How to Set up an External Hard Drive for PS3

It may be available in several hard drive sizes. However, in a world where even Gigabytes fail to satiate users' hunger for entertainment, the use of external hard drives has come in the mainstream. Why not? You have in hand the best video game console in the world which is also a killer center for multimedia. So, if you survive on the PlayStation 3 and can't think beyond, you might want to add an external hard drive that has plenty of space for your multimedia appetite. What's more, there are a slew of video games that do not fit into the PS3's internal hard drive. Using an external hard drive with PS3 will always do the trick for you. The following steps explain the process of adding an external hard drive to a PS3. This might appear to be a tad technically complicated for newbies, but when you go through the instructions, you'll find it as easy as 123. Let's get going.

Setting Up an External Hard Drive for PS3

Now, it really isn't a two-step process in the case of PS3, unlike a computer system or a laptop where you grab your USB cable, connect your external hard drive to the system, and it recognizes the external hardware. The idea is, just any external hard drive doesn't work on your PS3. Instead, for this purpose, you need to use only those hard drives that are formatted using the FAT32 format system. Note that, formatting the external hard drive will remove all data, and hence, you need to take a backup before you carry out any such process. For the purpose of this article, we will consider Windows operating system as your computer OS. The process of setting up an external HDD for PS3 goes as follows:

Step 1
Connect your external hard drive to your computer by using a USB cable. When you're done connecting, go to the Start menu, and click on Control Panel. Select Administrative Tools from there, followed by Computer Management, and lastly, land onto Disk Manager. This will help you check whether your file system type is FAT32 or not.

Alternate Method: You could also check the format system of your external hard drive by going to My Computer, expand the Details section of the window that pops out, which will tell you the file system. If it is FAT32, you need not worry. However, if it is not FAT32, you need to follow step 3 properly.

Step 2
It is always advisable to back up files on your HDD, if at all you have flooded it with some other stuff. When you format the hard drive, it will eradicate all data, and you will lose the files. However, you can transfer the files onto your computer hard drive, which will ensure you don't lose any data.

Step 3
If you don't have FAT32 system, you need to download FAT32Format.exe from the Internet for it is only then that you can begin formatting your external hard drive. So, when you're done downloading it, click on Start, and select Run. Type 'cmd', and hit Enter. Again, type in 'cd desktop' which will navigate you to your desktop directory. Followed by that, type in 'FAT32 format' along with the letter of your hard drive (check in My Computer the hard drive letter such as E: or F:, so that the code becomes FAT32 format E:). Click on Enter to begin formatting.

Step 4
Remove the external hard drive after it is done with formatting. Now, connect the hard drive to your PS3 with the help of a USB cable, and turn it on. If the PS3 recognizes your external hard drive, congratulations! You've successfully formatted your external hard drive, and set it up for PS3. You can select the necessary files, and put 'em into the external hard drive, and later on, in your PC.

It will hardly take you 10 minutes to carry out this process of setting up an external hard drive for your PlayStation 3. Now, when you're through with knowing the process, download as many games as you want, without worrying about their size. Your external hard drive will give you that extra space to stuff all your games and media files into it. During the process, if you learn anything new, do come here and share it.