USB3 HDD Don't work on my TV

caveman38

My wife had a Samsung 2TB HDD to play her Box Sets ripped to MKV. The drive went kapput and I bought a new Seagate 4TB USB3 HDD. Unfortunately it didn't work and I read up likely problems. One was partition size above 2TB is a no no to TV's (maybe media players too). I reformatted and had a Primary Partition of 2 TB which would leave a large chunk redundant. I would have accepted that, but. That doesn't work in her TV either. But it works on my TV which is a Samsung too.
I read also that USB3 drives may not work on some TV's also because of power. I have tried a non powered USB3 drive of 1TB and that works fine. If the problem is powered USB3 HDD's is there a workaround rather than looking for a USB2 one (which I couldn't guarantee would work either.

Neil_Jones

I think you've got your power mixed up.

A "non powered" one uses the USB power from the TV, ie it doesn't use a separate power block.

If you've bought a USB "mobile" hard drive, it will almost certainly be non-powered and should (key word) run from the USB power alone.

If you bought a 3.5" unit ("powered" with adapter) you can't use those on their own on the TV, they need the extra power from the power unit.  All 3.5" drives (regardless of external, internal or whether they are intended for) take 12v to get spinning.  A USB port of any variety can only provide 5v - they will not power a 3.5" drive on its own.

This being said, USB ports on TV can be a bit fussy sometimes.  What is your TV model?

caveman38

Its an old Samsung 22" that she uses. The Seagate is an Expansion Desktop Drive USB3 4TB. It has its own power just as the last one did too although that was USB1. With a 2TB partition it is recognized on my newer 40" Samsung but not hers.

Neil_Jones

Which one?  Should be a model number on the back of the TV.

Plausible it can't talk to a 4Tb drive.  not everything can.  Splitting it into a 2 Tb partition doesn't change the fact its still a 4Tb drive.

caveman38

It's not as old as I thought UE 32 H50000AK

Neil_Jones

A quick shufty in an online implies Supported file systems are FAT and exFAT.  You've probably formatted it as NTFS.

Windows will probably not let you format it ExFAT, it will always default to NFTS on a drive of that size, and FAT32 has a 2Tb drive limit, so you can't have a 4Tb FAT32 drive.  You can format to ExFAT in Windows but it involves jumping through various hoops, and FAT32 ain't going to happen on a 4Tb drive.

Might be easier just to go back to Windows and delete everything, so it comes up unallocated.  If the TV wants to format it, let it do so (or connect it to your 40" and get it to format it).

If no joy here and it liked a 2Tb before (and the 4Tb works on your 40"),  then its safe to assume the older TV isn't interested so you'll have to either obtain another 2Tb for it or use the 1Tb you have now, and use the 4Tb elsewhere.  If it was faulty it wouldn't have appeared on the 40".

forgotmyname

Try creating 2 x 2TB partitions, if thats acceptable for your usage?

Had an issue many years ago fitting an 8GB (yes GB) to a laptop that originally had a 500MB drive.

It would not let me install windows onto it, popped it into the PC and formatted it into 2 x 4GB partitions

and it was all good after that.

Depending on the BIOS it may work.