Add a WD Elements SE 4TB hard disk drive

pCP Team 13 October 2022 pCP 8.2.0 Setup • How to USB HDD

How to add a WD Elements SE 4TB USB HDD (USB drive) to piCorePlayer.

The object of this “How To” was to grab a standard 4TB USB HDD from the Electronics store and determine what are the steps required to get it mounted on piCorePlayer. To date, I have only be using 1TB and 2TB USB drives which were formatted NTFS and used a MBR. My understanding is for HDD’s greater than 2TB, the MBR is replaced with a GPT. piCorePlayer being a minimalist distribution doesn’t include support for NTFS or GPT by default.

WD HDD

Hardware

WD Elements SE 4 TB USB HDD—see Part#: WDBJRT0040BBK-WESN.

I plugged the USB drive into my Windows 10 PC to check the formatting and capacity.

HDD properties

Info

USB HDD is formatted NTFS.

Software

piCorePlayer 8.2.0

Steps

Step 1 - Setup piCorePlayer

Setup piCorePlayer—see Getting started.
Click the [LMS] tab.
Check the default LMS settings for future comparison.

LMS01

Step 2 - Shutdown piCorePlayer

Click the [Main Page] > [Shutdown] button.
Click the [OK] button when prompted “Shutdown piCorePlayer?”.
Wait for the Raspberry Pi to power down.
Disconnect the power from the Raspberry Pi.

Step 3 - Attach the USB drive

Plug the USB drive into one of the Raspberry Pi’s USB3 ports.

Step 4 - Power on piCorePlayer

Connect the power to the Raspberry Pi.
Wait for the piCorePlayer to completely boot.

Step 5 - Load GPT partition table support

Warning

If your HDD is greater than 2TB it will be using GPT instead of MBR, so GPT support will need to be loaded.

Click the [LMS] tab.
Note the message: Disk with GPT partition table Found! Install extension "util-linux.tcz" for compatibility.

LMS02

Click the [LMS] > “Pick from the following detected USB disks to mount” > [Install Support] button.
piCorePlayer extensions will load.

Step 6 - Load NTFS support

Note the message: Please install extra file systems.

LMS03

LMS04

Click the [LMS] > “Install and Enable additional File Systems” > [Install] button.
piCorePlayer extensions will load.

LMS05

Note the UUID is now displayed.
Type in Mount Point name ie. music
Click on the Enabled checkbox.
Click the [Set USB Mount] button.

LMS06

Step 7 - Reboot

Click the [Main Page] > [Reboot] button.

Step 8 - Check the USB drive is mounted (optional)

Click the [Main Page] > [Resize FS] button.
Note Disk /dev/sda: details.

LMS07

Step 9 - Check the USB drive is mounted via ssh (optional)

Determine your IP address—see Determine your pCP IP address.
Access piCorePlayer via ssh—see Access piCorePlayer via ssh.
Type df | grep mnt at the command prompt.
Note /dev/sda1 has been mounted as /mnt/music.

LMS08

More information

Add a USB hard drive

Add a third partition

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