Hi. My girlfriend has an 810 and is traveling around the world with it for a year. I would like to download off tivo etc. all of her favorite TV shows and movies on to a small hard drive that she can then hook up to her 810 to view when on the road (b/c internal storage cant hold it all and no internet access).

Is this possible and easy to do?
Do i just need a powered hard drive and it should be easy??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

B

It'll work just like a regular computer. Format it FAT (or Ext2/3) and go.

If you want to explore this more deeply, you might try my first Newbie link and enter something like

usb otg "hard drive"

I was using USBControl, but just started using 'USB Host/OTG for Maemo' which is much better and stable. I've posted on it at my website or you can find it on this forum by using the Search.

I use a external mains powered hard drive with my N800 and also small 2GB USB Memory Sticks. If you use a usb powered hard drive you need to make sure the N800 can handle it cos its not a fully powered USB connection like on your PC or laptop.

I'd get some cheap 8GB SD card for the internal & external memory and maybe by a cheap mains powered HD, then copy films/tv series over when near a mains supply.

Thanks for the responses...will try them out on my friend's device. As I will be shipping the HD to Africa (where she is now)...I want as plug and play solution as I can get. Otherwise i will be shipping a $300 brick.

Just FYI, a big hard drive probably wont work because of the power requirements, so you should also send a powered hub as well. I tried my teacher's external (powered) hard drive, and it did not work without a hub. Sometimes powered hard drives work though, it just matters.

Also, this may just be my bad luck, but when ever I tried to watch a video of USB, it freezes both Mplayer and the built in media player after about 3 minutes. When the video is playing, I see the access light on the flashdrive blinking constantly, but then, all of a sudden, it just stops. I lost that drive (along with half my digital imaging project), and haven't tested with others (yet).

If you want to play music, it will be difficult. No media app that I know of will scan your USB device and add it to the library. Everything must be done through the file manager.
(Or, if you are crazy, you can use syslinks or something. Maybe if you link the whole music directory to the internal card, it MIGHT work. I have no idea of what I am talking about, ill try it tomorrow to see if it works)