Video from External HD on Philips DVP5960 issues

[Chancellor]

I have a Philips DVP5960, with the USB1.1 on it. My old roommate had an external HD that allowed him to play .avi video on the player when connected via usb. I just purchased a Hitachi X500 external HD, put some .avi files on it, and hooked it up, but no dice. Any advice as to what I can do to make this operation successful? Firmware? Or should I look at a different eternal HD? Any help would be much appreciated - usually I'm fairly electronics-savvy, but this is eating at my brainpan with a violent fervor.

[edDV]

I have a Philips DVP5960, with the USB1.1 on it. My old roommate had an external HD that allowed him to play .avi video on the player when connected via usb. I just purchased a Hitachi X500 external HD, put some .avi files on it, and hooked it up, but no dice. Any advice as to what I can do to make this operation successful? Firmware? Or should I look at a different eternal HD? Any help would be much appreciated - usually I'm fairly electronics-savvy, but this is eating at my brainpan with a violent fervor.

Most if not all Philips players only see FAT32 disk format over USB, not NTFS, HFS or other.

[jagabo]

Yes, reformat FAT32.

[Chancellor]

That's the thing - it's already set up as FAT32.

[jagabo]

Is it a single active partition? I don't remember for sure, but it may not work with extended partitions. Try using Swiss Knife to format.
http://download.cnet.com/CompuApps-SwissKnife-V3/3000-2248_4-10070864.html

[Chancellor]

Is there any programs similar to Swiss Knife that run off a Mac OS?

[edDV]

Mac OSX will allow you to set a FAT32 primary partition with a second HFS partion. Problem is pure FAT32 only allows 30GB maximum partition size.

[jagabo]

It's Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7's format utility that's limited to 32 GB. Win98 can create up to 128 GB FAT32 partitions. SwissKnife can go higher -- at least up to 2TB. Larger FAT32 partitions may not work as boot drives and some other device may have problems with them. I don't know what the Philips 5960's limits are.

[jman98]

One possible issue - even if you get the disk format right on the hard drive, some DVD players require that some external hard drives be powered to play them from a USB drive. If your drive does not come with its own power source you may need that to make it work. I can't guarantee that this is your problem, but I have heard of this being the issue.

[edDV]

My Philips 5992 has power on the USB port (even with the unit turned off) but it may not be enough to power an external drive. I use it to power a LED lamp.

[jagabo]

That's a good point. Philips players do provide some power on the USB port but not as much as a PC. So many USB powered hard drives will not work without external power.

[MJA]

The 90/92 models have enough power for any external based on the 2.5" drive,but not the 60 and 82 models.did u test it with a flash drive?

[Chancellor]

The 90/92 models have enough power for any external based on the 2.5" drive,but not the 60 and 82 models.did u test it with a flash drive?

Yes, I tried the flash drive...and it works fine.
Also tried my old roommate's external hard drive w/ power supply and that worked.
This seems to be my logical conclusion - I need something with it's own plug-in power supply.