Can the S4 READ a USB drive?? HELP!

[Medicine_Man_420]

Hi all,

I know this is a totally noob question but im trying to figure out if I can read/write to an external USB drive plugged directly into my phone?? (Sprint S4 SPH-L720, rooted and flashed with ForceRom)

I've used file explorer to find the USB after plugging it into the phone, but I can't seem to locate any of its contents....could I just be over looking them, or would they not be displayed?

When I search for "How to Guides" all I can find are instructions for enabling Mass storage, which allows for direct file transfer between your desktop and the S4s' external SD card, and unfortunately that's completely unrelated to what I'm trying to do.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance!!

-Mike

 

[Brian Lam]

Is it a USB 2.0, or 3.0? Because there shouldn't be a USB port on the S4. It's only a micro usb i think

 

[Medicine_Man_420]

So far I've only tried using a USB 2.0....you're right about the connection type, the S4 only has a micro USB but I'm using a little adapter to interface the two connections (as seen here: Amazon.com: Afunta(tm)android Tablet Cable Adapter Set-micro USB Otg; Mini USB Otg; Hdmi Female to Micro Hdmi Male;hdmi Mini-enabled Devices to Standard Hdmi: Electronics )

Any ideas??

 

[Medicine_Man_420]

Anybody...? I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to access USB files from an S4

 

[enotar]

You cant. The micro usb is for charging and HDMI with a special adapter

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[angry mustache]

You cant. The micro usb is for charging and HDMI with a special adapter

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Wrong. Unless my S4 is messed up and wrongly lets me plug a keyboard, mouse, and some USB flash drives with no issues. With the OTG adapter, most of my flash drives can be read without issue. My SanDisk Titanium drives do not see to be recognized for some reason, though.

 

[the53rdcard]

with that OTG adapter you should be able to read it, but im not sure if that is a rooted feature or not, i can do that with my touchpad and cm9, but the big thing is, for the drive, you HAVE to have external power as the phone/tablet port will not provide enough for the drive to work. So you can get a powered usb hub, and a splitter cable, or one of those portable battery packs and a splitter cable and it will work

here is a site that shows how to set it up on the touchpad, i wont have my s4 for a week so i cant speak to how different it will be on that, but it at least is a place to start REVTV - How To Set Up USB Host Mode on the HP Touchpad

 

[jeffreii]

Hi all,

I know this is a totally noob question but im trying to figure out if I can read/write to an external USB drive plugged directly into my phone?? (Sprint S4 SPH-L720, rooted and flashed with ForceRom)

I've used file explorer to find the USB after plugging it into the phone, but I can't seem to locate any of its contents....could I just be over looking them, or would they not be displayed?

When I search for "How to Guides" all I can find are instructions for enabling Mass storage, which allows for direct file transfer between your desktop and the S4s' external SD card, and unfortunately that's completely unrelated to what I'm trying to do.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance!!

-Mike

I haven't tested this out since it worked fine on my S3...so a grabbed my USB OTG cable and plugged it into my S4:

1) Plugged in a 16GB USB 3.0 thumb drive. Immediately the stock file explorer popped up and showed me the root directory of the drive. I was able to play MP3s on that drive no problem. Seems working 100%.

2) I plugged in both of my 2.5" USB drives, 1TB and 500GB. Each one turned on and the drive spun up...but my S4 said they were empty. I don't believe the USB on the phone can supply enough power to those drives for them to work properly.

3) I plugged in, one at a time, my mouse and keyboard from this computer. I was able to control my device with each one immediately.

I am currently on Goldeneye 4.0 ROM...just flashed it actually...no data restored, nothing installed, just 100% stock and factory wiped Goldeneye 4.0. I'd be surprised if there's any difference with the above if I switched back to stock AT&T MDL.

 

[angry mustache]

I would think a powered USB hub would be able to provide enough juice to spin up a portable USB hard drive. Either that, or an external power supply source for the drive itself. I know my older external drives had a jack to plug in a power supply if you couldn't plug in both ends of the split USB cable into the computer.

And for the record, I am able to read and write to my SanDisk Cruiser drives plugged in through the OTG cable. Still puzzled why the Titanium sticks won't work right, though.

 

[davidsnoodles]

It might be the formatting of your USB drive. I'm not sure what formats the S4 can and cannot read, but you might want to double check that.

 

[angry mustache]

It might be the formatting of your USB drive. I'm not sure what formats the S4 can and cannot read, but you might want to double check that.

This may be the case. One of the drives I couldn't read before was reformatted either FAT or FAT32, and works just fine now. It may have been exFAT or some other MS format before.

 

[robgub61671]

download usb otg helper its for rooted devices and you can read any file structure fat 32 or ntfs or if you dont have root you have to format the flash drive to fat 32 and yes you can use an external hardrive as long as its powered just plug it in to your otg cable and open usb otg helper and click mount

 

[reconminicon]

I was wondering, when I had my ZTE Blade with CMrom when I plugged it into my PS3 I was able to copy files from it. Not sure if it was the rom. But when I plug my S4 in it does not show up as a USB device on the PS3. Any ideas?

Sent from my GT-I9505 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[RichardTheGreat]

I don't know all the formats it can read. It CAN read FAT32. It CANNOT read NTFS.

 

[tech_head]

Reading USB drives does work.
If it's an actual drive you might need a powered USB hub.
If it's a flash drive it should just work.
You will need a USB OTG adapter for about $3.00

 

[RobN]

I was wondering, when I had my ZTE Blade with CMrom when I plugged it into my PS3 I was able to copy files from it. Not sure if it was the rom. But when I plug my S4 in it does not show up as a USB device on the PS3. Any ideas?

This is kind of off-topic - the rest of the messages are about using the phone to read USB drives, not having the phone act as a USB drive.

The S4 doesn't use the standard USB mass storage device driver, so you need a computer that can detect the connection type it's advertising. If you're rooted, you can get an app called "USB Mass Storage Enabler" that lets the phone acts as a normal USB mass storage device, and that would probably work - but only for the external SD card, not for internal memory.

 

[Hiram Escamilla]

Its funny that you guys have had to power your external hard drives with either the powered usb hub or through the power adapter, I have used a 60 gb and a 500gb drive connected directly to the phone and both spun up and i was able to read and write to them no problem, they were both 2.5 drives so maybe they need less power, my battery did start draining pretty fast though.

 

[Igmu]

You can purchase or make your own micro USB OTG cable.
They normally cost around $5 to purchase.
DIY USB OTG CONVERTER FOR i9100! IT WORKS! - xda-developers

The device needs to have the ability to host the USB connected device.
Determine Your Phone’s USB Host Capabilities With USB Host Diagnostics – xda-developers

I apologize for linking to a foreign thread, but this is where I found the answers to your question.

 

[mrsmumbles]

There's also the Sandisk micro SD and SD WiFi thing. It connects over WiFi I think. It is pricey though.

Sent from my LG-LG870 using Tapatalk 2

 

[GarySFP]

I have an OTG cable and I used to connect my flash drives to my phone all the time but now it has stopped working. However I bought an ikross Kross Micro USB 2in1 OTG SD Memory Card Reader For Samsung Galaxy S4 S3 Note 2 and it reads everything and cost 8 bucks on ebay