USB Drive

[Bruinator]

I have 2 flashdrives-they both 32 Gb space in size. I have them both formatted as FAT32. I also have a flashdrive that is 64GB in size formatted in FAT32. The ones that are 32 GB in size work fine on my amazon fire tablet and I can watch video on it fine. When I use the flashdrive that is 64 GB in size unsupported storage : the file system or size of your external device is not supported. 

 

Is there a maximum size file system that can be used on a FAT32 usb flashdrive with size of 64GB? If yes what is the maximum size?

 

TIA

[adrynalyne]

On 01/08/2021 at 12:58, Bruinator said:

I have 2 flashdrives-they both 32 Gb space in size. I have them both formatted as FAT32. I also have a flashdrive that is 64GB in size formatted in FAT32. The ones that are 32 GB in size work fine on my amazon fire tablet and I can watch video on it fine. When I use the flashdrive that is 64 GB in size unsupported storage : the file system or size of your external device is not supported. 

 

Is there a maximum size file system that can be used on a FAT32 usb flashdrive with size of 64GB? If yes what is the maximum size?

 

TIA

32GB unless you use additional software that probably would make it unsupported in Android. Try exFat.

[dwd999]

Do you have an option where you can have the tablet itself perform the formatting function? That should provide you with the best compatibility.

 

OK, I went back and checked the only Android device I have, a Pixel 4a phone which is Android 11. If I insert a USB C drive which is nominally 128GB the phone formats it into one large partition that's 114.56GB in size. So I'm not sure why you're not getting the 64GB to work unless its a problem with the version of Android you're using.

Edited August 2, 2021 by dwd999
added new info

[Bruinator]

i have also tried another 32GB that is not supported. This is so strange that some USB flash drives work and some dont.

[adrynalyne]

On 01/08/2021 at 18:17, Bruinator said:

i have also tried another 32GB that is not supported. This is so strange that some USB flash drives work and some dont.

Try the suggestion above. Format it on the device.

[dwd999]

Just out of curiosity, how were these drives originally partitioned? Were the original partitions set up as MSDOS or GPT? I know from just checking that a GPT partitioned drive works fine. I just plugged an m.2 to USB C drive adaptor with a 1 TB m.2 stick in it into my Pixel4a and Android 11 properly formatted it into a single 930GB drive. So it would help if you checked to see if the drives are partitioned as GPT. Also, what version of Android are you using and is it up to date. And are you trying to exceed the 4GB per file size limit? When Android 11 formats a disk it places a hidden file called LOST DIR or something similar on the disk. If that hidden file is missing then it may reject the drive. But you should still be presented with the option of fixing the drive by Android reformatting it. If you're not getting any prompt for that it may be a problem with your particular Android system being damaged.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

it's a FAT32 limitation due to being a 32bit file system. officially it only supports up to 32GB partition size. the larger you go the more inconsistent compatibility results you'll get.

 

tools such as RUFUS allow formatting larger FAT32 partitions/drives but it's done with an unsanctioned expansion method; similar to how people used to run more than 4GB ram on 32bit systems.

 

exFAT should be supported by Android and does NOT have the sizing limitations of old FAT32 so I'd highly recommend giving that a go as suggested by another above

 

edit: here's a nice read up if you're curious https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmanager/fat32-partition-size-limit.html

[Bruinator]

On 03/08/2021 at 11:35, Brandon H said:

it's a FAT32 limitation due to being a 32bit file system. officially it only supports up to 32GB partition size. the larger you go the more inconsistent compatibility results you'll get.

 

tools such as RUFUS allow formatting larger FAT32 partitions/drives but it's done with an unsanctioned expansion method; similar to how people used to run more than 4GB ram on 32bit systems.

 

exFAT should be supported by Android and does NOT have the sizing limitations of old FAT32 so I'd highly recommend giving that a go as suggested by another above

 

edit: here's a nice read up if you're curious https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmanager/fat32-partition-size-limit.html

Tried it with exFat and the drive still cant be used on android. Any other ideas other than not using this flash drive on android plz?

[aphanic]

On 03/08/2021 at 17:35, Brandon H said:

it's a FAT32 limitation due to being a 32bit file system. officially it only supports up to 32GB partition size.

Not quite, just when it comes to formatting in Windows 

 

 

@Bruinator, it's been a while since I stumbled upon something like that, but I remember an Android tablet of a friend that didn't quite like my 128GB USB stick unless it was FAT32 formatted. I don't recall how I changed it, whether it was from Linux or allowing the tablet to directly create the partition (and partition table).

 

Give it a shot if you haven't yet, clean the drive in Windows so it doesn't even have a partition table using Diskpart for example:

 

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          476 GB  2048 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online         1863 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online         1862 GB      0 B

DISKPART> sel disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

 

Use "list disk" to show all connected disks, "select disk" to select the USB drive (make sure you don't choose the wrong one) and finally "clean" clears the partition table. Exit Diskpart, eject the stick and connect it to the tablet, it should complain that the drive needs to be formatted for it to be used (if given the choice between internal storage or media, go for media), see what happens afterwards.

[Bruinator]

On 07/08/2021 at 10:41, aphanic said:

Not quite, just when it comes to formatting in Windows 

 

 

@Bruinator, it's been a while since I stumbled upon something like that, but I remember an Android tablet of a friend that didn't quite like my 128GB USB stick unless it was FAT32 formatted. I don't recall how I changed it, whether it was from Linux or allowing the tablet to directly create the partition (and partition table).

 

Give it a shot if you haven't yet, clean the drive in Windows so it doesn't even have a partition table using Diskpart for example:

 

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          476 GB  2048 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online         1863 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online         1862 GB      0 B

DISKPART> sel disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

 

Use "list disk" to show all connected disks, "select disk" to select the USB drive (make sure you don't choose the wrong one) and finally "clean" clears the partition table. Exit Diskpart, eject the stick and connect it to the tablet, it should complain that the drive needs to be formatted for it to be used (if given the choice between internal storage or media, go for media), see what happens afterwards.

Thx for that but it didnt work. I will just assume not all usb flash drives work on android and windows.

[dwd999]

Going back to square 1: what version of Android does your tablet have; and have you tried updating it? Are you saying that if you take a clean usb with absolutely no partition on it, and insert it into the tablet, you get absolutely no error message and there are no options to format the usb?

 

In another forum we discussed that Android 11 on a Pixel 4a phone will only accept a fat32 usb but at least in that case, if the drive needs to be reformatted you get an error message telling you and then the option to do that. I don't understand how you're not getting an error message and format option for any non-conforming usb. Do you have notifications turned off?

 

Later, checking further it becomes clear that the Fire OS on your tablet is not exactly based on Android. Amazon took some basic Android code and added its own code on top of that to produce its unique Fire OS. So maybe Amazon omitted a formatting error and correction routine. You may need to find a Fire OS expert to figure out why you're having problems.

Edited August 8, 2021 by dwd999
added new data

[Bruinator]

On 07/08/2021 at 22:47, dwd999 said:

Going back to square 1: what version of Android does your tablet have; and have you tried updating it? Are you saying that if you take a clean usb with absolutely no partition on it, and insert it into the tablet, you get absolutely no error message and there are no options to format the usb?

 

In another forum we discussed that Android 11 on a Pixel 4a phone will only accept a fat32 usb but at least in that case, if the drive needs to be reformatted you get an error message telling you and then the option to do that. I don't understand how you're not getting an error message and format option for any non-conforming usb. Do you have notifications turned off?

 

Later, checking further it becomes clear that the Fire OS on your tablet is not exactly based on Android. Amazon took some basic Android code and added its own code on top of that to produce its unique Fire OS. So maybe Amazon omitted a formatting error and correction routine. You may need to find a Fire OS expert to figure out why you're having problems.

Ths very much for your hard work and informative info.