Portable Hard Drive not working - help appreciated!

[novocaine]

Hi All,

I bought an A500 today and it is not reading either of my portable storage devices.

I've tried it with both my Seagate 500gb (Fat32 and not independently powered , gets its power from wherever its plugged in) and my HTC wildfire, both with three separate apps - clear.fi, moboplayer and nemoplayer.

Both devices have music and .avi;s on them.

Both devices light up when plugged in and my HTC even asks do I want to mount as a disk drive. However, neither are being read by the tablet and in setting;storage it says that the external storage device is 'unavailable'.

Pretty p'd off as this is the main reason I bought the thing. Am I doing something wrong? Any help appreciated

 

[KiwiNessie]

I find that mine works if I shut down and then start up the tablet with the portable hard drive already plugged in.

 

[AQ_OC]

I've read that it doesn't work for hard drive. Only thumb drives and keyboards. Some devices draw too much current.

 

[novocaine]

Thanks guys.

Kiwi, is your hard drive powered by the a500 or separately? Has anyone any other suggestions?!

 

[spexwood]

I have a 1TB Western Digital Passport that is USB powered and FAT32 formatted. No problems reading it (and no, the USB slot doesnt ONLY read thumbdrives and keyboards FYI).

Have you tried rebooting the tablet? I have had issues on other tablets where, for whatever reason, the USB slots stop work and a reboot reenables them.
Try rebooting without the device plugged in and then plugging it in after startup. If nothing, then plug the device in and leave it in during reboot.



If that doesnt work, then plug the drive into a computer, right click it, select properties, and double check that it is FAT32. This is just to be certain. You may find that you thought it was FAT32 but its actuallt NTFS.



Next check that your AVIs are in the right format. The a500 is format picky.



If none of those options work, then try another (or a few) usb devices. Remember that they must be FAT (FAT16) or FAT32 Make sure the USB slot is functioning. If it is, then it must be the drive. If nothing else is working, then your USB slot must be faulty and you need to contact Acer regarding your warranty.



I wish you luck. Keep us informed.

 

[AQ_OC]

I have a 60 GB HD formated under Fat32. The A500 didn't recognize it at first, but after I rebooted the A500 it did.

 

[novocaine]

thanks guys.

I rebooted and tried again, but no luck.

I right clicks on the drive and properties and its format appears to be 'exFAT'. I googled this, its Fat64 I believe, is it?

If so, I'm guessing that this is the problem and the A500 doesnt accept it. Assuming this is the case, do you think an update down the line will rectify this or should I try and reformat the drive to Fat32??

Interestingly, my phone is Fat32 and still doesnt work (although the phone seems to knwo it is being connected - it charges and asks about mounting as a hard drive)

Very confused now.

Thanks again.

 

[urdaddi]

thanks guys.

I rebooted and tried again, but no luck.

I right clicks on the drive and properties and its format appears to be 'exFAT'. I googled this, its Fat64 I believe, is it?

If so, I'm guessing that this is the problem and the A500 doesnt accept it. Assuming this is the case, do you think an update down the line will rectify this or should I try and reformat the drive to Fat32??

Interestingly, my phone is Fat32 and still doesnt work (although the phone seems to knwo it is being connected - it charges and asks about mounting as a hard drive)

Very confused now.

Thanks again.

It will not read exFat...has to be Fat or Fat32.

 

[AQ_OC]

Is there some reason you need exFat? I've never used that as there was never any need for it. If it were me, I'd reformat it. You can also get a tiny usb case and put in a 32 GB microSD card. I have that in mine and you can hardly notice it's there.

 

[spexwood]

Yep, the exFAT would be your issue. To get it working with your Acer, you need to copy everything off of it (to your PC) and then reformat it as FAT32. I recommend Fat32Formatter if running Windows Vista/7.
Fat32Formatter

Once formatted, copy everything back to the drive and try again.

WARNING though: FAT32 has a maximum file size limit of 4GB. If, for example, you have video files greater than 4GB, then you might want to split them into 2 files using a video converter.

 

[novocaine]

Ok, but if exFat is the issue I'm still confused why my phone (Fat32) won't even work. I also tried my Nikon camera to transfer photos across and it also didnt recognise that! So it seems to not be recognising any USB devices, regardless of their format.

Reformatting is going to be an issue for me - I'm travelling and have no laptop or device to copy the files to temporarily. Does anyone know if Honeycomb will in future be compatible with exFat?

Thanks !

 

[Raven312]

Novocaine, doesn't your camera need proprietary software? My Canon (DSLR) does.

Sent from my PC36100 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[AQ_OC]

Ok, but if exFat is the issue I'm still confused why my phone (Fat32) won't even work. I also tried my Nikon camera to transfer photos across and it also didnt recognise that! So it seems to not be recognising any USB devices, regardless of their format.

Reformatting is going to be an issue for me - I'm travelling and have no laptop or device to copy the files to temporarily. Does anyone know if Honeycomb will in future be compatible with exFat?

Thanks !

I can't say for sure but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[novocaine]

Raven, my Nikon doesn't need any software - you can plug it in and mount it as a hard drive on any pc, mac or laptop.

I think its too much of a coincidence that , whatever about my hard drive, neither the phone or the camera are working!?

 

[spexwood]

My phone (SonyEricsson Xperia X10a) also doesnt work.

The instruction manual states that the tablet can only read FAT and FAT32 drives. So yeah, exFAT will not work. Im sorry that you cant reformat the drive right now, but if you did, then that would surely fix your drive problem. There is no magical fix for it or any way around it. :-(

Earlier today, I sent an email to Acer reporting many of the bugs and unsolved issues that people are having on this forum. Included, I asked about whether the tablet (not Honeycomb in specifically) will support non-FAT devices. If I get reasonable answers to the bugs and questions, Ill post them in a new thread.