USB Input

[SeattleMike]

how exactly would i know if it was rescanning?

Honestly, I have no idea. I have the Navigation unit, I connected an external drive we use for back up and it powered it just fine, you could feel it reading the drive and the LED indicator showed the usual activity, but after 5 minutes I just gave up.

Then I read the owners manual and found this:

USB memory
l Compatible device
USB memory that can be used for MP3 and WMA playback.
Depending on the type of USB device, playback may not be possible.
l Compatible device formats
The following device formats can be used:
• USB communication formats: USB2.0 FS (12 mbps)
• File formats: FAT16/32 (Windows)
• Correspondence class: Mass storage class
MP3 and WMA files written in any format other than those listed above
may not play correctly, and their file names and folder names may not
be displayed correctly.
Items related to standards and limitations are as follows:
• Maximum directory hierarchy: 8 levels
• Maximum number of folder in device: 999 (including the root)
• Maximum number of files in device: 65025
• Maximum number of files per folder: 255
l MP3 and WMA files
MP3 (MPEG Audio LAYER 3) is a standard audio compression format.
Files can be compressed to approximately 1/10 of their original size using
MP3 compression.
WMA (Windows MediaTM Audio) is a Microsoft audio compression format.
This format compresses audio data to a size smaller than that of the MP3
format.
There is a limit to the MP3 and WMA file standards that can be used and to
the media/formats on which the files are recorded.

...

MP3 and WMA playback
When a device containing MP3 or WMA files is plugged, all files in the
USB memory device are first checked. Once the file check is finished, the
first MP3 or WMA file is played. To make the file check finish more quickly,
we recommend you do not write in any files other than MP3 or WMA files
or create any unnecessary folders.

The .pdf file was too big to attach, so here is the audio system portion (takes a few seconds to load) and the relevant portion begins on page 36 of the PDF (or pg. 348 of the paper version) and continues to page 42 (or pg. 354).

 

[captainnemojr]

That is incorrect. My Limited with the JBL "non-nav" HU has the USB in the glove box.

And about the hard drive - I'm not a computer expert, but wouldn't a hard drive need some kind of computing power behind it to access its file system? As opposed to just flash memory?

Both hard drives and flash memory use file systems. On Windows computers, since hard drives are significantly larger than flash, they are usually formatted as NTFS instead of FAT32 as most flash drives are. I'm not a Mac expert, but I'm sure they have their own file system as well.

I bet if you format the USB hard drive as FAT32 on a computer, it would work...it's at least worth a shot if you have a hard drive lying around.

I don't know how much power is coming out of that USB port in the first place in order to even power the hard drive. On a computer USB 2.0 and the new 3.0 provide lots of power to plug things into. I'm wondering just how fast ours are because I get some lag on my iPod when trying to scroll through songs and the song list takes a while to display and I wonder if it's a slow port, or I just have a slow iPod.

I know it says USB 2.0, but 12mb/s is actually USB 1.0/1.1. USB 2.0 is 480mb/s. If it is only 12mb/s that is sad since 2.0 has been around for a long time now and even 3.0 is out. It's like yay future is here USB in car, but USB is old USB...makes no sense.

 

[poolzer]

Curious if anyone has yet to have an external drive work (other than usb sticks or ipods).

 

[poolzer]

Well I tried my seagate mini drive in both NTTP and FAT, with just a couple songs on it and nothing. USB powers it up and can feel the drive working but the NAV doesnt recognize it.

damn disappointing.

 

[SeattleMike]

Well I tried my seagate mini drive in both NTTP and FAT, with just a couple songs on it and nothing. USB powers it up and can feel the drive working but the NAV doesnt recognize it.

damn disappointing.

Yeah, I was disappointed too, but I went and got a 16GB stick, created a bunch of folders (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) and dumped 255 songs each into them, and set the Nav to "folder random" and it hasn't had a problem.

Now, I am using .mp3 format, not .aac because the manual is pretty specific on only recognizing .mp3 and .wma files.

From the manual:

The following device formats can be used:
• USB communication formats: USB2.0 FS (12 mbps)
• File formats: FAT16/32 (Windows)
• Correspondence class: Mass storage class
MP3 and WMA files written in any format other than those listed above
may not play correctly, and their file names and folder names may not
be displayed correctly.
Items related to standards and limitations are as follows:
• Maximum directory hierarchy: 8 levels
• Maximum number of folder in device: 999 (including the root)
• Maximum number of files in device: 65025
• Maximum number of files per folder: 255

The next time I spot a small cheap USB 2.0 powered drive, I'll try it again because I can always use it as a back up elsewhere in the house if it doesn't work.

 

[poolzer]

Yeah I figured since it has the same power source of a thumb drive, is USB 2.0 and formatted as fat64 that it would work and even with just 10 mp3 files sitting on the drive..nothing.

Best Buy has a 16gb thumb drive on sale for 30 bux, will go grab one of those tomorrow and fill it up.

 

[dos palomas]

Good idea I have been using a couple USB drives for a while without a single problem on start up or with skipping any songs. How many gigs is your drive? What brand? I would try a different brand also.

Well, you did not do enough research I guess The USB is available on ALL trims (SR5, TE, & LE) - It was an 'option' on my S5R, and obviously since I have the SR5 I have no Nav.

i think the USB comes with the upgraded stereo, with or without nav. i have it on my SR5. other than the slow interface, it works fine -- i put a 160gb ipod in there and have forgotten about it since.

 

[poolzer]

It wont let me format it to that specification, it just says 'exFAT'. Im running Windoes 7 Ultimate on a 64bit machine. I assumed it wold make it FAT64 since its what I run, but dont see any option other than to make it NTFS.

It does have allocation unit size pulldown from 16-32768kb, will give that a try...

 

[poolzer]

Apparently 250gb is to big to be FAT32, which is what it said after 4 hours of trying to format it that way. Looks like drives under ~140gb can only be done at that allocation.

Tried to partition it, but cant figure out how, windows wont do it and paragon partition manager only looks at internal drives...

some egg candy knowledge:

exFAT (also sometimes incorrectly and inappropriately known as FAT64) is an incompatible replacement for FAT file systems that was introduced with Windows Embedded CE 6.0 which is found on all systems newer than XP.

 

[SeattleMike]

Apparently 250gb is to big to be FAT32, which is what it said after 4 hours of trying to format it that way. Looks like drives under ~140gb can only be done at that allocation.

Tried to partition it, but cant figure out how, windows wont do it and paragon partition manager only looks at internal drives...

some egg candy knowledge:

exFAT (also sometimes incorrectly and inappropriately known as FAT64) is an incompatible replacement for FAT file systems that was introduced with Windows Embedded CE 6.0 which is found on all systems newer than XP.

Poolzer, my software engineer wife says to go to administrative tools, choose "computer management", then from that you will see disk management under storage, which will allow you create partitions to get under the size restriction. You will then have to reformat a partition to the FAT32 file system. I wouldn't try multiple FAT32 partitions until you get one working, so make the rest NTFS.

 

[poolzer]

I posted this on 1 of the other forums I browse and was told to d/l Fat32Formatter.

I was able to format the entire drive and tossed 1 song on and took it out and WAM! it worked!

So am in the process of moving my 200gb of music over and will post back if it worked with everything on. If not, will scale back until a happy medium is made.

 

[SeattleMike]

I posted this on 1 of the other forums I browse and was told to d/l Fat32Formatter.

I was able to format the entire drive and tossed 1 song on and took it out and WAM! it worked!

So am in the process of moving my 200gb of music over and will post back if it worked with everything on. If not, will scale back until a happy medium is made.

Cool, just make sure you stick to the guidelines I posted to avoid the other problems I ran into with the flash drives.

 

[poolzer]

It works perfectly!

233gb of music, all in seperate artists folders and the full random goes through them perfectly.

I am very happy about this!

 

[Jesse1983]

Poolzer that's awesome, good work! can you do an easy write-up for us to follow?