USB Mass Storage for Note 4??

[bozacksmith]

I am not having any luck getting my pc to recognize my Note 4 when I am plugging it in via USB. I have gone into the developer options and checked USB debugging but it still only charges, doesn't recognize the phone to transfer any data.

Thanks

 

[SpookDroid]

USB Mass Storage is LOOOOOONG gone from Android. You need the PC to recognize the driver and auto-install it or install it yourself. Usually if you install Kies, that should do the trick.

 

[bozacksmith]

I thought it was long gone.
I installed the Samsung drivers and our S5 came up no problem, still no luck with the Note 4. Will double check my drivers.....

Trying to just get the drivers so I don't have to mess with Kies

 

[Yk Chin]

Oh that's bad. Hope you'll able to fix the problem. I also dislike Kies & prefer to plug in the cable directly to the phone.

Posted via Tab S 8.4

 

[mhunter6378]

I thought it was long gone.
I installed the Samsung drivers and our S5 came up no problem, still no luck with the Note 4. Will double check my drivers.....

Trying to just get the drivers so I don't have to mess with Kies

Here's a link to the drivers
Support - AT&T Cell Phones SM-N910A | Samsung Cell Phones

 

[beh]

When I first cabled my Note 4, Verizon, to my PC running Windows 7 it asked to look for drivers in Windows Update. I said OK and it took a long time but found and installed the drivers no problem and no problem seeing the phone as a mass storage device.

 

[nytmare]

Here's the link for the Verizon Note 4 driver:

Support - Verizon Cell Phones SM-N910V | Samsung Cell Phones

Samsung's site lists three possible drivers for the Note 4 (Developer Edition, Black, & White). I suspect they're all the same driver, but the link above is for the black version if there actually is a difference.

 

[IrishSoul]

how about for MAC? I have Android Transfer, but the setting on the phone is not showing up..so its not recognizing it.

 

[mhunter6378]

how about for MAC? I have Android Transfer, but the setting on the phone is not showing up..so its not recognizing it.

If Android File Transfer is not seeing your phone when connected, restart your Mac while the phone is still connected. It should see it after the restart and should continue work from that point forward without needing to force it again.

 

[bozacksmith]

Well it took a few reboots of the phone and installing the same device drivers 3 times but it finally took on the last install..... go figure..

 

[IrishSoul]

If Android File Transfer is not seeing your phone when connected, restart your Mac while the phone is still connected. It should see it after the restart and should continue work from that point forward without needing to force it again.

This worked for me, thank you!

 

[rsbrux]

I have installed Kies 3 under Windows 8.1 and can see the files on my Note 4 in Kies. Nothing is visible in Windows Explorer (or Total Commander, for example), until I select "Browse files" from the context menu of the phone in "Devices and Printers". This enables me to see the entire contents of the phone (both internal and SD storage) in Explorer, but the phone does not appear as a removable drive on the PC and is therefore not visible at all in Total Commander. I see all files on the smartphone, regardless of whether I select PTP or MTP on the phone, even though Samsung tech support says that only the DCIM directory is visible in PTP mode. The only difference I observe is the placement of the phone in Devices and Printers. If I select PTP, it appear under "Devices" as a camera, if I select MTP, it appears under "Multimedia Devices". I can copy files in both directions. Is this the most I can hope for? I have tried most of the tips offered in this and other threads, in hopes of seeing the phone as a removable drive. Sometimes it appears in the systray menu with the "Remove ..." option, but it never shows up as a drive. Is this what is meant by the statement "USB Mass Storage is LOOOOOONG gone from Android."? I am running Lollipop (5.0.1).

 

[scuba_steve]

Without doing anything to my PC, plugging in my VZ Note 4 results in it being connected to the PC as an installer (for VZ driver software). If I open the notification section on my Note, I can change it to MTP. I then see the storage space of both the phone and SD card from my PC...but as an MTP device. It works well enough to copy/move/delete files, but not as well as it would be if the PC recognized it as removable storage. The same was true for my VZ S3.

 

[rsbrux]

Nothing is visible in Windows Explorer (or Total Commander, for example), until I select "Browse files" from the context menu of the phone in "Devices and Printers".

Correction, I now hear a ding and see the smartphone under "This PC" as soon as I plug it in. I no longer see it int the system tray at all. Given all of the things I tried, I am not sure what is responsible for these changes. I still cannot see it as an external drive, or even find a way to map it. Shouldn't this be possible, maybe with the old "subst" command (which I haven't used in 10 years or more)? I tried out the "Command prompt" from the context menu, in hopes of finding a path which I could use in a subst command, but got "The system cannot find the drive specified.", followed by a list of 6 other error messages. I can get by with what I have now, but any tips on how to make the phone appear as removable storage, a mapped drive or something similar would still be welcome! Even an idea how to get it to appear in the systray (so I can eject it properly) would be a help.

 

[dhectorg]

USB storage has NOT been long gone from Android. I was using the feature with my note 4 on Windows 7 desktop almost everyday when I was running Android 5.0. However, when I upgraded to the dreaded 5.1.1 I lost the ability to mount it. Now it shows up in Windows Explorer, but cannot be accessed. I will be downgrading back to 5.0 ASAP! This latest update is garbage.

 

[nahoku]

I'm curious why people are worried that the PC doesn't see the phone as a mass storage device. As long as you can see both the SD and Phone storage, what more do you need? If you want to store files on the SD card or Phone storage, all you have to do is create a new folder wherever you want and move stuff there. Am I missing something here?

By the way, you can drag files straight into either the Phone or SD storage, so I don't know what the problem is.

 

[dhectorg]

That's the whole point, drag/drop is NOT working for many of us. For me it stopped working when I upgraded to 5.1. No matter what PC I connect it to, it shows up in explorer but I can't access it.

 

[nahoku]

Do both the SD and Phone folders show up in Explorer? Normally when I connect my phone to my computer, the phone shows up in My Computer with a phone icon, and a window opens up with both the SD and Phone folders displayed.

View attachment 196994

Note that this is a WinXP machine, but it's the same on my Win7 laptop. Also, note the Task Manager window. Do you have WudfHost.exe running on your computer? What OS are you running? Never mind, I just read you're on Win7.

 

[natehoy]

Honestly, I much prefer to set up a shared folder (password-protected) on my desktop and just send and receive files from Android using ES File Explorer, which can browse shared folders over WiFi just fine.

I've never really liked the whole clumsy workaround of making the storage invisible to Android while it is visible to the desktop, or allowing two operating systems to write to the same storage area at the same time using a method that wasn't built for that capability. A shared folder my phone can connect to means I can access it conveniently any time I'm home. No cable required.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck that it's going away for people who prefer to do it that way, but it seems a lot less technically error-prone to keep Android in absolute control of the storage at all times, and have it do the pushing and pulling of data.