Help External HD probs

[quisizyx]

Greets - I am trying to back up files to an external hard drive via USB. When hooked up it appeared to write some files to the HD. None of the windows files already on the drive weren't displayed. I thought Android recognized windows files. Also, didn't realize that Android would write files to the drive on connection. In an attempt to research this I connected the drive to my HP/Compaq notebook. It showed the windows files still there and accessible but after about a minute XP complained that the USB device wasn't recognized.
Anybody have a clue as to what is happening here? This makes no sense to me. Have Avast on the Samsung Galaxy SM-T900 tablet with Android 5.1.1 and Avast on the HP/Compaq notebook.

 

[mikedt]

Greets - I am trying to back up files to an external hard drive via USB. When hooked up it appeared to write some files to the HD. None of the windows files already on the drive weren't displayed. I thought Android recognized windows files. Also, didn't realize that Android would write files to the drive on connection. In an attempt to research this I connected the drive to my HP/Compaq notebook. It showed the windows files still there and accessible but after about a minute XP complained that the USB device wasn't recognized.
Anybody have a clue as to what is happening here? This makes no sense to me. Have Avast on the Samsung Galaxy SM-T900 tablet with Android 5.1.1 and Avast on the HP/Compaq notebook.

Probably what it is many new hard-drives come pre-formatted as NTFS for Windows, and also that's the Windows default for formatting HDDs as well. Want to use it with Android, you'll have to re-format it as FAT32 or exFAT. Windows will still recognize it as well.

 

[quisizyx]

Probably what it is many new hard-drives come pre-formatted as NTFS for Windows, and also that's the Windows default for formatting HDDs as well. Want to use it with Android, you'll have to re-format it as FAT32 or exFAT. Windows will still recognize it as well.

Figures. Should have done research before hooking the sucker up. Since the last few iterations of windows has been pushing NTSF and the file format is more secure & stable why did Android go with FAT? Now I have windows files that I can't access. (Sigh)

Thanx. Will look for app that will read NTFS. Or guess I will buy an HD just 4 Android.

 

[mikedt]

Figures. Should have done research before hooking the sucker up. Since the last few iterations of windows has been pushing NTSF and the file format is more secure & stable why did Android go with FAT? Now I have windows files that I can't access. (Sigh)

Thanx. Will look for app that will read NTFS. Or guess I will buy an HD just 4 Android.

I think it was a bit of a compromise really to use FAT. As Android uses the Linux kernel, it's native format is EXT4, which Windows can't read at all, and Android devices do use EXT4 for their internal storage. Android could have support for NTFS, but then devices makers might have to pay millions of $$$ in NTFS patent licensing fees to Microsoft. Although I believe they do have to pay something to Microsoft already for supporting FAT32 and exFAT, which are still covered by MS patents AFAIK.

FWIW Apple Macs don't support NTFS completely either, i.e. they can connect NTFS drives as read-only. OS X's native format is HFS+, exclusive to Apple, and Android doesn't support that either, neither does Windows. So if you got a hard-drive you want to swap between PCs and Macs, that might have to use FAT32 or exFAT as well.

Even PC desktop Linux OSs, that can connect NTFS drives. That's not officially supported by Microsoft or anything, and was largely found by reverse engineering NTFS, without Microsoft's help at all. So if an Ubuntu PC goes scrambling and corrupting an NTFS drive, good luck..you're on your own! Same with any Android apps that connect NTFS drives....use at your own risk!!