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  1. Hello everyone!

    I purchased the MINIX Neo U9-H and it came over the weekend. I absolutely love it, it's an incredible device! However, I am unfortunately experiencing a problem with it all of a sudden.

    When I set it up over the weekend, I plugged my WD 8TB external hard drive into it (and I plugged the hard drive's power cable into the wall). It worked perfectly - the MINIX recognized the hard drive, and I was able to watch all of my videos via Kodi from my hard drive. It was perfect, exactly what I was hoping for!

    I turned the MINIX off Saturday night, and turned it on Sunday morning. It once again worked perfectly on Sunday morning. I then turned it off once again.

    Today, Tuesday, when I turned on the MINIX, it no longer "recognized" the hard drive. The hard drive was on (I could hear the motor of the hard drive spinning). However, the MINIX did not allow me to access any of the files (via ES File Explorer nor via Kodi).

    I turned the MINIX off and turned it back on again. Still nothing.

    Does anyone know why it would work so well for the first few days and then not recognize my hard drive the next day? I did change a few settings between Sunday and Tuesday. The first two days I turned on the MINIX, it came up with an automatic message - something like, "Do you want to automatically use ES File Explorer to browse your USB device?" I selected "yes" on Sunday. That's the only setting I can think of that I changed. That automatic message did not come on this morning when powering on the device - I wonder if that messed it up? Is there some way to change that?

    Actually, looking at it again just now - when looking at the home screen of ES File Explorer, it does appear to recognize my hard drive. It states, "USB1003" and it says it's at "0%." I tried plugging my HDD into another USB port, and it stated, "USB1005" and still had it at 0%.

    Again, the NEO U9-H recognized my HDD perfectly and worked just fine for two days straight. I'm not sure why it's not recognizing it all of a sudden (or perhaps it's recognizing it, but it's not registering all of my video files on it). My video files are all there - I just checked when plugging it into my desktop.

    If anyone has any ideas whatsoever, that'd be so helpful! (I bought the MINIX just to view videos on my HDD on my TV, so I'm really hoping to get it to work once again!)

    Thanks so much!!
    Tony

    PS: If it is helpful, I switched the mode on the MINIX to fully power the system "off" when I press the power button (as opposed to go into "sleep mode."). So every time I turned the MINIX "off," it was fully powered off. Thanks again!
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  2. If you connect the drive to your computer are the files still there?
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  3. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    If you connect the drive to your computer are the files still there?
    Hey jagabo! Yes, that's the strangest thing about it - nothing with my HDD changed (to my knowledge) in the last week. The MINIX had no problem recognizing all of my video files for the first few days, and no longer does. I'm wondering if there's some setting I changed on Sunday (perhaps the ES File Browser thing I mentioned) that affected it. I have a ticket in with MINIX, so I'll see what they say - will post the solution (hopefully there is one) here! But other than this setback, I have absolutely loved the device - it's amazing! Thanks for the help jagabo!
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  4. Member Bernix's Avatar
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    Hi,
    it comes to my mind, if it try to index the HDD. 0% seems it trys it. You can check if the HDD is working. It can skip from 0% to say 50% sudently. 8TB disc is very big and you have thousands of videos on it. Probably this is just one time process. Check if HDD is doing something when there is 0%.
    Also ES browser can be unable to work with such big disc. But it is less probably. Try insert in some USB stick biggest you have, with as much videofiles as you have. If there is some percentage too. But it can be very quick proces with 32GB usb stick. It is roughly 250 times smaller if i count right. Just same format settings.


    Bernix
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  5. Check permissions for the ES File Explorer. Make sure it's allowed to access Storage.
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  6. Member Bernix's Avatar
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    Also problem can be NTFS. ES file explorer is correct me Android thing. So probably Fat32 can be better but is very limited and obsolete of course. You can test it with different filesystem used on usb stick.


    Edit: also find on net that missing label of disc can cause problem. Just give a disc a name. F.e. My storage. Worth to try.


    Bernix
    Last edited by Bernix; 5th Sep 2018 at 10:55. Reason: Edit
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  7. Originally Posted by Bernix View Post
    Hi,
    it comes to my mind, if it try to index the HDD. 0% seems it trys it. You can check if the HDD is working. It can skip from 0% to say 50% sudently. 8TB disc is very big and you have thousands of videos on it. Probably this is just one time process. Check if HDD is doing something when there is 0%.
    Also ES browser can be unable to work with such big disc. But it is less probably. Try insert in some USB stick biggest you have, with as much videofiles as you have. If there is some percentage too. But it can be very quick proces with 32GB usb stick. It is roughly 250 times smaller if i count right. Just same format settings.


    Bernix
    Hey Bernix! That is a great thought about indexing! That would make sense, but here is the puzzling thing - on both Saturday and Sunday, the MINIX recognized all of the video files from my HDD just fine without going through any extensive process of indexing. It worked absolutely perfectly within a matter of seconds. So I'm not sure as to why it would all of a sudden need to index it on Tuesday when it had already been playing every file just fine.

    That is a good point about it being large though at 8TB. I left the MINIX on for about an hour, and my HDD was still at 0%. I will try a usb stick later tonight just to check though! Thanks again for the idea and for your advice, I really appreciate it!
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  8. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Check permissions for the ES File Explorer. Make sure it's allowed to access Storage.
    Hey jagabo! That is a great idea - I just tried to check the permissions just now, but I can't seem to figure out how to do that. I will take another look at it later tonight. Even if that was the problem though, it's so strange that it worked perfectly fine for two days in a row, and then it just stopped working. But I wonder if you're right - I wonder if I somehow accidentally changed the permission settings. Hopefully I can figure out how to view the permissions tonight, thanks again!
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  9. Originally Posted by Bernix View Post
    Also problem can be NTFS. ES file explorer is correct me Android thing. So probably Fat32 can be better but is very limited and obsolete of course. You can test it with different filesystem used on usb stick.


    Edit: also find on net that missing label of disc can cause problem. Just give a disc a name. F.e. My storage. Worth to try.


    Bernix
    Ah, that is very interesting to know about NTFS. Yes, my HDD is formatted as NTFS. As mentioned, it worked perfectly for two days - but that is good to know.

    Also good to know about missing disc label, thanks for that tip! It's currently named "My Book," which is how the WD HDD came named. Do you think I should change it again or should that suffice? Thanks again, I really appreciate the help!
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  10. If the device couldn't read NTFS it never would have seen any files. So that can't be the problem. Unless you disabled the NTFS file system driver, which seems unlikely.

    To check permissions on Android devices go to the Settings App, select Apps, find the ES app and select it. Select Permissions. Enable Storage. The exact sequence may vary from version to version of android. But that should help you find it.

    The fact that you got the message "Do you want to automatically use ES File Explorer to browse your USB device?" suggest some other app was being used to browse files before. If you then chose to use ES File Explorer but it didn't have access to Storage you would no longer be able to see the USB drive.
    Last edited by jagabo; 5th Sep 2018 at 19:39.
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    +1 to jagabo's point that if it recognized the drive before it's not the NTFS formatting.

    FYI, for future reference, if you do have some read issues with any of your drives (i.e. the drive isn't recognized at all), try formatting it as exFAT which has a higher cross-compatibility (i.e. Mac, Linux) than NTFS. FAT32 has good compatibility, but has a 4GB file size limitation that makes it unsuitable larger files (i.e. many DVD rips and any Blu-Ray rip).
    Last edited by lingyi; 5th Sep 2018 at 20:19.
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  12. Another thing to check: Turning a device off may only be putting into a low power state. Try a hard reboot. Shutdown, unplug the power for ~30 seconds, and re-apply power.
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  13. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    If the device couldn't read NTFS it never would have seen any files. So that can't be the problem. Unless you disabled the NTFS file system driver, which seems unlikely.

    To check permissions on Android devices go to the Settings App, select Apps, find the ES app and select it. Select Permissions. Enable Storage. The exact sequence may vary from version to version of android. But that should help you find it.

    The fact that you got the message "Do you want to automatically use ES File Explorer to browse your USB device?" suggest some other app was being used to browse files before. If you then chose to use ES File Explorer but it didn't have access to Storage you would no longer be able to see the USB drive.
    Jagabo you make some great points! Yes, the MINIX recognized every single one of the files on my HDD for several days, so I wouldn't think the problem would be related to NTFS. Thanks for the instructions for checking permissions! I just checked permissions, and it looks unfortunately ES still has permission to access my HDD, so unfortunately that wasn't the problem (I was hoping that was the problem because it sounded easily fixable!

    However, it definitely does appear as if ES might be the problem. I did a few google searches, and it sounds as if ES might have some strange problems, so I tried downloading both Total Commander and X-Plore. I also downloaded Microsoft exFAT/NTFS for USB by Paragon Software, which allowed me to "mount" my HDD. With the Paragon App, I was able to view every single one of my files on both Total Commander and X-Plore. So it appears the MINIX is still very much able to read all of the files on my 8TB HDD, but there must be some setting on ES that is messing things up.

    I would be fine with using Total Commander or X-Plore instead of ES. However, for whatever reason, even though I can access all my HDD files via these new apps, Kodi does not seem to recognize my hard drive. I would imagine this is probably easily fixable, but I have no idea how to fix this, hahaha.

    It's very strange - just a few days ago, Kodi recognized my hard drive, I was viewing every video file on my HDD in Kodi, everything was perfect. No idea what changed.

    Thank you all so much again for all the help, I sincerely appreciate it!!!!!! This is a stressful nightmare and I can't wait to solve this problem, hahaha
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  14. Originally Posted by lingyi View Post
    +1 to jagabo's point that if it recognized the drive before it's not the NTFS formatting.

    FYI, for future reference, if you do have some read issues with any of your drives (i.e. the drive isn't recognized at all), try formatting it as exFAT which has a higher cross-compatibility (i.e. Mac, Linux) than NTFS. FAT32 has good compatibility, but has a 4GB file size limitation that makes it unsuitable larger files (i.e. many DVD rips and any Blu-Ray rip).
    Hi lingyi! That is good to know - if I can't solve this problem any other way, I may have to do that. I do have some videos over 4GB, so that would be a last-resort solution, but definitely better than nothing. Thanks again!
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  15. If power cycling the device doesn't fix the problem you can always restore it to factory defaults. You'll have to re-install any apps you added and input any other information you've added (account names, passwords, etc.). But you've only had the device for a few days so that's probably not too big a problem.
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  16. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    If power cycling the device doesn't fix the problem you can always restore it to factory defaults. You'll have to re-install any apps you added and input any other information you've added (account names, passwords, etc.). But you've only had the device for a few days so that's probably not too big a problem.
    Jagabo, you are a LIFESAVER!!!! I did a factory reset and it worked!!!!!!! The MINIX once again recognizes my 8TB HDD. I'm watching all my video files via Kodi right now. If anyone out there experiences a similar problem, don't even try to solve it any other way, it's not worth it - a factory reset worked immediately! Thanks so much again for the idea jagabo, you have saved me from additional sleepless nights!!! Haha, I can't thank you enough.

    Thanks to everyone who helped me problem-shoot this. I'll be sure to keep the MINIX on at all times from now on, and I'm not changing any settings (I don't know what I changed - but I'm staying far away from ES File Browser, I think that was the problem).
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