Related
there is a usb hookup.. so the question is raised, in my mind, can you hook up an external hard drive and thus rendering the 13gb a non issue (at least in the area of video/audio files).
anyone had experience with this?
I've been able to use my flash usb thumb drives without any problems, however when I plugged my WD 1Tb storage drive into the GTab, used ES File explorer to open usbdisk folder but did not see any files listed.
If you want to use a external usb hard drive for movies/files it has to be formated fat32 and it will work.
I have connected with 16gb, 32gb, 64gb and a 500gb Western Digital HD (usb powered). All work fine, but best to NOT remove the USB until the G is placed in sleep mode. There appears to be an unmounting issue that also blows up the app index. Apps can vanish and then not appear again until rebooting.
Archos 101 seems to have a similar issue, so maybe Froyo related.
rushless said:
I have connected with 16gb, 32gb, 64gb and a 500gb Western Digital HD (usb powered). All work fine, but best to NOT remove the USB until the G is placed in sleep mode. There appears to be an unmounting issue that also blows up the app index. Apps can vanish and then not appear again until rebooting.
Archos 101 seems to have a similar issue, so maybe Froyo related.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I try to put mine to sleep before I pull out my thumb drive as well, but sometimes I forget and as soon as I yank it, the tablet reboots. Ugh!
I bought a 500gb Seagate the same night I got my tablet (been needing a portable hd for a while). It wouldn't work on either the tablet or my PS3. Definitely a format thing. As mentioned earlier, it needs to be formatted Fat32.
Just an FYI, formatting a big hd to Fat32 isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Windows 7 won't do Fat32 and 95 has a size limit (32 gb maybe?). HP has a program you get download from their site. It works on any make, not just their's. If anyone needs it, I still have it on my PC at home.
J_Bone said:
I bought a 500gb Seagate the same night I got my tablet (been needing a portable hd for a while). It wouldn't work on either the tablet or my PS3. Definitely a format thing. As mentioned earlier, it needs to be formatted Fat32.
Just an FYI, formatting a big hd to Fat32 isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Windows 7 won't do Fat32 and 95 has a size limit (32 gb maybe?). HP has a program you get download from their site. It works on any make, not just their's. If anyone needs it, I still have it on my PC at home.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the app called? Work with Vista? I tried formatting a 1gb HD to Fat32 via DOS commands, but failed.
As far as USB, main issue for removing while G is asleep (besides random reboots) is that removing while awake seems to be a main reason apps vanish until a reboot.
If I need to format a big, big hard drive to FAT32, I'll boot up a Linux LiveCD (usually Ubuntu or Knoppix) and use gParted to do it.
rushless said:
What is the app called? Work with Vista? I tried formatting a 1gb HD to Fat32 via DOS commands, but failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a different site but I think it is the same program. One of the comments said it didn't work on Vista business but YMMV. Worth a try.
http://hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool.software.informer.com/
I went and checked my reformatted portable drive a few minutes ago and the tablet doesn't recognize it. It actually says there are no files in that directory. The drive is working on my pc and PS3. I put a small 4 gb stick in the tablet and it read it fine.
Any ideas?
It recognized my Ipod 120GB classic in disk mode. It also appears to be hot swappedable.
papote18 said:
It recognized my Ipod 120GB classic in disk mode. It also appears to be hot swappedable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is hardware wise. Software wise, depending on ROM, it can crash your tablet. I try to put it to sleep before pulling my flash drive out. If not, sometimes it will go black and I'll see the boot animation.
I went to the link above looking for the Fat32 > 32 gig tool and it was not available.
If you need this tool, Google for "HP SP27608" and there are a few places where you can download it. HP didn't even have it on their FTP server -- don't know why they have quit offering it?!
Rev
Hi,
Sorry for the late post, but I just got around to trying a bunch of my USB flash drives, and Gtab doesn't see any of them ...
The LED on the drives flashes for a second, then goes off.
Do I have to mount it or something?
Jim
same problem here too. Is there a way to mount a USB drive without formatting? I do not want to loose my collection.
I've never had an issue with my Flash drives (VEGAn or TnT Lite). Are the drives formatted to FAT32?
I have had an issue with a 32GB USB flash drive not showing up on the gtab. I plugged it into my win7. Machine, moved files off, formatted fat, put files back on and it worked fine in the tab.
Another note, using vegan, I never sleep the device to get the drive out. Just wait a second and Yank it. Never been an issue for me.
I have noticed that my flash drives don't mount 100% of the time and sometimes require dis/reconnecting. Also I have a 1tb wd my passport. I formatted the whole drive fat32 and the gtab wouldn't see it. I then formatted just a partition of 120gb in fat32.....still no dice. I then reduced the partition to 32gb nd the gtab sees/reads/writes no problem.
I'm wondering how that other Guy got his 500gb to mount....
I'd like to know how folks have been able to get their external hard drives recognized as well. I have tried stock and tnt lite roms. Also tried several different hard disks all formated fat32. Even repartioned disks to 8GB and still no joy. Flash drives I own all work OK. Just can't use hard disk as yet. Even tried new rom image that came out today, no luck. Am I missing or not doing something?
The usb port does not supply enough power for external hard drives. I tried several and they did not show up in dmesg. When I used one with external power, the drive was seen and the partitions, but was not mounted.
The usb port does not supply enough power for external hard drives. I tried several and they did not show up in dmesg. When I used one with external power, the drive was seen and the partitions, but was not mounted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but 2 out of 3 drives I tried use ext power. still no work.
Can anyone who has this working please post what drive they are using?
Does Someone has successfully attached an external usb disk to the gtab using Vegan Beta 5? Is not working for me, not even recognized. It is formatted on Fat32 and my Archos 101 see it. Any suggestions???
chpimentelpr said:
Does Someone has successfully attached an external usb disk to the gtab using Vegan Beta 5? Is not working for me, not even recognized. It is formatted on Fat32 and my Archos 101 see it. Any suggestions???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you looked for the usb drive in a file manager? There is no popup when you plug it in.
chpimentelpr said:
Does Someone has successfully attached an external usb disk to the gtab using Vegan Beta 5? Is not working for me, not even recognized. It is formatted on Fat32 and my Archos 101 see it. Any suggestions???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I have been using my external Western Digital usb 500gb disk with gtab. I am on Vegan 5.1.
The first time i hooked it up, it did not work. Gtab did not see the usb hdd and usbdisk did not show anything at all. I tried it couple of times in vain,
Then i powered down the gtab, unplugged the usb hdd and restarted the gtab. After gtab booted up i gave it some more time before touching the tab. Then i hooked up the usb hdd and allowed gtab to scan / read the usb hdd. I took a while ( maybe based on amount of data you have in usb hdd) and then i when to file manager, usbdisk and i could access all my files on usb hdd. it is fat32 formatted.
Try couple of time and allow gtabl to read through all the files . I will work.
Let me know if that helped.
thebadfrog said:
Have you looked for the usb drive in a file manager? There is no popup when you plug it in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing...
New2Android said:
Hi,
I have been using my external Western Digital usb 500gb disk with gtab. I am on Vegan 5.1.
The first time i hooked it up, it did not work. Gtab did not see the usb hdd and usbdisk did not show anything at all. I tried it couple of times in vain,
Then i powered down the gtab, unplugged the usb hdd and restarted the gtab. After gtab booted up i gave it some more time before touching the tab. Then i hooked up the usb hdd and allowed gtab to scan / read the usb hdd. I took a while ( maybe based on amount of data you have in usb hdd) and then i when to file manager, usbdisk and i could access all my files on usb hdd. it is fat32 formatted.
Try couple of time and allow gtabl to read through all the files . I will work.
Let me know if that helped.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, will try that... I'm using a WD 750GB
Didn't work for me... will try to reformatted to see if that helps...
chpimentelpr said:
Didn't work for me... will try to reformatted to see if that helps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That didn't work either... will try CM6 Rom to see if can detected the usb hdd.
Hasn't worked for me either. I have a FAT32 USB hard drive that never shows up under usbdisk. I am running Vega-Tab b5.1 and the USB port is working; my evidence is a working USB keyboard, and a green light on the hard drive indicating it is connected. I will try again but so far nothing.
For those of you for whom this doesn't work: I wonder if maybe there's more than just a single FAT32 partition on the hard drive? Maybe there's a hidden partition that might not be normally visible?
Jim
jimcpl said:
For those of you for whom this doesn't work: I wonder if maybe there's more than just a single FAT32 partition on the hard drive? Maybe there's a hidden partition that might not be normally visible?
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would one check for this? (Using WinXP)
worked for me
I think you have to have a FAT32 format to get the drive recognized. I had a 100GB thin, portable drive and it worked just fine. It shows up as /usbdrive. This worked before the latest update of the base OS and still works for me.
anjenaire said:
How would one check for this? (Using WinXP)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try to go to Computer Management==>Disk Management to see what shows up there for the USB drive, but, that might now show some weird partition types. It would show the unallocated space but not the unknown partition type.
Or, try to go here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm
and download "Partinfo" and run that, and see what that says. That dumps out a bunch of info on partitions on the drives that your machine sees.
Jim
jimcpl said:
You can try to go to Computer Management==>Disk Management to see what shows up there for the USB drive, but, that might now show some weird partition types. It would show the unallocated space but not the unknown partition type.
Or, try to go here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm
and download "Partinfo" and run that, and see what that says. That dumps out a bunch of info on partitions on the drives that your machine sees.
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As has been mentioned in other posts, for the drive to work, it appears that you'd need to have only a single FAT32-formatted partition on the drive. If either Disk Management or Partinfo show that there's more than that, then that may be why the Gtab can't see or mount the USB drive to /usbdisk.
Just guessing here...
Jim
I just get rid of the hidden partition, and now is a single fat32 partition. Will check and write back with results.
chpimentelpr said:
I just get rid of the hidden partition, and now is a single fat32 partition. Will check and write back with results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you did find a hidden partition on your drive? If that's the case, was at the beginning of the drive, or somewhere else (at the end)?
I'm kind of assuming that the Gtab may only be able to see a FAT32 partition that starts at the beginning of the drive, but not 100% sure about that.
Jim
jimcpl said:
You can try to go to Computer Management==>Disk Management to see what shows up there for the USB drive, but, that might now show some weird partition types. It would show the unallocated space but not the unknown partition type.
Or, try to go here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm
and download "Partinfo" and run that, and see what that says. That dumps out a bunch of info on partitions on the drives that your machine sees.
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This particular drive only has one partition and uses FAT32 format. It is an 80GB drive (and nearly full). My other portable drive uses NTFS. The FAT32 drive says it is "healthy, active, primary partition" under "Disk Management". The graphic (Windows 7 PC, I am at home now), shows only one partition where as my "C" drive shows three separate partitions: one 30MB, one 14.65 GB and one 916.83GB.
Still scratching my head. No big deal as long as I have an internet connection and upnplay capabilities.
I bought a small micro - usb female adapter. When I plug it in, no matter what device i use it seems as those the xoom is not sending any power through it.
Ive tried
Camera
Charge Phone
usb mouse
usb wireless mouse
nothing is getting power.
Is there something i need to enable or do? Or has anyone esle has this issue? I am on 3.1....
You can not use a simple micro usb adapter cable, it has to be an OTG USB Host cable like the official Motorola camera connection kit that is now available. This is a bit expensive but readily available at your local Best Buy.
Take a look at some of the many posts on OTG cables and you can find info on cheaper cables that have been verified to work or on how to make your own.
you need a USB Host cable. Not just a regular sync cable. You can google for one or search the threads here where others have linked to confirmed working cables.
dang, thanks guys
I ordered one from ebay! hope it works
I have a question that applies here, I am on stock 3.1 Xoom WiFi/3G and just got my OTG cable, plug it in usb drive blinks like its working but where is it located on the Xoom? I've been looking around for it with Astro and File Explorer and I'm unable to find it... could someone tell me the path?
Techsniffer said:
I have a question that applies here, I am on stock 3.1 Xoom WiFi/3G and just got my OTG cable, plug it in usb drive blinks like its working but where is it located on the Xoom? I've been looking around for it with Astro and File Explorer and I'm unable to find it... could someone tell me the path?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i believe stock 3.1 only supports MTP, hence no USB mass storage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
I've heard many conflicting stories, I would like some sort of confirmation rather then speculation about what will/will not work with the Moto Xoom (Stock 3.1) Wifi/3g and an OTG cable because I've seen posts saying yes and no to USB, portable HD's etc etc. Can anyone even provide me with some informative links? Everything I've searched for has been less than informative.
So, stock 3.1 Xoom is an MTP device, that is true.
However, with latest series of Tiamat custom kernels by Bigrushdog (see Android Development section) the usbOTG has been enabled. If you have already rooted and installed the proper bootloader/Tiamat kernel, then in File Expert you will find the usbOTG folder on the root directory, same level as internal sdcard and data folders. If you go up a step in sdcard, you should see your external sdcard. Is this clear?
I have rooted, using the Tiamat 1.6, I have access to the sdcard now but I am still unable to access my usb drive (thumb drive). I have an OTG usb cable and when I go into the /OTGusb its empty. The drive blinks as if its initializing but then nothing.
On a side note, I have looked through both OTGusb folders, restarted the Xoom with the OTG and usb plugged in as suggested in another post and nothing I've tried has worked in locating the usb drive.
Techsniffer said:
I have rooted, using the Tiamat 1.6, I have access to the sdcard now but I am still unable to access my usb drive (thumb drive). I have an OTG usb cable and when I go into the /OTGusb its empty. The drive blinks as if its initializing but then nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've found that there are two factors which may be in play here...
1. When I connect a flash drive it takes a bit of time for the directory structure to parse... It does show up in the OTGusb directory.
2. I've found that anything larger than 8GB (I've seen it stated in the forums as well) does not work (of if it does it takes forever and a day to become available)
Hope it helps...
I have same problem here. whenever I try to connect the USB with Motorola connector, it doesn't appear anything in otgusb
I'm not sure I am going to get what I want at this time with the OTG cable. My goal is to be able to use the OTG cable to connect a USB thumb drive to so I can carry additional movies, documents, etc without completely consuming the main Xoom storage.
Can the OTGusb cable support this? Do I need to wait for yet another update?
TIA
I have an OTB cable camera connection kit and I purchased a 4 port USB powered HUB and am also using a thumbdrive. I use Root Explorer as my primary folder organizer/file management.
What I did was load up Music Junk and pointed it to my usbOTG directory and into a Music folder. When I download a song it goes directly to my thumbdrive so that I don't have to keep the music on my Xoom, or so I thought. When I disconnected the OTG cable and opened up the Music app the music was in there and was able to be played. Is it stored twice on the Xoom (once on the stick and once on the device)?
I noticed that sometimes I have to refresh a lot in Root Explorer or unplug the thumbdrive from the hub to be able to see any files on it. Is that normal? Is there a correct way to unmount the thumbdrive so I don't corrupt any information on it. I'm testing this out on a thumbdrive because I plan to use a hard drive in the future with the OTG.
Thanks for looking.
Have you tried it without the hub? I've read that people have problems with hubs because the xoom simply can't output that much power.
The OTG cable works perfectly with the HUB. I loaded some emulator ROM's on a flash drive and connected a USB controller to it perfectly fine. I just don't know how to unmount the drive so I can disconnect it. Does it really matter? I'm under the impression that it does because I know you can corrupt files by just pulling it out of a computer without ejecting first.
It depends on the drive. Some drives protect against that, some don't. Majority of them do though.
Hi,
I was thinking of buying an external hdd to connect to my TF, however, try as I might, I can't find anywhere that confirms that it will work. I don't want to shell out for one and have to send it back if not.
Thanks in advance.
kingronnie said:
Hi,
I was thinking of buying an external hdd to connect to my TF, however, try as I might, I can't find anywhere that confirms that it will work. I don't want to shell out for one and have to send it back if not.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can plug my portable USB hard-drive directly into either of the USB ports on the dock and it works fine. It appears in the notifications area as a hard-disk icon. Clicking on this shows me all the files on the drive. I was able to start watching an mp4 video from the HDD, although I didn't watch it all the way through.
That's great news
Just out of interest, did you format it using the TF, or was it pre-formatted? If so, are you using FAT32 or NTFS?
Sorry for the barrage of questions!
kingronnie said:
Hi,
I was thinking of buying an external hdd to connect to my TF, however, try as I might, I can't find anywhere that confirms that it will work. I don't want to shell out for one and have to send it back if not.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A quick search for HDD shows the following:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1067975&highlight=hdd
Thanks. I'd searched for Hard Disc.
Sorry to be a pain.
interestingly though, honeycomb doesn't automatically mount the external harddrive unless it's fat32 or NTFS. No idea why this is the case as ext 2/3 are clearly supported.
Regardless, I was able to manually mount my external HDD once I found out where the device was.
Is anybody familiar with the auto mounting scripts enough to know offhand where you would look to add ext support? My knowledge of this kind of thing ends with fstab unfortunately and I don't know too much about how honeycomb works yet as I just got my transformer yesterday night.
Both NTFS and FAT32 are supported.
I was really glad NTFS is supported out of the box.
I use both Toshiba portable HDD and WD portable HDD and have no problem.
Just to update, I bought a 250G Seagate laptop drive and put it in a caddy, hooked it up and it worked and mounted first time