Usb Mini Hard Drive

[Dego]

I have a small 2.5" USB mini hard drive (80GB) which has a 5V power input.

I also have a 12V DC to 5V DC converter, thus I can power the drive in the car.

I also have an aftermarket stereo with a USB input.

I heard that the drive should be formatted to FAT32 and done this.

This is where the problems start!!!!

The head unit does not recognise or see the hard drive. The drive is powering up and I can hear the disc spinning as normal. I don't know if I should create certain sizes of partitions on the drive, is there a maximum size that the head unit will see. Has anyone tried to get one of these drives up and running or is it even achievable??? Please help.

[aztecbandit1]

I have a small 2.5" USB mini hard drive (80GB) which has a 5V power input.

I also have a 12V DC to 5V DC converter, thus I can power the drive in the car.

I also have an aftermarket stereo with a USB input.

I heard that the drive should be formatted to FAT32 and done this.

This is where the problems start!!!!

The head unit does not recognise or see the hard drive. The drive is powering up and I can hear the disc spinning as normal. I don't know if I should create certain sizes of partitions on the drive, is there a maximum size that the head unit will see. Has anyone tried to get one of these drives up and running or is it even achievable??? Please help.

Have you got the music on the disc listed in files or separately matey as some only see file folders and not single tracks?

[DJ Wozza]

I was under the impression you could only use USB Stick (chip) drives with Head Units like that.

I may be wrong however, so I would suggest asking the H.U. manufacturer, or looking through

the instruction booklet very closely.

All the USB Stick drives I have ever come across yet have been FAT32, so maybe that has something to do with it ??

[Parthiban]

As Woz says, it depends on the headunit. Although they have USB, the headunit can't actually support a large harddrive and will usually have a limit of 2-4gb..........my bluetouch has a USB input but is the same, can't work with anything larger than 4gigs I think.

[Dego]

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

I did have single tracks on it as I only put a few on to test it. Will try using a folder hierarchy. Also I heard about there being size limits too, so I will try different sized partitions to see if any of the setups work. As for instructions they say Fat32 USB "key" but hey, you never know, it might work. Watch this space???? We'll see what happens.

[Motsey]

i have had the exact same issue, first i thought it was a power thing but then just came to the conclusion its just the hard drive the head unit dosent like, as my 2.5" 80Gb (i think) hard drive didnt work but a full size 300Gb hard drive works fine - also i have got an 80GB video /4GB mini and shuffel ipod's to work just itunes renames the songs weird and also a 8GB mini SD card in a USB reader

im still trying to work out whats the best way of storing my music - i have already filled up a few 4GB Dvdrw disc's of mp3s