WD My Book 4tb will not work on my Samsung Smart tv. Help Please!

if anybody knows how to get this hard drive to read on my tv (Samsung 55D8000) please help me, it simply won’t read it, I don’t know if I am in the right forum here so forgive me if I’m posting it in the wrong one… all my other hard drives work on the tv, is it the size of the hard drive? is 4tb too big for the tv? any help I appreciate, Thanks!

I’m currently having the same problem with my My Book 3TB Drive and a Samsung TV (not sure of model).  The most frustrating thing is that it used to connect no problem… I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve recently put a lot more stuff on it or what.  Halp.

I’ve scanned and repaired, I’ve defragmented… I’ve updated firmware (it stopped working before I tried all these simple solutions)… I don’t know what else to try other than just assume it’s the total amount of space usage of the hard drive.

I’m seeing hints in Spanish language forums that GPT disks aren’t supported. That’s probably what’s going on here.

TonyPh12345 wrote:
I’m seeing hints in Spanish language forums that GPT disks aren’t supported. That’s probably what’s going on here.

Sorry, total n00b, but what is “GPT disks”?

I’m considering going home and partitioning one of my drives (I have 2 mirroring one another in case one crashes, learned the importance of that the hard way), but I’m under the impression that I’d have to format it, which I’d rather not do because of the space used up so far and how long it would take to load everything back on.

Would really appreciate some answers from anyone who’s had a similar experience and found a solution to it.

Thanks in advance.

Almost all drives 3TB and larger are shipped formated as “GUID Partition Table” (GPT) instead of MBR (Master Boot Record).

It’s required if you want partitions larger than 2TB. 

WD and Seagate both also employ a trick called “Advanced Formatting” which changes the block allocation on the drive and then allows MBR to have larger partitions.

If your TV supports multi-partition drives, you MIGHT be able to re-partition the drive as MBR.

Here’s a pretty good description of both:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/295845-32-external-limit

So your recommendation would be to partition?

I assume I have to format first? I just want to verify because my 3TB hard drives are both almost at capacity and I’d rather not have to spend days loading everything back on.

May also be looking for fool proof instructions (detailed) on how to partition, as I’ve never done it before and have absolutely no idea how to do it.

Thanks in advance

Update:  I have successfully partitioned my hard drive using a tool by “easeus” (I think that’s the spelling).  It was easy, but copying stuff back onto  my drive(s) was a bit of a pain (although understandable).

I have a new question:  So, as I have successfully partitioned my drive into 2 drives (in the one single casing), I am able to get one of the partitions to show up on the TV when I plug in the drive, but not the other.  I have organized as such:

Formerly Drive G contained both movies and TV shows (2.78 TB).
Currently Drive M contains movies (1.28) TB
Currently Drive N contains TV shows (1.50 TB)

When I plug the drive into the TV, I get a message saying an HDD has been hooked up, but when I go to explore it only displays drive M.

Is there a way to have the TV display both drives?  I’m going to partition my other drive (I keep 2 copies in case one crashes, as has happened in the past) and will have it set up so that my TV shows is drive E, and my movies is drive F… I believe that the 2nd WD Drive I partition will end up displaying the TV shows, but not the movies as I think it has to do with drive letter designations.

Any help from the community about getting both drive’s within the one casing to show up on the TV?  I have no problems when plugging into the computer… It only seems to be  a problem with the TV.

Thanks in adance!

Edit: also, I took my newly partitioned drive to a friend’s house and tried to plug it into their WD TV Live media player box, and nothing at all loaded… Is there any way to get the contents of my partitioned drive to show up there??