I have a seicane head unit and it only supports 32G USB drives. I was wondering if since Android was based on linux if it was possible to format the drives as ext4, xfs, or exfat and get the correct kernel module loaded so that the unit can support larger drives/files?
Android supports exFAT. The problem is not with Android it's the card reader in the unit that limits the capacity.
I've read that if you format the larger device as a FAT filesystem on a computer it will be recognized in the device, so it doesn't seem like a hardware limit. But, using FAT wastes space on many small files and also has a 2G file size limit. That's why I was wondering if I could get other filesystems supported. I'll try to format the larger drive with exFAT and see what happens.
Use a PC to format FAT32
You'll likely need to download a program to do it correctly, latest windows "can" only do it from command prompt, and often (always?) doesn't work. After making you wait an hour or two.
I gave up and downloaded "AOMEI Partition Assistant". Several minutes later, done and working... before, it wouldn't even recognize the card.
PS different device though I heard it's a shared issue for Chinese Android Headunits
I ended up just formatting a couple of 64G drives as FAT32 and they worked just fine. I was just hoping to be able to use exFat, xfs, or ext4 to avoid file size limitations. But, I'll just live with it for now.
CraigLS said:
I ended up just formatting a couple of 64G drives as FAT32 and they worked just fine. I was just hoping to be able to use exFat, xfs, or ext4 to avoid file size limitations. But, I'll just live with it for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exFat was proprietary by Microsoft and fully closed and therefore never supported on Android.
Microsoft has just made it open source (5-6 months ago?) and it is now being supported on Android 10.
ext-2/3/4, xfs, cramfs, squashfs and a few other file systems are directly supported by Android. Depending on what the manufacturer has compiled into the kernel, it is sometimes read-only on SD-cards and USB-sticks (and the compressed ones like cramfs, squashfs and yaffs(2) are always read-only)..
So your luck may vary, but exFat only on Android 10+.
I use a sandisk 256 gb usb flash drive in my seicane movies,music,photos,etc Mounts and ejects just fine
Related
hi ....
as title
anyone else got this problem ?
my external HDD has 280gb of fat32 and 40gb of ntfs
Which partition is first? If the fat32 is first, I would expect it to automount. The tablet doesn't support NTFS out of the box. Search these forums for NTFSMOUNT. That will allow you to mount the ntfs partition. If your fat32 is not first, you may need to mount it manually.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Euclid's Brother said:
Which partition is first? If the fat32 is first, I would expect it to automount. The tablet doesn't support NTFS out of the box. Search these forums for NTFSMOUNT. That will allow you to mount the ntfs partition. If your fat32 is not first, you may need to mount it manually.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the fat32 is first, then the ntfs
i tried ntfs mount, it wont show the device at all
iconia wont detect my hdd at all
actually does anyone here tried hdd with partitions ?
That's odd that it doesn't pick up the first partition. Even a drive that isn't split has partitions on it.
muqali said:
That's odd that it doesn't pick up the first partition. Even a drive that isn't split has partitions on it.
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Click to collapse
yeah.. thats it...
is my hdd not supported or what?
is there any compatibility hdd list for iconia ??
cause if i plug my 4gb thumb it will directly recognized ..
My Cruzer USB drive has a cdfs and fat32 partitiin, the main (fat32) partition is fine but won't show the cdfs volume.
I suspect the mount scripts are written for single volume drives or primary partition only.
Could it be that it's a Dynamic drive instead of a Basic Drive? When you connect it to windows and look at the drive partition, it should say in the left border of the drive. Not sure if Android can read a Dynamic drive. Worth a check..
Vereynn said:
My Cruzer USB drive has a cdfs and fat32 partitiin, the main (fat32) partition is fine but won't show the cdfs volume.
I suspect the mount scripts are written for single volume drives or primary partition only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Vereynn, I'm assuming it's a U3 Sandisk Cruzer. They make an app(Sandisk does) that removes U3 from it. U3 is notoriously insecure and they dropped support for it anyway. If you want it or need help finding it I can point you in that direction. Only thing I could think of is maybe the Iconia doesn't support GPT partitions, only MBR/MSDOS style. Why a 320GB USB drive would have that I don't know though, unless you specifically set it up like that with parted or something.
Euclid's Brother said:
Could it be that it's a Dynamic drive instead of a Basic Drive? When you connect it to windows and look at the drive partition, it should say in the left border of the drive. Not sure if Android can read a Dynamic drive. Worth a check..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am using MAC OSX
how can i check ?
I'm pretty sure OS X doesn't support dynamic drives, so I doubt he has one.
muqali said:
Vereynn, I'm assuming it's a U3 Sandisk Cruzer. They make an app(Sandisk does) that removes U3 from it. U3 is notoriously insecure and they dropped support for it anyway. If you want it or need help finding it I can point you in that direction. Only thing I could think of is maybe the Iconia doesn't support GPT partitions, only MBR/MSDOS style. Why a 320GB USB drive would have that I don't know though, unless you specifically set it up like that with parted or something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, it's a U3 device. I don't actually use it for much, I got one of the Costco 4packs a while back and they all just sit around my desk now, but it's the only external drive I have with multiple volumes on it for testing So thanks but no real reason for killing the U3 "CD" partition, it's heading for a landfill eventually
My normal go-to USB stick is a 16GB Toshiba with a single FAT32 volume.
One of these days I'll put one of my HP laptop drives back into its DIY external case and see what the Iconia thinks about it. 3 partitions I think (one for BIOS, one NTFS for normal use and a FAT32 for recovery images)
I'm looking to mount my Galaxy Nexus to my Nexus 7, but when I go about it like I would a usb stick stickmount doesn't see the sd card. My USB OTG host cable works perfectly with my 64gb SanDisk Cruzer thumb drive, but it is NTFS formatted to get around the 4gb file size limit. I can read files, copy files off of it, and stream files from the stick just fine but I am unable to write to the stick. I'd like to be able to get rid of NANDROID backups, playstation games, other large files, etc without having to connect to a computer.
1. What format is the "SD card" on the Galaxy Nexus? Is it ext3/ext4 which stickmount can't read?
2. If there is a better way to make an NTFS formatted writable stick I'm all ears...
3. Maybe I should just get a smaller separate stick that's FAT32 and thus writable...
Nokia?
thirtynation said:
I'm looking to mount my Galaxy Nexus to my Nexus 7, but when I go about it like I would a usb stick stickmount doesn't see the sd card. My USB OTG host cable works perfectly with my 64gb SanDisk Cruzer thumb drive, but it is NTFS formatted to get around the 4gb file size limit. I can read files, copy files off of it, and stream files from the stick just fine but I am unable to write to the stick. I'd like to be able to get rid of NANDROID backups, playstation games, other large files, etc without having to connect to a computer.
1. What format is the "SD card" on the Galaxy Nexus? Is it ext3/ext4 which stickmount can't read?
2. If there is a better way to make an NTFS formatted writable stick I'm all ears...
3. Maybe I should just get a smaller separate stick that's FAT32 and thus writable...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen that done with Android devices just yet... maybe it's possible, but I haven't heard of it. I know that Nokia phones can hook up as external storage to the N8 (saw a video on YouTube) but that's as far as I know.
Also, to write files to an NTFS volume on Android, it seems that you need to add the "fuse.ko" to your kernel (in /system/lib/modules) I tried doing this with the Nexus 7 ToolKit, but I wasn't about to insmod it (make it run) since the fuse.ko I has was apparently for a different version of Android??? I've literally spent about 10 hours "searching" on xda and all over the internet. It seems (oddly) that everyone in the Android community is content with a measly 32GB total limit, and 4GB file size limit. *(facepalm)*
This won't work. Android, with 3.0, stopped exporting storage via SD card, because of reasons[1]. If at all, you can have a vendor modify Android as to export your plug-in SD card, but not the internal storage.
Currently, Galaxy Nexus etc. offer their files via the 'MTP' protocol when plugged in, and there's no support to act as an MTP client AFAIK (since Linux support for MTP sucks balls).
[1]: since a separate storage for /data, /system etc. was considered uncool, as it made you dependent on a predefined partition size (remember 256MB 'internal storage' phones and Android Market "uninstalled due to low disk space"?), newer phones, and especially the Nexus line, features a single storage container.
The USB mass storage interface works like plugging in a hard drive into your system: it gives you block-level access, and this is usually synonymous with "exclusive" access, as it results in destroyed or confused file systems if two independent systems try to mount the file system on a storage device.
Problem is that Android still needs to be able to actually run, so it can't give you block level access to the internal storage. The only way that would be feasible is to turn off your phone completely and have the bootloader give you USB mass storage access, which is counterproductive.
Thus the need for something like MTP (which was already around for a while) was born, which gives you the ability to make it look like a file system, but actually work on a client/server basis like FTP.
tl;dr: no usb mass storage ("usb stick mode") with galaxy nexus. ever.
Can't check at the moment, but can't you mount the SD card from CWM recovery on the Nexus in USB Mode rather than MTP?
What we need is a file manager that can use MTP. I'm also interested in hooking my Gnex up to my 7. There must be something out there that can do this.
Bluetooth file transfer.
or
Connect to the same wifi and share.
Good Morning
I am having a panic, i am going on holiday soon and i take lots of photos. I have just got the N7 and i have managed to put photos onto the N7 via an OTG cable + card reader with SD card inserted and using Nexus Media Importer. Now i can see them and select them in the gallery but when i plug in my Ext Hdd then N7 recognises it but i can transfer the photos over.
What am i doing wrong
Tansk in advance
Slaine
Be rooted and install StickMount.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
slainesco said:
What am i doing wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You failed to appreciate the significance of the word "Importer" in the app's name.
bftb0 said:
You failed to appreciate the significance of the word "Importer" in the app's name.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is there a good exporter app then
when i attached my fat32 1tb hdd i use stickmount and it says MBR signature not found
any ideas
slainesco said:
is there a good exporter app then
when i attached my fat32 1tb hdd i use stickmount and it says MBR signature not found
any ideas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've barely said anything meaningful about your device - for instance if it is rooted (& what ROM and kernel you are using if so).
Your mileage will depend on both the kernel and ROM you have installed. I would think that most kernels should support FAT32, but the ROM used (e.g. stock) may not have an automounter/vold which will automatically mount the device as soon as it is plugged in.
For example, this is why people will use StickMount on lightly-rooted stock, but don't need it at all with CM10.1 - the stock kernel supports mounting of FAT HDDs, but the stock ROM doesn't take any actions automatically when they are plugged in.
Right now I'm running a recent CM10.1 nightly & just plugged into my N7:
1) a 8 GB FAT32 uSD card on a reader
2) a 150 GB HDD formatted in NTFS
In both cases, the USB device mounted (without any intervention on my part) successfully - but with the NTFS HDD in read-only mode. I would think it would have mounted the HDD in R/W mode had it been a FAT filesystem. Dismounting the devices was available via Settings->Storage.
Once you've got the device mounted, any root-aware file browser app should allow you (in principle) the ability to copy files bi-directionally. The "in principle" part is that I see reports on here complaining about successful mounts but no files showing up... so you are probably going to need to experiment.
good luck
PS I believe that SD cards in card readers can be written by Media Importer - why this doesn't extend to FAT HDDs I don't really know.
bftb0 said:
You've barely said anything meaningful about your device - for instance if it is rooted (& what ROM and kernel you are using if so).
Your mileage will depend on both the kernel and ROM you have installed. I would think that most kernels should support FAT32, but the ROM used (e.g. stock) may not have an automounter/vold which will automatically mount the device as soon as it is plugged in.
For example, this is why people will use StickMount on lightly-rooted stock, but don't need it at all with CM10.1 - the stock kernel supports mounting of FAT HDDs, but the stock ROM doesn't take any actions automatically when they are plugged in.
Right now I'm running a recent CM10.1 nightly & just plugged into my N7:
1) a 8 GB FAT32 uSD card on a reader
2) a 150 GB HDD formatted in NTFS
In both cases, the USB device mounted (without any intervention on my part) successfully - but with the NTFS HDD in read-only mode. I would think it would have mounted the HDD in R/W mode had it been a FAT filesystem. Dismounting the devices was available via Settings->Storage.
Once you've got the device mounted, any root-aware file browser app should allow you (in principle) the ability to copy files bi-directionally. The "in principle" part is that I see reports on here complaining about successful mounts but no files showing up... so you are probably going to need to experiment.
good luck
PS I believe that SD cards in card readers can be written by Media Importer - why this doesn't extend to FAT HDDs I don't really know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the lack off info. I have only had the N7 for over a week and it isnt rooted as up until one hour ago i hadnt a clue what that meant. So i guess it is stock and ive sinced realised Stickmount wont work.
I can mount a 32gb stick no hassles but the fat32 1tb external hdd with power supply just comes up with mbr signature not found
thanks
I couldn't find anything on TeamWin's main site or in various google searches. I know for sure that TWRP supports Fat32 via the USB-OTG cable, but I was wondering what other formats it would support, such as exFat for example (to use the same thumbdrive to store media files over 4GB for example).
My Kernel/Rom supports USB-OTG as well as say NTFS, but I'm curious if exFat would be possible (far as I know the M$ patent on it seems to suggest maybe not).
PS: any recommendations on a good auto-mounting script for the OTG, basically something that can detect and auto mount to /usb-otg or another folder, perhaps even a widget I could just tap to mount/unmount.
PS#2 : StickMount seems to be working rather well (exFat support too as long as I have the fuse binaries on /sdcard). I'm actually browsing a 1TB Toshiba USB drive off the OTG cable right now which is formated as exFat. I'm probably just going to keep a 8GB Fat32 thumbdrive for my TWRP backups (which also happens to be my memtestx86 drive which is mostly empty anyways).
Guess I needed to look at their actual thread. Seems they do support exFat.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1779092&highlight=exfat
I gotta say, I'm struggling mightily here.
I'm running stock on my Nexus 10, with 4.4.2, rooted with TWRP installed as recovery and with SU installed.
I'm trying hard to see if I can watch movies on USB using the OTG cable. All my movies are MKV's on my HD. I could convert to .mp4 if I have to.....but
I've played around mounting the stick with Stickmount as well as Nexus Media Importer. Both will mount the drives but I can't read anything on them.
I finally got it to where I could read files if they were on my Hp 16 Gb stick formatted Fat, not NTFS or ex-Fat. It will not read my Patriot 64's in any format.
I went to Stickmount Playstore page to d/l the 2 zip files that would enable NTFS support and moved them over to /SDcard. Didn't seem to make any difference.
It used to be I could play any video file of any format, of any size, on any sized stick. What happened? Do any of the other roms do any better at supporting this? Are there known limitations to KitKat? Are there work arounds/enhancements/fixes available? Should I run a different kernel?
Any help would be most appreciated.
OK. So here's where I'm at. I now come to see that the only drive that will work is a FAT32 format and that it has to be 16 gb or less in size. It doesn't matter what format the file is in. It won't read NTFS or exFAT.
Is that the experience of everyone else or what?
I've also found that I cannot format a larger drive (eg: 64 gb) in windows. It only allows exFAT on this size. I can, however, use something like EaseUS Partition Manager (free) and format the drive that way into FAT32 at least allowing a greater number of movies on 1 stick.
Next hurdle though, is how to get around the 4gb size issue.
You can try using USB OTG HELPER without any limitations as to the type of stick or drive (FAT NTFS table format) you can use. The downside that I have noticed with all those programmes that enable OTG function via root methods is that they tamper system files which in turn cause future system file update errors. (I had to manually find and replace some files in order to make my 4.3 update from 4.2 happen)
Send from a GNEX YAKJU with stock ROM and custom recovery with root