Hi, I have had a 500GB WD external HDD for about a year now, and I have been using it for my PS3 and my notebook. Last week I decided it was time to upgrade the drives for both systems to the new 500GB internal Samsungs. So I backed up the PS3 first and everything was fine, then I backed up the PC, but after I did that the drive will now not show up on my PS3. So I tried to reformat it and still nothing. I looked around and found that the HDD has to be formated in FAT32 for the PS3, but MS will not let you format over 32GB in fat32, and Sony will not even recognize the MS format style. At the moment both companies have me very pissed off. So if anyone knows a trick with vista or xp that will allow me to format the drive back to FAT32 I would really be thankful. I just hope I do not have to go buy another drive just for the PS3.

Try Swissknife.

The drive doesn't show up whatsoever on the PS3? Meaning it's not being detected at all? Because the PS3 has a format function on it, I believe. Have you put the hard drive in the PS3 and used the format function to see what happens?

If the PS3 can't detect it at all, even to format it correctly, I have to wonder if something is up with the drive.

You can't format it on Vista. You must use a third party tool. I have never tried Swissknife as recommended by Mudface but that will work. You can also use GParted or any other partition app.

Good luck.