*Official* Popcorn Hour A-300 / C-300 Thread - Page 11

Does anyone know if the PCH A300 forces a format when a hard drive is inserted in its bay? I have a drive with close to 1T of movies and sure don't want to lose those ISOs.

If you just stick the drive in it will not format it. But you will not get ftp services and such unless you use a drive you can format to ext3. this could also be a 8gb usb stick

Thanks, so I take it I can stick an external USB flash drive to look after functions that otherwise could be performed by a newly ext3 formatted hard drive right ?

correct.

Great, thanks.

Does it need a harddrive for you to be able to install apps?

Apps from the apps market like YouTube no. Apps like ftp server and torrent client yes.

Hm. You know how it works? Does it it really install (like say android) or is it more like boxee box where its mostly online?

So... HLS pretty buggy then... oh well

Apps like youtube are installed to the players NAND storage it has about 300megs if i remember right. HLS was actually just added to the players the last firmware so it has a few bugs to work out, But I never have problems with youtube or the couple times i used to flingo app to watch crunchyroll.

I ordered an A300 to replace my A110. I ordered a 3TB drive to put internally into the A300 and I know (after reading) that I must install the NMT apps on a USB drive BEFORE installing the 3TB drive or I'll end up w/a 2TB drive.

My question is I have 10 USB drives connected via USB to my A110 that I will simply plug into the A300 USB port so how can I install the NMT apps on an external USB drive if I'm using the USB port to daisy chain my drives?
Is it a matter of connecting "one" (I have 2 x 2TB drives that do not have anything on them yet) USB drive to the port 'first' and then installing the NMT apps and then I can unplug it and then plug in the daisy chain and then install the internal 3TB drive?

Will everything 'work" if I do that or will the drive letters "confuse" the system on where the NMT apps are located?

3tb should be formatted correctly as long as you update the firmware before installing the drive if i remember right.

^^^ I have read that I need to install the NMT apps on an external USB drive before installing the 3TB drive else it formats it to 2TB and installs the apps. So my questions still remain:

How can I install the NMT apps on an external USB drive if I'm using the USB port to daisy chain my drives?

Is it a matter of connecting "one" (I have 2 x 2TB drives that do not have anything on them yet) USB drive to the port 'first' and then installing the NMT apps and then I can unplug it and then plug in the daisy chain and then install the internal 3TB drive? Or am I better off installing them on a USB stick and then installing the HD and then add the daisy chain of HDs (the concern being the drive letter for the usb would/might change due to its placement in the daisy chain).

Will everything 'work" if I do that or will the drive letters "confuse" the system on where the NMT apps are located?

Drive letters will not confuse the system, Linux uses UUID for drives each drive gets a 32 letter identifier that the system keeps records of. If you use that many drives I assume you are using drive labels to keep what you know on each one? just give it a label on a windows pc of say NMT apps just so you pick the right one.

^^ That's exactly how I have my A110 set up w/the drives - on my PC they all have letters however when i reboot the A110 some of the drives (never the root drive in my A110) is reassigned to a different 'letter' but I could be confusing the letter assigned on my PC vs the drive 'address - USB_DRIVE_A-1 etc' the PCH determines? I"m at work so I can't verify if the PCH always keeps the drives to the same 'letter'.

Couple things first you are not understanding a drive label, usb_disk-A1 is the generic label the pch gives it as it has no real label. if you stick it on windows right click the drive hit properties you will notice the top field you can type in that is actually the drive label, It will still be assigned say D:\ in windows but it will also show the name say Movies. If you connect a drive to the pch with a drive label it will use drive label rather then generic naming.

Not sure I understand your post. To map a network drive to my PC I choose from the drives connected to the PCH and they are all titled USB_DRIVE_X-1 where X is the drive label the PCH has assigned. The file labels change as the PCH is restarted etc: meaning what was once DRIVE_B-1 could change to DRIVE_F-1.
My PC changes the file drive too: So on my PC the first drive B-1 could be X:\ however if the PCH reboots the F-1 drive could now be S:\

You are not understanding right. If you disconnect one of the usb drives from the pch and connect it straight to your pc. You could then give it a drive label, when you plug it into the PCH it will use that drive label as its name and no longer the generic a-1 b-1 and such.

Ahhhh! Now I see! I'll try it with the USB Thumb drive to help easily know which one to put the NMT apps on!

Got the A300 and getting frustrated:
Can not access the internet (tried setting it up with a static and auto IP adress)
So I downloaded the latest firmware/NMT apps
Installed it on the USB thumbdrive
I can access my network files from the A300 but can not access the A300 from my PC
I STILL can not connect to the internet and I've spent 4 hours so far trying to get it to connect.
I've searched the internet and yes: file sharing it turned on, the DNS is correct, i've added it as a static IP no my router
frustrating...
i even turned off windows firewall and no luck.

The PCH-A300 with W7 shares is a PIA to get it to work. It took me a little while to figure out when I had it. However, every since I've been using my unraid server for my media shares, it has been very simple to connect any media player. I would recommend reading this:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/Networking_with_Windows7


There after you can read this thread from the PCH Forum:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=56575

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=56186

I can't access it from my PC since I can't install the apps since I can't access the internet. I can't connect to the internet and that's causing all these problems.
I can connect to my PC from the A300 but I can't connect to the internet.
I've swapped out the ethernet cable - did the registry changes in your first link - restarted the router numerous times - plugged in the ethernet directly into the router versus the switch - tried static ip - etc etc. My router shows the the MAC address has sent it something but it's not conecting.
Sometimes I get an IP (auto-selected) of 169.254 which after doing a lot of searching could mean the NIC in the A300 is 'bad'.

Any other insight would be appreciated.

Enter all the information in manually. goto your computer type in ipconfig /all in a command prompt right down everything for IP addres, gateway, DNS address

Goto the pch set it to manual. And set the ip to wht you computer is changing the last digit so if your computer is 192.168.1.5 change the pch to 192.168.1.6 subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 put gateway and dns the same as what your pc had and try again. Connecting to your pc from the A300 means nic works fine for local stuff. so something else is happening on the side trying to get out to the net. usually this is a dns issue as some routers and pch dont get along with dns

I have tried that already (however I can not choose the address after my PC since I checked my router and addresses through .28 are taken).
I can not connect from my PC to the A300 however I can connect from the A300 to the PC. I can't see the A300 since I can not turn on Samba on the PCH since I don't have the apps installed.

To turn on the smb or any type of other server app, you have to have a hard drive or usb drive hooked up to it. Then you can download the apps that you need and turn one smb.

^^^ And there's the catch - my A300 will not connect to the internet.

I would reset all settings and start from scratch. It should auto connect (ie right out of the box they connect). Set everything to auto and if you want to reserve an IP do it at the router level.

That worked once this morning but when I tried to install the NMT apps 'on-line' it lost connection: again.
When I set it up as a static IP on my router it does not retain the PCH's MAC address. It keeps changing it to something else.

I have an xfinity cable/modem/gateway: it's mfg by Arris MODEL: TG862G (ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 / PacketCable 1.5 Touchstone Telephony Gateway). I had no issues w/my A110 and I had that set to a static IP. I no longer have it plugged into my two switches (I have a LOT of stuff on my network) and connected it directly to the Gateway (after trying it several times on my switch).

Same exact issue as you with the TG862G, I had an old Motorola modem before and it worked fine. Then Comcast upgraded our connecting and replaced my modem and now popcorn hour will not connect no matter what settings I use. Firewall on/off, DMZ, static/dynamic IP, revert to older firmware, reset to factory settings, NOTHING works.