Android Box is a great way to make your not-so-smart TV comparable to an Android or smart TV. And guess what? Everybody wants to be able to play movies, and songs and view pictures saved on an external HDD. It may also be that your android box does not have much storage capacity and you need to increase it.
Whatever may be the reason for you to connect an external 1 TB HDD, the point is it has to connect properly for you to use it. But users have faced problems in this regard. And sometimes their android box does not detect external hard drives, especially the 1 TB HDD.
In this blog post, we will go over some of the possible causes which may cause this problem. We will also try to guide you through the solution.
What to know?
- Hard drives can have either of the two partitioning types, GPT or MBR.
- Since hard drives can be large as compared to flash drives, they need more power than an ordinary flash drive or the newer SSDs.
- Android boxes running on newer android versions are less prone to encounter problems like these.
What are the causes?
Extensive research has led to the conclusion that the reason for the android box to not detecting an external 1 TB HDD lies in one of the following two reasons.
First, the hard drive requires more power to function than what is supplied by the USB port on the android TV box. Usually, 3.5-inch and bigger HDDs require an external power source.
Second, the external hard disk drive is running on the GPT partitioning, which is not detected or readable by every device. GPT partitioning is of a newer variety and may only be read by newer android boxes.
How to tackle this problem?
We have looked over the possible causes of this problem. It is now time to see how we may be able to solve this. Let’s go through both of the listed causes one by one.
- The Power Problem
Normally, 2.5” HDDs do not require an additional power source and can be powered by the USB ports present in an android box.
The normal USB ports have a power supply of 5V and 0.5A. This is not enough for 3.5” or bigger HDDs. 1 TB HDDs are usually of this size and thus they do not receive enough power to function.
The solution is a powered USB Hub
which supplies external power to your hard disk and thus can make sure that the hard drive can be detected and read by the android box. All you need to do is,
- Buy a powered USB hub as shown or a similar product. A powered USB hub has an adapter that will have to be plugged into a wall socket.
- Connect the USB port of the powered hub to the USB port on your android box.
- Plugin your hard drive to the hub.
- Your 1 TB HDD should now be detected by your android box.
- The MBR or GPT issue
Newer HDDs use the GPT partitioning format, which is beneficial as it allows most of the space on a hard drive to be used.
However, not all devices, especially your android box may not be able to read this format. Thus, you would have to convert your hard drive’s partitioning system back to MBR for it to be detected properly.
To be able to do so, you need to follow the instructions given below very carefully. It’s an easy task, but it requires special directions. Thus, pay attention.
- Before beginning, ensure that you have saved all the data on your hard drive as this process involves formatting and deleting the volume, meaning, and loss of data.
In the search bar, type disk management. Click on the option that says ‘Create and format hard disk partitions.
Now, a list of all the hard drives, whether internal or external, connected to your PC will be shown.
Now select your external HDD, and right-click on it. Select the delete volume option.
- Now right click on the drive’s label and select convert to MBR.
Right-click on the unallocated space label and select a new simple volume.
Follow the volume setup wizard to complete the process. Read the onscreen instructions and click on next.
Make sure that the file format kept is NTFS.
Now connect your 1 TB HDD through a powered hub to your android box. It will detect your newly formatted hard drive and everything is now good to go.
Summary
Your android box might not be detecting the external hard drive due to power or formatting issues, each of which is not such a big hassle in itself and can be solved. Following the instructions above, the problems are most likely to be eradicated easily.
