How To Mount A Cell Phone As Usb Drive

Download Android USB Drivers for popular OEMs

So yous've got an Android device and want to dive deep into the world of modding? Be it rooting or installing a custom ROM similar LineageOS, well-nigh of the aftermarket modding requires you to connect your Android smartphone to a computer using a USB cable and then y'all can apply tools like the Android Debug Span (ADB) and Fastboot to interact with the device. For an Android power user, you may likewise want to reinstall the factory firmware on your telephone, which means you have to deal with the OEM-specific flashing utilities.

Nonetheless, none of these tinkering jobs are possible if your PC can't see the target device in the first place. Equally in the instance of Windows, the operating organisation may crave an additional piece of software known equally the "commuter" in guild to properly recognize all the dissimilar connexion modes exposed by the Android device. Below you can find a list of official OEM-provided Android USB driver packages and a generic driver installation guide. If you don't see the maker of your device listed or you run across a misplaced link, send a message to Skanda Hazarika (SkandaH on the forums) with the device details.

Tabular array of Contents:

Purpose of Android USB drivers
Download Android USB drivers for popular OEMs
How to install Android USB drivers
- Manually install the commuter for an unsupported device

Purpose of Android USB drivers

The USB interface of an Android device is a pretty complex object. Depending on the configuration, it may expose the standard Android USB debugging interface, the fastboot interface, and various other SoC-specific diagnostic interfaces to the reckoner. Simultaneously maintaining more than i interface is supported likewise, e.g. you tin can interact with your device with ADB while configuring the internal modem parameters.

Keep in mind the aforementioned scenarios are a scrap different from connecting the device through the manifestly old Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) or Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) way. MTP enables the end-user to browse the internal retentiveness on the device from a PC every bit if it'southward an external storage drive. Microsoft ships a generic MTP/PTP driver with every edition of Windows since Windows XP, so you don't need an external commuter for that.

Download Android USB drivers for popular OEMs

Virtually Android OEMs offer official driver packages for their devices. Besides the ADB and Fastboot interfaces, these drivers also back up proprietary flashing protocols designed past the corresponding device maker. For example, if you want to flash a Samsung Milky way device, y'all must install the Samsung USB driver package beforehand.

Note that Microsoft has been shipping a generic ADB driver with Windows for a while, so installing the OEM commuter only for the sake of USB debugging might not sound worthwhile anymore. Windows can also cheque and install the missing drivers on the fly through Windows Update. All the same, Microsoft-recommended drivers are not always the best pick for circuitous USB interfaces, so do check out the official commuter pack whenever possible.

The inbox Android USB debugging driver of Windows in activeness

Get the advisable driver for your device from the index below:

How to install Android USB drivers

Now that you've downloaded the suitable driver parcel for your device, it'south fourth dimension for you lot to install it. Some OEMs offer standard installer executables, which means yous can easily install the whole commuter suite by double-clicking on the setup file and following the sorcerer.

However, Google and a few other vendors prefer to stick with the bare INF and associated binary files which are packed inside a zip or rar archive. Such packages need to be installed using Device Manager, but you lot take to extract the contents of the annal beforehand.

Right-click on the Start button and select the Device Manager entry. You tin also call the Microsoft Management Panel snap-in named devmgmt.msc directly from Run to open up Device Managing director.

Device Manager under Windows 10

Connect the Android device to your PC. Depending on the selected configuration, you may come across one or more unknown devices popping upward.

(Optional) Right-click on the unknown device entry, select Properties, move to the Details tab, and finally select Hardware Ids from the dropdown bill of fare. Now open your favorite search engine, paste the hardware identifier in the search box, and go through the search results. This is a crude manner to decide the probable interface your device is currently exposing.

Right-click on the unknown device entry and select Update drivers. At present select Browse my estimator for drivers/driver software and point the magician to the folder where you extracted the driver package.

If everything goes correct, you should see a confirmation folio like the following.

Manually install the commuter for an unsupported device

On some occasions, the OEM drivers aren't enough. Perhaps yous've stumbled upon a no-name generic tablet, or the wink way interface of your shiny new phone has yet to get an official driver from its maker. In that case, you tin can forcibly install an existing driver package for a like USB interface through Device Director.

Open up Device Manager and locate the unknown device entry.
Right-click on it and select Update drivers. Select Browse my computer for commuter software and so choose the choice named Let me pick from a list of bachelor drivers on my computer.

Now select Prove All Devices and click Next. On the next screen, click on the Have Disk… button.

At this bespeak, you need to scan to the location where the extracted commuter for a similar device is located. Pick the INF file from the list of files and select Open.

Now carefully choose the driver model. For example, if y'all're trying to install the Fastboot mode driver for a device, select the Android Bootloader Interface from Google's driver set. Windows might evidence a warning related to compatibility, simply you tin ignore information technology and keep the installation process anyway.

That's information technology!

This method lets you force-install a signed commuter without breaking its digital signature, so you don't demand to turn off commuter signature enforcement on a 64-scrap Windows instance.

Y'all've now got the correct USB commuter installed on your computer and your Android device is ready to receive instructions. Now it'south time to put it all together and run your get-go ADB command!