This topic

BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:20:33 GMT

I have read through the forum but to date I cannot get to the bottom of my issue.

32gb Sandisk formatted as exfat32 with a few test files on....smb1 installed on the laptop windows 11 up to date. Plugged in to the usb port on the homehub2 can be seen connected in the admin page (192.168.1.254) under usb and named as "NAS" however I cannot map as a network drive and windows cannot see it. File and Printer sharing is turned on. I tried \\192.168.1.254\NAS , also \\192.168.1.254\usb1\NAS and many other combinations.

Is there anything I have missed?

TIA

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

licquorice — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:39:50 GMT

Try formatting drive as NTFS.

Are you sure SMB1 is fully enabled?

Map to \\192.168.1.254\usb1

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

imjolly — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:40:33 GMT

Have you tried formatting USB drive to fat32

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:44:39 GMT

tried that no joy

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:45:16 GMT

tried that

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

licquorice — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:46:52 GMT

No idea then, works just fine for me.

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:44:37 GMT

@zimmer4mewrote:

"32gb Sandisk formatted as exfat32 with a few test files on"

Are you aware that exFAT and FAT32 are two different things?

Can you confirm if the drive is definitely formatted as FAT32 and not exFAT?

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:57:00 GMT

Does anyone here know why, or have theories, as to why BT have never upgraded the firmware in their HomeHubs to anything above Samba v1?

The current version of Samba on my Linux PC is v4.xx

Is it a hardware issue?

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:08:39 GMT

exfat32 is the only option in Win11 so as I stated

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

imjolly — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:14:58 GMT

just tried USB drive in windows 11 and I can format to fat32/exfat32/ntfs

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:15:01 GMT

@zimmer4me

I don't use Windows so can't check myself, but Step 3 in this instruction says "You can choose between NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT for the file system"

Are you saying that it not true?

https://www.solveyourtech.com/how-to-format-hard-drive-in-windows-11-a-step-by-step-guide/

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:16:55 GMT

looking into how to format exfat32 to fat32 will let you know....

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:44:00 GMT

ok thanks for pointing me in the right direction I have solved it now.
There was a **bleep**-up by me in the first place when I misread the usb stick size. It was actually 128gb but I needed to reformat to fat32 with some freeware as my laptop would not give me the option as I had previously formatted in NFTS. After that I was mislead to believing that I needed to use \\192.168.1.254\"my label NAS" when in fact when I changed it to \\192.168.1.254\usb1 it mapped in explorer immediately . Hopefully this solution will help others thanks all

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

zimmer4me — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:45:34 GMT

I think that applies if you have not previously formatted in NTFS which I had done so the option was then not available

Re: BT Smart Hub 2 USB port trying to use a USB drive as storage

licquorice — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 15:55:55 GMT

As posted in the first reply to the thread!