Need Help Seeing Flashdrive

[njb52]

Hi,
I just received my OTG cable and plugged in my flash drive. I was prompted to open my Nexus Media Importer, I so I used it to see the flash drive and successfully transferred some test files back and forth.

I prefer using my file mangers, X-Plore or ES File Explorer but cannot see the flash drive in their tree or folder structure. Has anyone had success using either X-Plore or ES File Explorer to access your flashdrive? Thanks in advance.

 

[bigtroutz]

Hi,
I just received my OTG cable and plugged in my flash drive. I was prompted to open my Nexus Media Importer, I so I used it to see the flash drive and successfully transferred some test files back and forth.

I prefer using my file mangers, X-Plore or ES File Explorer but cannot see the flash drive in their tree or folder structure. Has anyone had success using either X-Plore or ES File Explorer to access your flashdrive? Thanks in advance.

NMI does NOT enable other apps seeing the attached flash drive storage. It merely enables itself. ALL operations must pass thru NMI and read-only access is allowed --- no writing to the external storage is possible.
EDIT: NMI also does not show all file types but has a restricted list of files displayed (last time i checked)


You will need to root your N7 and use stickmount to allow other apps to see and write to external 'drives'

 

[njb52]

NMI does NOT enable other apps seeing the attached flash drive storage. It merely enables itself. ALL operations must pass thru NMI and read-only access is allowed --- no writing to the external storage is possible.
EDIT: NMI also does not show all file types but has a restricted list of files displayed (last time i checked)


You will need to root your N7 and use stickmount to allow other apps to see and write to external 'drives'

Thanks, bigtroutz, for your reply because it explains some of what is going on. I was able to copy non-media files from the flash drive to my Nexus with .dir, .qel, .qsd, .xls, .qdt file extensions. I was also able to delete these files from the nexus 7 using NMI. I was not, however, able to do the reverse and copy any files from my flash drive to my Nexus 7 using NMI. I prefer not to root my Nexus 7, so I guess stickmount is not an option.

 

[dave1nyc]

Right, if you want to use Stickmount, you'll have to root your 7. I also had hoped to be able to do this because I didn't want to root the 7 (if just because I didn't do it when new and I had lots of stuff on it) and unlocking it wipes everything out.

If you do decide to unlock and root, I'd suggest the Nexus Root Toolkit from Wugfresh. It has backup and restore functionality that worked for about 90% of my stuff. And if you're nervous, there's a very long 22" youtube video that really does walk you through using it from start to finish. The demonstration even shows what happens if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to, and seeing someone recover from missteps is a good idea. There are other tools that work just as well, and I selected this one because of that video. Many of the shorter videos skip things or the demonstrator implicitly assumes you know things that you may not.

 

[njb52]

Right, if you want to use Stickmount, you'll have to root your 7. I also had hoped to be able to do this because I didn't want to root the 7 (if just because I didn't do it when new and I had lots of stuff on it) and unlocking it wipes everything out.

If you do decide to unlock and root, I'd suggest the Nexus Root Toolkit from Wugfresh. It has backup and restore functionality that worked for about 90% of my stuff. And if you're nervous, there's a very long 22" youtube video that really does walk you through using it from start to finish. The demonstration even shows what happens if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to, and seeing someone recover from missteps is a good idea. There are other tools that work just as well, and I selected this one because of that video. Many of the shorter videos skip things or the demonstrator implicitly assumes you know things that you may not.

Thanks, dave1nyc, I appreciate the info. I am glad I did not root my Nexus 7, because we decided to go with a Nexus 10. I did a factory reset and brought it back to Staples, since it was exactly tow weeks ago that we bought it, and they exchanged it no problem.

So this will be my last Nexus 7 post, since I will be going over to the Nexus 10 forum form now on. I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me get up to speed with our first tablet. BTW, all of my apps were restored to my Nexus 10 when I signed into my Google account, so the only thing I had to do was a little tweaking with my settings and re-download and install Flash.