SlingCatcher has many useful applications, and one these allows the Sling Catcher play video and music files from a connected USB drive right on your TV. This is a great feature, but if you have ever shopped for a USB drive you know there are thumb drives, special USB drives, and even generic hard drive enclosures that turn old laptop or desktop hard drives into USB connected space. Tons of different products!

Sling Media has put forth a great deal of effort allowing SlingCatcher to use as many of these different products as possible. They could have easily said, "you can plug in an external drive but it has to be this specific one, bought from us at this price if you want to do this." Instead, they've tried to make SlingCatcher compatible with as many different USB drives as possible.  We can use storage devices we already have, and we can shop for drives without worrying about if it will work on our computer and our SlingCatcher.

Of course, with staggering number of different USB storage devices out there are some caveats that need to be considered, and some best practice tips to ensure using your device works smoothly.

Take Your Time

When connecting a USB drive to SlingCatcher, don’t plug and unplug it quickly. Doing this may cause problems with your SlingCatcher. If you unplug it, wait 10 seconds before plugging it back in.  I personally have had problems plugging in drives too quickly and then found out they were not seen. Take your time with this. It will help immensly!

Also, do not unplug the drive while files are playing back, or while the drive is being scanned. This can corrupt files or the file system on the drive.

Be Aware of the File System

SlingCatcher will only work with USB hard drives that have been formatted using the FAT32 file system. Plug the storage device you'd like to use in to your SlingCatcher and check how it is formatted. If SlingCatcher says that the drive is unsupported, then it's not formatted using the FAT32 file system. 

If your drive is not formatted in FAT32, you will need to do so before you can use it with SlingCatcher. There is a great free program you can download called  “FAT 32 Formatter” utility. It can be found here: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm

How to deal with Multi-Port Connectors

Some USB drives come with a “pigtail” or "Y" shaped cable. You can tell if your drive is one of these if it requires two USB ports to operate.

Sometimes, you can have better luck with this style of USB Hard Drive if you attach the USB connectors in this order:

1. 

   Connect the connector labeled "A" in the diagram to your SlingCatcher. This connector may be labeled "Power," or it may not be labeled in any way.
2. Connect the connector labeled "B" in the diagram to your SlingCatcher. This is the one with two cables coming out of it. It may be labeled "Power+Data," or it may not be labeled in any way.
3. Connect the connector labeled "C" in the diagram to your hard drive.

With these tips, most drives you try to attach to your SlingCatcher should work just fine. Enjoy playing your video and audio files on your TV.