Root mounting external hard drive

[billman424]

a friend of mine has a wifi xoom and wants to know if he can use his external hard drive if he bought a mini usb to full usb adapter. a google search turns up mixed results, some say it needs to be rooted some say i will need to install a new kernal, some say it cant be done. if it can, can someone direct me to the simplest guide possible. my friend isnt exactly a computer person, and he would prefer not to have to wipe the xoom
thanks

 

[lotus49]

It certainly can be done (I know because I did it) but you need an OTG cable, not just any old adapter. They are very cheap on eBay - mine only cost me about

 

[billman424]

thanks for the reply, so i found some software called xoot that im gonna try to use to root the xoom and i found an app called drive mount that says it will mount the drive

 

[lotus49]

I rooted using this [Root] Universal Xoom Root - ANY XOOM ANY UPDATE - xda-developers method. It's safe and fairly easy but do read through the thread just to make sure you fully understand what you are doing. I haven't heard of xoot but I would urge caution. If this is the one-click rooting method I have heard discussed, it is not reliable and may brick your Xoom.

Rooting and installing 3rd party ROMs is not really all that difficult and has never caused me a problem, but it is possible to completely bugger your Xoom so that it is totally unusable so do be careful and make sure you have read the instructions carefully more than once.

[Edit]

I found something on XDA about xoot (here http://www.xda-developers.com/android/xoot-for-the-xoom-gives-you-root-plus-more/) and it appears that it is not the one-click method I referred to above, but my note of caution stands. Be careful; you will probably be fine but the worst that can happen is that you end up with a very expensive paper weight so make sure that other people have been brave enough to try this successfully before you do.

 

[billman424]

I rooted using this [Root] Universal Xoom Root - ANY XOOM ANY UPDATE - xda-developers method. It's safe and fairly easy but do read through the thread just to make sure you fully understand what you are doing. I haven't heard of xoot but I would urge caution. If this is the one-click rooting method I have heard discussed, it is not reliable and may brick your Xoom.

Rooting and installing 3rd party ROMs is not really all that difficult and has never caused me a problem, but it is possible to completely bugger your Xoom so that it is totally unusable so do be careful and make sure you have read the instructions carefully more than once.

[Edit]

I found something on XDA about xoot (here Xoot For the Xoom Gives You Root Plus More | xda-developers) and it appears that it is not the one-click method I referred to above, but my note of caution stands. Be careful; you will probably be fine but the worst that can happen is that you end up with a very expensive paper weight so make sure that other people have been brave enough to try this successfully before you do.

yea i think im gonna go with your universal method, its similar to the one i used when i installed cyanogenmod on my phone

does this method wipe the xoom? and does this stop ota updates as well?

 

[lotus49]

yea i think im gonna go with your universal method, its similar to the one i used when i installed cyanogenmod on my phone

does this method wipe the xoom? and does this stop ota updates as well?

Yes and yes.

Strictly speaking, it's not the rooting but the unlocking that wipes the Xoom, but since you can't root without unlocking, it amounts to the same thing.

One of my objectives in rooting my Xoom was to be able to install a 3rd party ROM so I wouldn't want OTA updates anyway but no, you won't be able to get them once you've rooted.

Since Motorola has not kept its promises about Ice Cream Sandwich (now there's a surprise) I think we shall have to rely on 3rd party ROMs if we want our Xooms to stay current so I don't think this is a big loss.

 

[billman424]

ok i rooted my friends xoom which was a piece of cake, i then installed the app Drivemount which in turn required the app called Busybox, i then tried plugging in a 16gb fat32 formatted memory stick it showed up on the list but when i try to mount it, it says failed to mount. i also tried a 320 gb external hard drive and it does the same thing, the device shows up but fails to mount, anyone know either what im doing wrong or a better alternative.

 

[lotus49]

Drive Mount does work on the Xoom according to several of the reviewers so it's not clear what the problem is.

My approach to this was a little more radical than installing an app as I installed the Tiamat ROM. I have been using this ROM for about 10 days now and I haven't had any problems with it at all and things like mounting drives (SDHC or OTG) just work without any messing about. Installing a ROM is even easier than rooting so if you've got that far it's not a big deal.

The only drawback to the Tiamat ROM that I have encountered is the boot process looks ugly. When the Moto logo comes up it's there for an awfully long time and then gets distorted like bad static on an old TV. This rather worried me at the time but my Xoom then booted no problem and I haven't had any other difficulty, not even the most minor.

The ROM I used was here [ROM] Team Tiamat Xoom Rom 2.2.2 - Moray [09/10/11]. There does appear to be a slightly newer one but I'm not sure if it will run on my Xoom.

The usual warnings apply if you are going to do this and I cannot claim to have tested Tiamat thoroughly in 10 days, but as I said above, installing it was really easy (easier than rooting) and once done, everything just worked (for me at least).

 

[billman424]

tiamat worked perfectly, thanks again