Reading files on an external hard drive

[Tejerka]

hi,
I want to know how can we play music video picture that are on an external hard drive without copying every time on the machine?
Media center detects the USB drive but not the external hard drive.
thank you.

[STC]

Hi Tejerka,
Can you clarify a bit more. Is this a mobile device? Is the external drive located on another PC?

[Tejerka]

i want to add all of file from any external Drive was connect to the pc to the librery of media center.
but it's must add file automaticly without change settings every time.
thanks.

[Fleadh]

How about you just set every single letter up as a library source so no matter what drive letter gets assigned to the device when you plug it in wmc will find it.

may not work but I dont know of anyway to guarenteewhen a device thats not been plugged into the PC before gets assigned teh same drive letter.

Its easy to configure the same device to get the same number every time its plugged in but that's not wheat you're asking.

[Scallica]

While the external drive is connected, go to Control Panel--->Admin Tools-->Computer Management. Then, look for Storage-->Disk Management. Find your external hard drive, right click on the partition and change the drive letter to Z:. Then, in Windows Media Center, add Z: as a library. Every time you connect the external drive, the system "should" always add it as the Z: drive

[machausta]

I'm having an issue with my western digital passport drive -- I can add the drive letter, but the drive will stop responding after a couple of hours, even if its in use. This is not an issue on other computers, just this one. All power management is currently disabled for troubleshooting purposes.

Ideas?