I have a Sony RDR-GX380 DVD Recorder that plays Divx movies off my Kingston thumbdrive just fine but I tried to play movies off a SimpleTech 250GB Bubblegum 2.5" portable hard drive and it's not allowing me access to it.

I formatted the drive to Fat32, same as the thumbdrive, but it still won't read off the drive.

Only thing I can think of is that although the light on the drive powers on, perhaps the USB port on the GX380 cannot supply enough power to drive which comes with two USB connectors (mostly required for Macs).

Your assessment is correct. I have both Sony and Pioneer models with USB input, but I've never had any of them supply enough power to drive a portable USB-powered HDD. I've tried HP Pocket drives and Western Digital passport drives with no luck.

It does not work even if you supply external power to the drive. These recorders are firmware-limited from accessing hard drives directly. Solid state thumb drive, fine, but somehow they detect anything that "spins" and refuse to connect. The Pioneer versions of this recorder chassis can allegedly access a PC-enclosed hard drive by connecting a USB cable between recorder and Windows Vista computer, but the specs are very specific and peculiar so I haven't gotten it to work. In any case DiVX is best left on the PC itself or burned to DVD and played on a modern, cheap DVD player with DiVX versatility. Don't assume the hard drive in a DVD recorder is meant for anything but its own MPEG2 recordings- recorders are practically useless at playing DiVX (or jpegs, or MP3s- that "jukebox" hype is nothing but empty promises).

Well for one, the Sony GX380 DVD recorder doesn't come with a built-in hard drive. It is also very versatile at playing Divx movies and is far from being useless for this task.

Admittingly, I love the Philips DVD players for playing Divx but I needed a "VCR" and the GX380 offered both options, not to mention a very useful USB port for $130 canadian.

I will try to see if if using a powered USB hub will help or if i can find a 5VDC, 1A AC adapter, I will try that too and report my findings on here. I'm surprised a google search didn't provide much on the topic of external hard drives and Divx players... the marriage between the two seem like a match made in heaven (here I was dreaming of instant access to 1,000 movies on my portable drive) yet the lack of information on this would suggest that few have tried this setup.

Sorry, I thought all the "x80" series Sonys had hard drives- the ones that do like the 680 and 780 have crummy DiVX versatility. Sony is copy-protection central, no way are they gonna ever allow external hard drive access, although I suppose you could get lucky if you plug in just the right one. Most people who report here with fantasies of "1,000 movies on a hard drive" can't get the idea to work without a computer in the mix. Now and again we hear urban legends of Phillips models that will play off a USB hard drive, but I've yet to see one you could buy easily. Good luck with your project.:)

Sadly, I won't be able to use this portable hard drive for its intended purpose as the DVD player simply will not recognize it.

I tried using a 5V - 1A AC adapter but it doesn't look like it's just an issue with power.