Patent ID: 8527731

Claim:
A method to configure an adaptable external drive from a network attached storage device, comprising: detecting, in the network attached storage device, the connection of an external storage media to the network attached storage device; initiating, in the network attached storage device, a format utility; configuring the external storage media with at least a primary partition and a secondary partition; coupling the external storage media to a computing device; determining, in the computing device, whether the primary partition is compatible with a file system executing on the computing device; and at least one of: in response to a determination that the primary partition is compatible with a file system executing on the computing device, accessing the primary partition using the file system executing on the computing device; or in response to a determination that the primary partition is incompatible with a file system executing on the computing device: loading a file format conversion module from the secondary partition; and accessing the primary partition using the file system executing on the computing device and the conversion module.