How to Get a PS3 to Recognize a 60 Gig External Hard Drive

Create Partition

• 1

  Attach the external drive to your computer using a standard USB cable, and then sign in to Windows using an account with administrator privileges.

• 2

  Press the Windows key and the "X" key at the same time, and then select "Disk Management" from the options. On Windows 7 or earlier, click the Start button, type "disk management" into the search field and then press "Enter."

• 3

  Locate the listing for the external drive in the bottom pane of the Disk Management window. If the listing includes the words "Primary Partition," make a note of the letter assigned to the drive. Otherwise, right-click the listing and select "New Simple Volume." Click through the wizard using the default settings, and then make a note of the drive letter.

• 4

  Close the Disk Management window, and then back up any important files on the external drive -- once you reformat it, all your data is lost.

• 5

  Use one of the free third-party utilities described in the next sections to reformat your drive. Once you reformat the drive, create four folders on the drive with the names "Game," "Music," "Video" and "Photo," and then attach the drive to your PS3.

Fat32 Format

• 6

  Navigate to the Ridgecrop Consultants website (link in Resources), and then click the "FAT 32 Formatter" link. Click the "Here" link at the top of the page to select the Windows version of the utility. Click the main image on the next page to download the FAT32 Format executable file.

• 7

  Run the file and click "Yes" to allow it access to your hard drive. The FAT32 Format program interface appears.

• 8

  Change the "Drive" setting to the drive letter of the external hard drive.

• 9

  Click "Start" to format the drive using the FAT32 file system.

HP Format Tool

• 10

  Navigate to the CNET download page for the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (link in Resources), and then click "Download Now."

• 11

  Run the downloaded file, and then click "Yes" to allow the setup program to run. Click through the installation wizard using the default settings.

• 12

  Right-click the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" on your desktop, and then select "Run as Administrator." Click "Yes" to allow the program to run. The program interface appears.

• 13

  Select your external drive under the "Device" setting, and then change the "File System" setting to "FAT32."

• 14

  Check the box next to "Quick Format" and click "Start" to reformat the drive using the FAT32 file system.

MiniTool Partition Wizard

• 15

  Navigate to the MiniTool Partition Wizard website (link in Resources.) Click "Download Now" to go to the CNET download page, where you must click "Download Now" again.

• 16

  Run the downloaded file and click "Yes" to allow the setup program to run. Click through the setup wizard using the default settings. The program will launch on completion.

• 17

  Right-click the listing for your external drive, and then select "Format" from the options.

• 18

  Change the "File System" setting to "FAT32."

• 19

  Click "OK" to format the drive using the FAT32 file system.