Question TV's & Ext Hard Drives - How to choose the right Ext Hard Drive

[jberryl]

My current set up is a 1T WD HDD that has external power from wall socket that my TV recognizes and provides access to my folders and files - music and videos. My HDrive is starting to act sketchy so I thought I'd buy another drive and transfer the files before it goes out since there is no other back-up. The reason for my question is, I've tried to see if a memory stick would be accessible by the TV and it doesn't recognize it. It made me wonder if this was a power source issue - ie, does it need to have an external power source for the Hdrive. I don't have any portable HDrives to test it out on and before spending on another HDD or SSD if this is something I should consider. I looked at the recommendations by Tom's on drives but none of them have an external power supply. So my question here is, does anyone have experience with this? (I can be more specific on the hardware like the TV specs but I thought I'd ask before I do that). Thanks and Regards,

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i have multiple USB thumbstick drives and external USB hard drives and all of them work fine with my 2x LG TVs.
the reason your thumb drive doesn't work may be that it is not properly formatted.

currently i have 2x USB external hard drives that are only used for video on these TVs.
one is a WD Passport 2TB and the other is a Seagate Desktop 8TB.
the WD does not require external power but the Seagate does, both work great.

 

[fzabkar]

Perhaps the TV's 5V USB supply has failed. If you can provide a model number for the TV, I can try to find circuit diagrams for it. That will confirm whether the USB port is powered.

 

[jberryl]

i have multiple USB thumbstick drives and external USB hard drives and all of them work fine with my 2x LG TVs.
the reason your thumb drive doesn't work may be that it is not properly formatted.

currently i have 2x USB external hard drives that are only used for video on these TVs.
one is a WD Passport 2TB and the other is a Seagate Desktop 8TB.
the WD does not require external power but the Seagate does, both work great.

I've never tried to format a thumb drive, so maybe I should try another thumb drive and see what happens.

Just for giggles, what format should be used?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

what format should be used?

for my portable video thumb drive i have always used FAT32.

 

[jberryl]

Perhaps the TV's 5V USB supply has failed. If you can provide a model number for the TV, I can try to find circuit diagrams for it. That will confirm whether the USB port is powered.

Thanks for the suggestion - I tried a different thumb drive and it worked. Now off to purchase a new one.