The Issue
So, as you certainly noticed, ICS-toting devices such as the Touchpad running CM9 do not offer the USB Mass Storage feature anymore.
On Windows, I hear that you can mount your storage using MTP (Media Storage Protocol)
On Linux and OS X, from what I've seen, there have been some attempts at building drivers for MTP but those seem to provide quite unreliable connectivity.
On Windows itself, it appears that the protocol takes quite a while to mount your device.
Google does not offer USB Mass Storage anymore in part due to the fact that you would need to unmount your whole storage from your phone to mount it on your computer.
The Solution
Alt Mounter! (I know, such an original name)
Alt Mounter is two things: 1) a small service and its widget, running on your device; 2) a helper running on your computer.
When you use Alt Mounter, mounting your storage on your computer is close to instantaneous. It works like a Dual Mount application; i.e. it does not unmount your storage from your device (it does not need to)
Platforms
Currently, the helper only exists for OS X. It should not take long to port it to Linux and/or Windows if there is a demand.
The OS X version requires you to install OSXFUSE or any other FUSE package. It does not install these drivers itself because many MAC owners have already installed FUSE one way or another (for instance, OS X running in Parallels will not require any extra installation)
GET IT
Alt Mounter is currently a beta product. I use it without problem daily on my Galaxy Nexus and my CM9 Touchpad but of course your mileage may vary.
Get it from the Beta Page.
Hi. Mac Version only for 10.7? Is there a Version planned for 10.6.x? I hope so...
cheers....
Related
I'm wondering how to switch between the different screens you see when you click on the USB icon in notification area when connected to PC. One has the android guy and an icon to turn on or off USB storage and the other has the three choices where you pick between charge only htc sync and disk drive, and then click done. I noticed with different roms i get a different one but want to use the one i like, is there a way to do this? thankyou
I don't believe you can. I would say it's based on the software version of the ROM your running.
junny101 said:
I'm wondering how to switch between the different screens you see when you click on the USB icon in notification area when connected to PC. One has the android guy and an icon to turn on or off USB storage and the other has the three choices where you pick between charge only htc sync and disk drive, and then click done. I noticed with different roms i get a different one but want to use the one i like, is there a way to do this? thankyou
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only HTC STOCK based ROMs such as the original Eris ROM, xtrSENSE, xtrROM, and other similar ROMs have the one including HTC Sync as an option.
I have no idea if you can change the look of the screen, or how to go about it if you can.
I don't even use the traditional method of mounting the SD card anymore. For many months I've been using, first a widget called SD Share/Dual Mount SD which allows you to mount the SD card to the computer without dismounting it from the phone.
Then Multi Mount SD came along which has an option to automount the SD card to my PC whenever I connect the USB cable. Now I use this. It also has a widget but I don't need or use it since it automatically mounts and dismounts. Note if you reboot either the phone or computer while it's still connected you'll have to disconnect and reconnect it once one or both devices are rebooted before it'll automount again. At least with the current version.
SD Share/Dual Mount SD now apparently has this capability, too.
Also, Windows and Linux programs like QtADB (recommended) and Android Commander (I never personally got it working but I know other people did) allow you to access the system areas of your phone PLUS your SD card through a Windows GUI without mounting the SD card in the usual way. It does this because deep down it uses ADB for everything. I think it comes with the components it requires though, so I don't think you need to install the complete Android SDK though. I don't know for sure since I have the SDK installed anyway.
Quick question,
I currently have the Epic, which requires a driver installed on the computer before the SD card will mount properly on a windows PC.
I use my phone to upload things for work now and then, and this is a major hassle for me.
I'm thinking of moving to the Galaxy S2 when it comes out in the US, and I was wondering if the S2 mounts properly without a driver?
It's sad to be jealous of friends with HTC phones that mount properly and don't need drivers installed to simply connect to a pc.
If you set it to 'usb debug mode', it auto installs and will come up as 2 card readers.
It even works on my car's head unit so it is in usb mass storage mode.
Without debug mode it'll be detected as a phone but I'm not sure what it'll come up as since all the pc ive connected it to have samsung Kies.
Personally I use widget apps like 'multi mount sd' so I can still use the phone while the usb is accessible by the pc.
Hello,
I have a Droid 3 and I was wondering if it was possible to somehow partition a part of my SD Card off for a virtual flash drive and basically use it as storage without the need to install drivers or anything like that. I tried to search around the forums and it looks like WM5torage would be a good option only if it was available for Android devices. Is there a alternative solution out there for Android devices (one that would work with a Droid 3)?
Basically, I want to use a small virtual drive (that would be located on my phone or SD card) and plug it into arcade games that allow you to store/edit game data on your flash drive. Of course, I would normally use USB Mass Storage mode to do such a thing but it won't work on arcade machines which I'm going to assume is due to the fact that the machines don't have the drivers.
Regards,
~Mark
I frequently synchronize media files from my Windows 8.1 desktop to my Android 4.4.2 devices and I find MTP to be very unreliable. After much reading it seems there are no fixes available to make MTP more reliable.
I am therefore exploring all other options including FTP, WebDAV, and Samba but I prefer UMS (USB Mass Storage) for its simplicity, performance, and compatibility with my desktop media synchronization tools.
I understand the problems that UMS can cause because of its need for exclusive access to the storage media.
I am wondering if there might be a different approach to having access to UMS on my devices?
I would like to shutdown Android and boot into something else that turns my device into a simple USB flash drive which I can then connect to my desktop for adding/deleting files on the ex-FAT external SDcard in my device. When done I would shutdown UMS and boot back into standard Android.
Does anyone know how to accomplish this?
Hi there,
Apart from MTP, PTP, MIDI, etc, would it be possible to connect Android device with the UMS protocol to the computer?
If so, how to enable it (ex. some app)?
Update: I found the post on XDA on how to connect the device with the computer via UMS.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-root-usb-mass-storage-enabler-v1-6.3240097/
BUT after installation of UMS Enabler v1.6.2, only external SD card is connected to the computer as a disk, not the userdata or any other partitions from the Android device.
How to solve it?
Thanks.
wenyendev said:
Hi there,
Apart from MTP, PTP, MIDI, etc, would it be possible to connect Android device with the UMS protocol to the computer?
If so, how to enable it (ex. some app)?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can find the answer with an explanation in this thread:
UMS protocol on Android Tabs
I'd like to have a android tablet on ics which allow UMS (usb mass storage) I saw that some of the current models didn't propose UMS (like galaxy tab 2 or google nexus), only MTP. It sounds like a
android.stackexchange.com
ze7zez said:
You can find the answer with an explanation in this thread:
UMS protocol on Android Tabs
I'd like to have a android tablet on ics which allow UMS (usb mass storage) I saw that some of the current models didn't propose UMS (like galaxy tab 2 or google nexus), only MTP. It sounds like a
android.stackexchange.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply.
If
- changing partition format to FAT32 (or any other format recognizable by Windows); and
- using UMS protocol for connection
could enable the Android device to used as a mountable Windows machine?
Even if you strangely change the formatting of the phone's internal memory, it is rather certain that the system will stop working due to lack of proper permissions for files/directories.
Seriously, UMS is the stupidest thing in this universe.
It's the reason why we have /sdcard case-insensitive.
It's like handing over your hard drive to some random person and saying, "Um, be sure not to screw up all the file tables, ok?"
"Oh, sorry, I pulled the USB cable in the middle of a transfer..."
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/mount-device-as-an-external-disk-via-ums.4535133/post-87935297