Why do only 3 of my 5 Ultras work with TV?

I have 5 My Passport Ultra 2TB devices, three purchased 3 years ago and 2 last year. The older three work perfectly on my Samsung HD TV and Smart TV, but the 2 most recent say there is nothing on them when connected to the TV, though all 5 work on my PC. All are formatted to NTFS. All contain movies and TV shows. Does anyone know why the latest 2 do not work?

Maybe your TV doesn’t support GPT partition and your newer ones are formatted that way, and your old ones are MBR?

Hi Tony

Thank you for this suggestion. I’m not very technical so don’t
know what GPT and MBR partitions are but will search the internet to try and
find out if I can change the settings on the newer devices.

[mailto:wd@discoursemail.com]

You can plug them into a Windows PC, look in Disk Management and it will tell you the partition type (MBR vs GPT).

Changing the partition type requires reformatting.

I looked in Disk Management and it only tells me it is NFTS and
has a healthy Primary Partition, but does not say which type.

[mailto:wd@discoursemail.com]

Right click on the “DISK” column eg. DISK 1
Then select “Properties” and then “Volumes”

example pictures …


I don’t know about Samsung TV’s but my Panasonic 4K UHD TV read’s GPT Partitioned hard drives without any problems.

Oh dear, problems. I changed the partition type from GPT to MBR
on one of the portable drives and now the PC doesn’t know it is connected!

[mailto:wd@discoursemail.com]

Hi

I found the relevant info, took everything off one of the drives
then following Microsoft instructions I changed it to an MBR disk. Now the PC
doesn’t know the disk is there so I am stuffed.

[mailto:wd@discoursemail.com]

It’s OK, I managed to get to the disk and reallocate a drive
number and now it’s back on my PC. Please ignore the earlier message.

Just want to say a big thank you to those who responded to my question, as your advice has worked and my newer Ultras now work on both my TVs.