Netgear Nighthawk LTE MR1100 home hotspot wifi router usb portable drive issue

[LiLLiPinay]

I recently "upgraded" my AT&T home hotspot wifi device from ZTE Z700A to AT&T version of Netgear Nighthawk LTE MR100 home hotspot wifi router connecting wirelessly to my Windows 10 Pro Toshiba laptop and syncing my Samsung Galaxy S10+ mobile device, HP 4650 All-In-One MFD, Samsung Smarthub model 5203 TV, Samsung Optical BT enabled Soundbar and Roku Express. I'm loadbalancing between 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz on my setup. ( current configuration, gettin it out the way).

The problem I'm having is getting my USB capable router to recognize my Western Digital 2T USB storage device.  I have tried every configuration I could possibly scheme out connecting various ways using direct connection to the router USB port, through the laptop setting up a share, setting it up as a network location, vEthernet, vWi-Fi, Toshiba Dynadock U3'0 docking station, reformatting the drive all to no avail.

I was doing further research today and I discovered that portable drives under 2T in capacity are formatted to an MBR NTFS drive and larger than 2T are formatted as GPT NTFS drive.  I looked for anything on this subject both within Netgear and out on the net in reference to my model router or any wifi router and on the Western Digital website whitepapers but I haven't been able to find anything.

All I want to do is connect my portable drive to the wireless router and use it as media storage that I can access remotely from anywhere as I sync my Samsung phone to my laptop using Microsoft's "Your Phone App" and Link to Windows or using RDP. (Yeah I'ma Geekette, I was a senior network desktop support engineer by tradecraft).

If anyone has ideas and/or knowlege or experience with this please respond. I appreciate any input you could provide.

Thank You,

*.Pinay...

[TeeJay74]

Are you using external power supply with that 2TB hard drive?

[LiLLiPinay]

The model external drive is Western Digital 2TB USB drive.  It doesn't have an external power supply as it uses the USB connection for power.

[TeeJay74]

I still believe not enough milliamps from router side via USB to make 2TB mechanical drive work reliably.

[LiLLiPinay]

But, theoretically if I set it up on my laptop as a network path shouldn't the router be able to see it as another device on the network? Or even if I allow it on the network through advance sharing options shouldn't that work? For some reason the USB option on the router will not see anything connected via usb. In addition if I plug the Toshiba Dynadock U3.0 be able to allow the router to see the drive if I put the drive on my network and connect the Dynadock to the router either using USB or Lan? The router will configure the Lan connection as a vEthernet virtual WiFi connection.