i have got an external drive i back up my videos on. when i plug it into the usb ports on the front of my 360 it doesnt come up as an available source, so i cant watch anything off it!

and if i plug it into my pc i have to turn zonealarm off because i dont know how to open the specific ports i need to stream to my 360??

almost makes me want to install comodo!

If you go to microsoft's website and search then you can find out what ports need to be opened for WMP11 to share to the 360.

As for the USB drive, is it formatted as NTFS or FAT32. Never used an external drive with it so not sure how that works?

But I have WMP11 serving stuff no problem :) Search...there are guides.

my external is formatted ntfs.

i have wp11 and i found what ports to open, i just couldnt find how to open them on zonealarm..

if the old xbox had a usb port i would just use that with xbmc streaming vids..