I just got thsi and plugged it in and there is about 500 megs of crap on it.

Do i just start moving my movie files over to it or can i get rid of all this WD junk on the drive first?

Should i format the thing clean like its just a new partition and format it to NTFS or what will the WDtv player want?

I have about 10 movies ripped on my computer drive that i want to move over and start transfering my dvds to this book.

I dont have the wdtv unit yet i thought ide wait a few weeks to get it.

Thanks for any help ou can give me.

Is this a dumb question?

I wanted to start ripping my DVDs and putting them to the drive but i didnt want to have to start over if i needed to format the drive or do somthing special to it before.

I just got thsi and plugged it in and there is about 500 megs of crap on it.

Do i just start moving my movie files over to it or can i get rid of all this WD junk on the drive first?

Should i format the thing clean like its just a new partition and format it to NTFS or what will the WDtv player want?

I have about 10 movies ripped on my computer drive that i want to move over and start transfering my dvds to this book.

I dont have the wdtv unit yet i thought ide wait a few weeks to get it.

Thanks for any help ou can give me.

If you don't need it, delete it. Or back it up (zip, burn to disc, whatever) just in case.

sigh.. Mods, we really need a WD TV subforum.

Is this a dumb question?

I wanted to start ripping my DVDs and putting them to the drive but i didnt want to have to start over if i needed to format the drive or do somthing special to it before.

Make sure the drive goes into sleep mode properly and that you have all of the latest firmware updates.

Well i just have the drive for now, i didnt have enough for both the WDtv AND the drive so i decided to get the drive first because i figured it would take me some time to rip and move all my DVDs to the drive. While i was doing that i could sae for the player.

My question was now i have the drive (no WDtv player) do i need to do anything to it before i start to fill up the drive? Can i just plug it in and start ripping movies or should i format it to fat 32? NTFS? leave it, delete the default files on it?

Im wondering what others are doing?

Maybe i misread your post? does the drive need firmware or updates? I know the WDtv unit might but i dont have that part yet.

Well i just have the drive for now, i didnt have enough for both the WDtv AND the drive so i decided to get the drive first because i figured it would take me some time to rip and move all my DVDs to the drive. While i was doing that i could sae for the player.

My question was now i have the drive (no WDtv player) do i need to do anything to it before i start to fill up the drive? Can i just plug it in and start ripping movies or should i format it to fat 32? NTFS? leave it, delete the default files on it?

Im wondering what others are doing?

Maybe i misread your post? does the drive need firmware or updates? I know the WDtv unit might but i dont have that part yet.

I bought a WD passport and formatted it as soon as I got it, I did a quick format to ntfs. No need for the junk WD puts on it imo.

Been working great ever since which has been a few months!!

Thanks man! thats what i needed to hear. I dont think ill need the stuff thats on it either but wanted to ask before i started.

Ive already transfered a few movies over but it was pretty much just to test and see how it went. I think this is gona be a fun.

Some people have found that WDTV reacts a bit snappier when the NTFS drive is formatted with larger-than-default cluster size. The default is 4kb clusters. If your drive will be (almost) exclusively used for video files, then I would reformat at e.g. 8kb cluster size. Quick format will do that in minutes... full format could be several hours

read more: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1138318

I hope i didnt mess up, when i used the default cluseter i hooked the HD up to my philups upconverting dvd player and i could read files and actualy play the vob files threw the USB port, now when i hook it up it doesnt even reconize any of the files on the drive.

WHy would it do that?

WHen i hooked it to the DVD player it played the files but it kinda skipped every few seconds like it was struggeling to transfer the data or decode it or somthing. I thought maybe changing the file alocation would speed it up a tad and it would then play smoother. Now it doesnt even work at all.

I think im gona hold off on transfering movies till i get the WD tv player and make sure its even gona play the movies i have on it so far.

Maybe i used the wrong type?

I formatted mine right away then added my files.

I just got a WD 1TB MyBook Essentials edition, do I need to keep the original files to maintain the spin-on spin-off(or auto on/off) functions for WD TV?

I just got a WD 1TB MyBook Essentials edition, do I need to keep the original files to maintain the spin-on spin-off(or auto on/off) functions for WD TV?

Of course not.