When you have the Plextor MediaX media HD (model PX-MX1000L) and you want to connect it to your PC as external HD with the USB cable included in the box, it could be that your PC doesn't recognize the Media HD. 

There's only one solution, change the USB cable.  The cable included in the box is from low quality.  Taking a good USB cable will solve your problem and your Media HD is recognized by windows.

it's a shame of Plextor to include such a bad quality USB cable.  The cable even doesn't work with other HD's.

Just a little quick tip.

In Vista MC, you still see a standard folder for your ripped DVD.  The same as in XP MC.  If you want to have the DVD cover instead which is nice when browsing through your DVD collection, you can solve this easy.

Scan (or search the net) for your DVD cover, put the image in your folder and rename it to "folder.jpg".  If you now go to the "DVD Library" you will see that all your DVD titles now contains the cover image for browsing.

I you, like me, rip your DVD's (in DVD format, no MPeg decoding)on your Vista MediaCenter (which is very handy), you will see that you can't play them anymore.  In XP MediaCenter it was no problem.

When you go to your Video Library, and you add the disk where MC has to watch, you will see your titles.  Clicking on the title will normally starts playing your video (this was the situation in the XP MC).  Now it opens the map and shows you the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folder.  Clicking on the VIDEO_TS folder just opens this directory. And here you got following message

Luckily, I found a way to fix it.  But you have to hack the registry .  So doing this is at your own responsibility and be sure you always make a backup of your registry.  It's the definition on how the Vista MC will handle your DVD's.  By default it will only handles the DVD you insert in your player.

Ok, what to do, just follow the next steps :

1. Be sure that Vista MC is closed
2. Open the registry with regedit
3. Next navigate to following key : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings
4. You will see that the value of ShowGallery is "Play".
5. Double click on this value
6. Change it to "Gallery"
7. Exit regedit
8. Start Vista MC again (or close it first if it's still open)

Now you will see that the "Play DVD" option is gone, but instead you have another option "dvd library". 

Now you can open the library, choose the option "Add movies" and follow the wizard which will ask you for the location of your movies.  Then click "add watch" for that folder.  If the scan is done by Vista MC, you will see all your titles under the "dvd library".  Just click on the title and it will start playing.

And if you want to play a normal DVD, you just can insert it in your player and the Vista MC will start playing this DVD.

Just one thing.  You don't see directories which containing AVI or WMV files.  As these are not recognized as DVD files under the dvd library.  But of you go to the section "Pictures and Videos", you can browse to them.  If these movies are mixed in the same root as your ripped DVD files, you also will see your DVD movies, but can't play them from here.  So best is to have a separate root if you also have other formats as DVD rips.