Unable to access USB Hard Drive

[rogerbid]

Hi, I think I already know the answer to my question - that it is not possible to access a USB Hard Drive but maybe there is a way I don't know about.

I have tried using a powered USB hub (the light on the hard drive enclosure lights when connected to the power) and when I connect the tablet using an USB OTG cable, the Hard Drive spins and the tablet acknowledges the existence of the drive. But that is as far as I get, I cannot see the drive contents anywhere.

I have only had the tablet a short time and am still learning, so maybe the drive shows up somewhere and I simply cannot find it.

Thanks, Roger

 

[gtt1]

I have not had any luck trying to attach a hard drive. Should be possible but when I try it shows in notification and tells me it is an unsupported file structure.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Have you tried looking for the external drive using a different file manager? There are some good ones in Play. I like Solid explorer.

 

[rogerbid]

Thanks for the replies, I had not thought of trying other file managers, I have only used CS File Explorer.

I will give Solid a try,

Cheers,

Roger

 

[jpintn]

I don't think that the tablet will be able to open files from the hard drive. You can, however, use a flash drive.

 

[DTTR]

It all has to to with the way the HDD is formatted.
Being a big beast I'm pretty sure it has an NTFS file structure.
Android only recognisez Fat32.
Try formatting an USB memory stick / or card in NTFS and you will see that Android does not recognize it.

 

[gtt1]

It all has to to with the way the HDD is formatted.
Being a big beast I'm pretty sure it has an NTFS file structure.
Android only recognisez Fat32.
Try formatting an USB memory stick / or card in NTFS and you will see that Android does not recognize it.

Pretty sure you are right as when I attach and try to view with ES file explorer I get unsupported file structure.

If I wanted to be able to attach a hard drive then it would be easy enough to just partition a separate section as Fat 32. Never done it but I know you can lots of info on google search. Only have to keep in mind that you could only transfer files up to 4gb from the NTSF section to the Fat32 section.