External hard drive connection to media controller

[Mitch]

Just got my c4 system and installer tried to connect my western digital extrernal 2.0/firewire drive as music source hooked in to controller. Did not work. He tried a memory stick and Composer saw it perfectly. He suggested the issue was the firewire capability of the external h.d. Suggested I get a different one.

Picked up a Seagate Jabil Circuit 160 mb external drive. Transferred 60+ gig of music from my computer to the Seagate (took 26 hours since I had to use the USB 1.1 connection on my Dell!) I then connected the drive to the MC and tried to see the media in Composer. Saw it fine, selected it and hit "scan". Message "scanning 0 of 100" shows with stop button active. Scan never takes place and after 10 minutes or so, goes away without any data.

I'm dying to get my system finally up and running and hear music. Any ideas what the issue may be?

I am hoping to share your answer with the installer when we talk this week. Thanks for any insight you have.

- Mitch

P.S. hard drive is FAT32 and appears to be "whirring" when the scanning is supposedly going on but never finishes or shows any results.

[All Wired Up!]

Mitch,

I'm assuming you're using USB to connect to the external hard drive. I would:

1) Make sure both composer and the MC are updated to latest version.

2) Make sure all music on external hard drive is MP3.

3) Disconnect hard drive and power down.

4) Delete the hard drive under media.

5) Re-boot MC.

6) Re-connect and power-up external hard drive.

7) Click on hard drive in list under media then scan and wait at least 30 minutes to see if it's showing anything other than 0 to 100.

Let me know how it goes. I use a 300G Seagate with no problems.

[lasvegas_rob]

I have noticed that if there is a corrupted file in the drive, it will do that. Unfortunately C4 will not just skip over it - it will lock up the whole damn thing. Try transferring a few folders worth of audio first, and scan it. If that works, the corrupted file is somewhere else in the drive. It sucks, but it works for now.

[jacksonian]

It's not just the C4 hardware that locks up with corrupted mp3 files. My iPod did the same thing. I thought I had damaged the hard drive somehow because it kept hanging while updating songs. All I had to do was delete the offending file and everything went ok. That may have nothing to do with the OP's problem, but I thought it was worth noting that the venerable iPod has the exact same problem, not just C4.