Files app does not see my external hard drive on iPad Pro 2020.

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Level 1

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Files app does not see my external hard drive on iPad Pro 2020.

The Files app on my iPad Pro 2020 is not seeing my Western Digital (WD) external hard drive when I plug it into the USB-C port. I have tried process of elimination in using a combination of an Apple USB port adapter, a third-party port adapter, and also a power adapter between the hard drive and the iPad. Talking to three different Apple support team members over the phone, we could not figure out why this drive is not being seen. My WD external hard drive is formatted ExFAT, and it functions consistently every time on my MacBook Pro. We did a couple forced restarts; still nothing. Any help is greatly appreciated!

iPad Pro 12.9-inch, 3rd Gen, Wi-Fi

Posted on May 14, 2020 4:33 PM

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Answer 1

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QuickPost

Level 10

103,455 points

May 14, 2020 6:07 PM in response to Sm5409

iPadOS 13 supports the following disk formats with a GUID partition scheme:

macOS Extended journaled — YES Read and Write
APFS - NO
FAT32 — SOME*
exFAT — SOME**
NTFS — NO

*iPadOS 13 supports solid state devices formatted as FAT32 such as a SD card. iPadOS 13 does not supports mechanical hard disks formatted as FAT32.

** iPadOS 13 supports disks formatted as exFAT as long as it was formatted with Disk Utility on a Macintosh. The disk cannot be formatted by Windows.

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Answer 2

Xrage77

Level 1

33 points

May 15, 2020 11:34 AM in response to QuickPost

thanks I was wondering same but not a cool feature since all external hdds are ntfs

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Files app does not see my external hard drive on iPad Pro 2020.

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