of free software. The FAT32 partition contains files used for system recovery.



Here you go, report below:



--------[ EVEREST Home Edition © 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc. ]------------------------------------------------------------

Version EVEREST v2.20.405
Homepage http://www.lavalys.com/
Report Type Quick Report
Computer LAPTOP1
Generator ############
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
Date 2010-01-02
Time 15:34


--------[ Summary ]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name LAPTOP1
User Name #############

Motherboard:
CPU Type Mobile AMD Turion 64 ML-34, 1800 MHz (9 x 200)
Motherboard Name Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv5000 (EZ535UA#ABA)
Motherboard Chipset ATI Radeon Xpress 200M, AMD Hammer
System Memory 1024 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Phoenix (06/21/06)
Communication Port 3Com Bluetooth Serial Client (COM16)
Communication Port 3Com Bluetooth Serial Host (COM17)

Display:
Video Adapter ATI MOBILITY RADEON Xpress 200 Series (128 MB)
Video Adapter ATI MOBILITY RADEON Xpress 200 Series (128 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (RS480M)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Generic Television

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter ATI SB400 - AC'97 Audio Controller

Storage:
IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
IDE Controller Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller SCSI/RAID Host Controller
Disk Drive FUJITSU MHV2080AH PL (80 GB, 5400 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4084N
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 62243 MB (7442 MB free)
D: (FAT32) 13011 MB (789 MB free)
Total Size 75254 MB (8231 MB free)

Input:
Keyboard Quick Launch Buttons
Mouse Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad

Network:
Network Adapter Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN (192.168.1.5)
Network Adapter Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Modem 3Com Bluetooth DUN Client
Modem 3Com Bluetooth Fax Client
Modem 3Com Bluetooth LAN Client
Modem AC97 Soft Data Fax Modem with SmartCP

Peripherals:
Printer Canon PIXMA iP1500
Printer HP OfficeJet V40
Printer Microsoft XPS Document Writer
Printer PDF995
USB1 Controller ATI SB400 - USB Controller
USB1 Controller ATI SB400 - USB Controller
USB2 Controller ATI SB400 - USB 2.0 Controller
Battery Microsoft AC Adapter
Battery Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 6% on drive D:.

[123Runner]

This is the drive type

Disk Drive FUJITSU MHV2080AH PL (80 GB, 5400 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)

You do not need to buy a Fujitsu. Maxtor, seagate western digital, are all good.

Is this something you added?

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 6% on drive D:.

If it is it is not a problem because that is the recovery partition.

That is a nice piece of free software. The FAT32 partition contains files used for system recovery.

Stick around and learn. we have a lot more free (and good) tools.

123runner

[valleyboy]

Is this something you added?

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 6% on drive D:.

If it is it is not a problem because that is the recovery partition.

No. This was contained within the original report.

So I look for a 2.5" IDE internal hard drive? Is this the correct description to search for? Obviously there will be different capacities.

[123Runner]

Ok on the warning. I just havent seen that come up before, but then again not to many are that low on space.

So I look for a 2.5" IDE internal hard drive? Is this the correct description to search for? Obviously there will be different capacities.

That is correct.

You will also need a USB enclosure for the 2.5 inch ide drive.

Something like This, but anything you are comfortable with.

When you remove the old drive from the laptop, DO not format it or clear the OS/data till the new one is verified ok.
Also on the drive coming out of the laptop there will be a guide assembly attached to it that has 2 guide pins on it. It is attached with 4 small screws (2 on each side). It has to be removed very carefully and attached to the new drive.

[valleyboy]

Ok, great stuff. I will update and "close" this thread when I get around to doing the upgrade. I'll be spending some time searching for the relevant bits and pieces first.

Thanks again
VB