Android tablets and USB storage

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Rickles

2938 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#204223 22-Sep-2016 11:20

Why do some USB flash drives work with tablets, and others don't?

I have a tablet (Mediatek) that will happily mount a couple of 1GB USB drives, but not an 8GB one ... both are FAT32 formatted, and using the same OTG cable.

I've read that some tablets with older Android versions need an app to use USB drives, but I'm on 4.4.2, and as I say it works fine for 2 drives, just not the 8GB one.

Is brand of USB drive the problem?

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d3Xt3r

688 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1639649 23-Sep-2016 22:41

Since both drives are FAT32 formatted, I doubt it's a software issue. My guess is that the 8GB drive requires more power and the tablet is unable to supply it. If you have a Y cable (or a powered USB hub), you could try plugging the drive to it and see if it makes any difference.

If you want to dig deeper, open a terminal emulator app and run the following commands immediately after plugging in the drive:

dmesg | tail
lsusb

and see if your drive is being detected, or if there are any errors. If the drive is detected, then try using a third-party file-browser like Solid Explorer (with the USB OTG plugin), or if you're rooted, try Chainfire's stickmount.

If your drive isn't being detected then it's likely that the tablet isn't able to supply sufficient power to that drive.

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