Note: I'd previously used my usb passport for almost a year with macdrive hfs+ format, till it was corrupted - had to reformat and start over. ** I originally used the MacDrive tutorial from this site as a matter of fact... Now after formatting w macdrive 8 i can not copy/write files to it from fsd/xex menu. In macdrive, I initialized and created new volume and formatted hsf+ I have written loads of files to it from pc, just not working with jtag. * Any suggestions, advise? Are there any diagnostic reports I could paste that would help anyone figure out problem? IS there some other prep I was supposed to do after setting up macdrive? ** DOES having write cache (I think thats the term) DISABLED effect the jtag's ability to write to this drive? I disabled because i was afraid of corrupting drive again from improper removal. Just tested again with write cache enabled and still nothing... *** As mentioned, the passport usb harddrive had previously worked 100% in the manner I'm trying to reestablish - it was corrupted though... Could the disk still have a corrupted mbr or something of that nature despite having reformatted with disk management (tried to partition part ntfs/hfs+ didn't work.) and then with macdrive. I've tried to find help on almost all the major 360 forums and nothing, anyone know what might be the problem? I'm not just imaging that I used to write/copy files to the macdrive usb portable hdd, right? I mean the jtag WILL write to HFS+ right? I remember using the usb drive to back up profiles/game saves cause ftp way too slow!
im not too sure about this but try to make a partition formatted to fat32 and see if the xbox will detect it
If you had profiles / saves on the USB drive you will have configured it as Xbox 360 storage on the memory section of the dashboard, you can not just copy saves / profiles to a FAT32 or HFS+ drive. You have to configure it for use in the 360 which formats the drive as FAT32 and creates a container up to 16gb in size the 360 can use to store data. Unless by backup you mean you copied the content folder to the USB drive and didnt do it though the dashboard? XEX Menu 1.1 will read HFS+ however it has never had the ability to write to it, i'm 100% sure about that. Freestyle Dash it will read HFS+ i believe, however unless something has changed recently I don't think it could ever write to HFS+ drives.
I'm 99% sure you could never write to HFS+ directly from the 360. Im sure you have to copy your content on to the HFS+ drive from the PC to have the 360 read it.
i'm starting to think your correct and i'm imagining the fact i used to backup my game saves to it! I did get one reply from xboxscene or 360iso where someone told me i couldn't write to it and i politely told him he was wrong. he then replied after checking on irc with some developers that yes, it could be done- but that certain things were very finicky about doing it... I know i didn't back up those huge game save folders on ftp cause its so slow... can someone refresh my memory, fat32 limits total capacity of drive, correct? Thus really being illogical choice for 750gb portable hdd, correct?
I have looked online and can not find anything about the Xbox 360 been able to write to HFS+ anyway, even the Wikipedia article for HFS+ states "Microsoft has created an HFS+ driver for the Xbox 360 mainly for the purpose of reading HFS+ formatted iPods." FTP is fast when both the 360 and PC are wired to the network, i can transfer files at the full 100mbps. On wireless its going to be significantly slower. You can format your whole 750gb drive as FAT32, the main limitation that's likely to bother you is you can not store single files that are larger than 4gb in size. If all you want to store is Xbox 360 games in the format of files / folders then you should be fine with this. If however you want to store large ISO or massive MKV movies on the drive then the 4gb limit will likely be a problem. It really depends what else you want to use the drive for at the end of the day.