TP2 & WD 500GB External Drive

[fatyank]

I have a Western Digital 500gb external drive. It is usb powered (no a/c plug needed). It is their Passport Elite series. I use it for photo and video storage as well as backup for my PC. I have an adapter that will allow me to connect my TP2 to it (a USB cable connector adapter). My question: Is there a way for my TP2 to read the external drive? Maybe an app or a setting on the TP2 that I haven't figured out yet. Any ideas?? :cheers:

 

[Tim Ferrill]

To the best of my knowledge, the TP2 doesn't support USB Host functionality.

 

[waldo15]

The answer is yes and no. Let me explain.

WM 6.5 should be capable of acting as a host. I remember seeing a video of an old WinMo phone (was it 5.0 series?) that detected a mouse and KB. I doubt they removed the functionality. Heck! I was able to use my RedFly Celio with my Treo Pro and access everything with it. Anyhow, it boils down to support for a USB standard called On The Go and WM supports this.

You do need to provide a special cable or dongle to enable host functionality. One end is a mini USB connector with the ID pin shorted to GND (look for the pinout online), this is what tells the phone to act as a host and thus expect to manage USB peripherals such as kb, mice and flash thumbdrives; the other end of the dongle should be a female USB type A connector.

Now, the problem with an HDD is that it will require a fair amount of power through the USB port. Usually portable host devices (like the WM phone here) are not expected to drive big powered devices, so you may need to steal power from a external USB charger and connect it to your dongle. A messy affair but doable.

 

[fatyank]

Thanks Waldo15. Are you the Waldo everyone is always looking for? You're probably tired of hearing that but I couldn't resist. Thats probably more work than I want to do. It was more out of curiosity than anything. I don't carry a laptop or netbook anymore so was just curious if it was actually possible to connect the two. Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I might, in the near future, attempt to hook them up. I'm sure battery life would not be long on the TP2. One item I am going to get is the Microvision laser projector, once the price comes down a bit. If you haven't seen it, it is about the same size as my external drive. Awesome little projector.