Node N132 can't see music on new external usb hard drive
Answered
I had a problem and resolved it, so I wanted to post this in case anyone else experiences it.
I bought the new node n132 and attached a new external USB hard drive to it with all my music and the hard drive was formatted as NTFS. I configured/enabled the "Server Mode" feature per the instructions, but the BlueOS app would not display My Library and therefore the hard drive and its music.
I called support and they were good in terms of diagnosing the cause of the problem but didn't know how to solve the problem. They looked at log files for my system and realized that my music was on a secondary partition on the hard drive but their software is coded to only look for music on the primary partition. So the node/BlueOS couldn't see my music even though it was on the hard drive.
Support was unable to advise why my hard drive had this extra partition. They thought it was maybe something the hard drive manufacturer added for support reasons, etc. Support suggested I go buy a different brand of hard drive to see if it would work better with the node.
I wasn't about to go buying other hard drives "hoping" that one would work.
After I hung up with support, the whole multiple partition thing dawned on me and it had nothing to do with the brand of hard drive, it was how I set it up. When I unboxed the new hard drive, I initially connected it to my Windows 11 laptop and using disk manager it asks you to initialize the disk using either GPT Guid Partition Table or MBR Master Boot Record, and you must select one before then formatting the drive as a certain format such as NTFS (or FAT32, etc.). Well, I chose GPT because that is the more modern solution and has benefits over MBR. However, that is where the problem was caused because GPT creates an extra partition that BlueOS can't correctly account for.
So in the end, resolution to my problem was reconfiguring my hard drive to use MBR with NTFS because MBR doesn't create the extra problematic partition that GPT does. Once I did that, the Node/BlueOS saw and played my music without issue.
Warning, you can't simply change your drive from GPT to MBR without deleting everything on the hard drive. So you will need your music saved to another location first so that after you convert from GPT to MBR and format it, that you can copy your music back onto the external hard drive.
Anyways, MBR is old technology and has its own drawbacks. The biggest one is that it only supports up to 2TB drives. My drive was that size so it worked fine in my case but that might not be the same for everyone. Ultimately, I think the developers need to change the code to account for music being on different partitions so people can use GPT, but that is a whole other conversation.
So like I said, I wanted to post this just in case it helps someone else out in the future since support was unaware of how to resolve the issue when I called them.
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Official comment
Not 100% sure of this but it seems Windows has created a sort of "reserved" partition for restoring purposes if GPT is chosen as patition table.
If you could format the disk on a linux computer, you could use modern GPT without this extra partition nonsense.
It should be safe to delete this extra partition and grow the remaining partition to cover the full disk.
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That is right, Windows creates a small "Microsoft Reserved partition" on GPT disks. Once read somewhere it is used for bitlocker encryption, not sure if correct.
Linux would be one way, the graphical tool GParted is very nice and intuitive, gives you more control over what you are doing than Window's Disk Manager. No need to install Linux, you can run it from a "live USB stick" as well.
In Windows you can get rid of it using the command line tool diskpart. Be very careful to select the correct disk, or you might be deleting a partition on the PC's built in disk.
Would always choose GPT and use one of the mentioned tools.
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Thanks for the feedback both Alain and Gerben.
At the time I was working on this I didn't really give it much thought on trying to get GPT to work but I think you both presented ways it could be done. I was happy to get it working with MBR at that moment in time, but I agree that I would prefer GPT so I might go redo it at some point to confirm it can be done (I would probably be trying Windows and diskpart in my case because I have that handy as opposed to linux). Anyways, I'm glad all this info is in the forum now and hopefully will help someone in the future.0 -
There is a little neat tool that can convert a MBR disk into GPT, while retaining the data. Make sure you have a backup, just in case, should have that anyway. I used it a few times, works lovely.
It is called gptgen, the original rev 1.1 is on sourceforge.net, another developer has continued it on GitHub.com latest rev 1.2.1.
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Can I ask which external drive you're using please? I want to copy all my FLAC files to a usb drive that I'll plug into the usb on the back of my Node 2i. I understand I need to format the external drive as NTFS, but I'm hearing that some SSD drives have insufficient power to work. I'd rather not use a powered external drive as an SSD would be much simpler, quieter etc ...
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Sure thing. I bought a Crucial BX500 hard drive. It is a 2.5" Solid State Drive that comes in various sizes including 1TB, 2TB and 4TB.
Since this model is meant to be an internal hard drive, I then also bought an external hard drive enclosure to put the SSD in. In my case I bought an Inland GD25621 from a retailer for $10. Easy installation in a matter of a few minutes.
There is nothing crazy special about this particular combination of brands/models, so you could use their specs as a reference point and get a similar setup. For me, these 2 brands/models just happen to be at the right price point and were available on the shelf in the store.
The external hard drive enclosure came with the usb cable to plug into my Node, and this setup did not require any additional power. So in the end... there is just 1 cable coming out of the external hard drive case which is the USB cable that is connected to my Node N132.0 -
From this article, one can conclude that a maximum power draw between 0.5 to 1.0 A is a maximum to get reliable performance: https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/201103128-Connecting-Underpowered-USB-Storage-Devices-to-Bluesound-Players
Less is better, make your selection based upon these values. Every known brand will work, but lifespan may vary, look for high numbers write/read cycles.
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@Richard
I posted a response to your original post, but it is currently flagged as "pending approval" for some reason...0 -
I also have a pending approval reply, not sure if they filter messages that have certain content such as model numbers or whatnot requiring an admin to manually approve the post.
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