Hello Everyone:
The process is very easy and I will try to give you just the most important troubleshooting steps for you to make your PS3 Console to recognize your WD External USB drive(s).
#1: You need an USB Power Booster Cable : It has 1 Micro or Mini USB male connector that goes plugged to your WD External drive and also 2 regular USB male ports that you must plug to your PS3 console.
* Why do you need that cable?: Simple, there is not enough power going from your PS3 to your WD External drive if you use the original USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 cable that comes with the drive.
If you want to know what is the USB port that your WD External USB drive has, please click on the following link: USB Ports
#2: You must format your drive from MAC OS Extended or NTFS to FAT32; DO NOT FORMAT the drive to exFAT (does not work).
* If you have installed in your computer any of the Operating Systems Microsoft Windows you will need to use a third-party application that you can find and download for free from the internet in order to format your external USB drive to FAT32 (I have used “2Tware Fat32Format” which is free and worked flowlessly.
Check the following link: WD How to Format to FAT32
#3: If you want you can also organize the folders on your WD External drive once it was formated to FAT32; here is an example:
- VIDEO
- PHOTO
- MUSIC
- GAME
* If you want to create a backup using your drive the PS3 will automatically create a new folder with named: “PS3”.
I am sure that you will be able to use your WD External USB drives on your video game consoles if you carefully follow the troubleshooting steps.
Why do you have to use a third-party application to format your drive if you are running Windows in your computer? Well let me tell you that Windows has a limitation of 32GB if you want to format your external drives; in other words, even if you have an external drive of 500GB, 1TB or 2TB Windows will only let you use volumes or partitions of 32GB maximum to format them in FAT32 because if the volumen or partition size is bigger than that you are going to see exFAT instead of FAT32 if you use Disk Management to format your drives.
IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO USE PARTITIONS OF 32GB MAXIMUM PLEASE USE A FREE THIRD-PARTY APPLICATION TO FORMAT YOUR DRIVE TO FAT32 IF YOU ARE RUNNING WINDOWS ON YOUR COMPUTER; IF YOU HAVE INSTALLED MAC YOU ARE GOOD TO GO WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS.
Your friend,
Edison Chaves.
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