Getting Two Video Hard Drives to work in MP? (1 Viewer)

[angel_07030]

Howdy. I have a slight issue. Not really an issue with MP, but a question as to how to do something... (Forgive me if I didn't post this in the right place... :/ )

My HTPC "had" two hard drives:

One 80GB Drive (Drive C:\) for all of the software that runs the system. (Windows, MP, Burning software, etc.)

One 250GB Drive (Drive D:\) for all of the media read by Media Portal. So it's just a video, picture, and music storage drive.

I recently added another 250GB Drive (Drive F:\) to the system for more video storage.

My problem is that I can't get Media Portal to read the new drive F. When I go to the Movie Folders configuration in the Media Portal Setup, I can add the new drive to the list, but I can't select it. You can only select one location for your movie drive. Here's a shot of what I mean...

Is there a way to have two drives selected and have both read by Media Portal? I can add it to the list of movie folders, but there's no way to browse to it from within MP. :/

Can anyone help?

 

[Noelix]

Deselect the "D Drive" folder, so nothing is checked. When you now start MP up, you should see four folders (the same as shown above), and you will be able to browse your F drive. However, if it was me with this setup I'd prefer to combine the two HDDs into one drive letter with a spanning RAID setup.

 

[angel_07030]

Wow... Worked like a charm. Thanks Noelix. I feel like a dope too... lol So simple. LOL!

However, if it was me with this setup I'd prefer to combine the two HDDs into one drive letter with a spanning RAID setup.

Good idea... Eh........ How does one do this exactly? Would I need to install a RAID card in the box?

 

[Noelix]

Good idea... Eh........ How does one do this exactly? Would I need to install a RAID card in the box?

Depends on your motherboard, if it supports RAID or not. I've only set up a RAID on clean drives though, because you have to format it in Windows when it gets that new huge size.

I have two 300GB sata drives in a spanned RAID so it shows up as one big 600GB drive. My motherboard supports RAID, and when I start up the computer it asks me to setup any raid drives by pressing a key. You can also set up a software raid if your motherboard doesn't support raid, but I haven't really toyed with it as I've heard it can be unstable. Also you can get raid cards, but I've tried that before and had problems because of the large drive size, but it could work. Your best setup would be to have a motherboard that supports raid and large hard drives, and two or more hard drives with nothing on them. Anyways, just thoughts for the future.

Glad you managed to figure the issue out! Welcome to the MP community man.

 

[bigj]

in xp (ntfs) you can also 'mount' the new drive to a folder in the original.

start->right click my computer->manage
click 'storage - disk management'
right click the phys disk device->change drive letter and path
click 'add'
select 'mount in the following empty ntfs folder'
(browse to folder you created on original drive)

HTH,
BigJ

 

[onkl]

Mounting is great, but do read the documentation, since some things can be quite weird (issues with deleting and trashcan etc.)

 

[angel_07030]

Glad you managed to figure the issue out! Welcome to the MP community man.

Actually, you managed to figure it out for me Noelix. Thanks. And, I've actually been using MP for over a year. (I just don't post much unless I'm really stumped. lol...)

I think setting up a RAID system now would probably drive me insane. First, I'd have to back up the first 250GB drive. And I don't really have 60 DVD's to do that right now. lol...

But, all this gives me insight into a future build of a second machine, or an upgrade to my current HTPC later down the line.

I'm actually on my third tear down and rebuild of my HTPC. I think the current is going to stay the way it is for a while. I'm organizing my media across the two drives now. Before, it was all a jumble on the machine.

My first media drive will be for my Music, Pictures, and Ripped movies. (I've ripped my own DVD collection to have it "On demand" right on the hard drive.) I'm busy categorizing every movie file by Genre.

The second media drive will be for my recorded TV shows that I re-master, removing the commercials, and re-encoding to DivX. I have about 60 Episodes of Spongebob for my son which will now reside on the secondary drive, along with my Ren & Stimpy Collection, Star Trek episodes, and everything else I re-master from my TV recordings.

I do appreciate all the input though.