MichaelBrazell

Hey all, I am a recent 4G Acura TL owner, just bought the car yesterday, a 2009 Acura TL, non-tech package. I am super excited about owning a TL, going from a 2002 Toyota Camry to this one. I went with the non-tech package because of the USB connection in the car, frustrated that the TL Tech only included a 12GB HDD, which seemed a little measly. With the USB cable, I hope to toss in a 500GB external hard drive into the car and be good to go with music. I was told at the dealership that I could use up to 2TB in there, which doesn't seem to be true (32GB seems to be the limit). I ran into the dreaded "UNSUPPORTED" error , so after fooling around for a half hour or so I've got it working, and I thought I'd share the process because I didn't find it on here when I did a search.

First things first:

I bought a Western Digital 320GB "MyPassport" External 2.5" hard drive, it was like $70 at BestBuy, but can probably be found online for much less. You can basically buy any HDD, but you need one that is self-powered, or else you'll need to get an AC adapter, which may be hard to find and annoying to use, so look for a USB powered HDD. If you don't know whether it's USB powered, look on the box, if it doesn't come with an AC adapter, then it's USB/self-powered.

A strong caveat: you basically can only use 32GB of the external HDD, and this is because of a curious choice that Acura may have made in designing this feature. The short and skinny is: Acura USB HDD's only recognize the FAT32 file system, which is an old file system for Windows, which has long been replaced by NTFS -- the file system standard really since Windows 2000 (but XP recognized and widely used both FAT32 and NTFS).

Now, the further problem with FAT32 is that Windows will not let you format an HDD in FAT32 that is greater than 32GB. This is because of some weird bit size restrictions, but whatever the reason it's been this way since Windows 98. There are some utilities that claim otherwise, but I haven't found one that works or that is free.

Please be aware that to get this to work with any store bought external HDD, you'll have to format the drive, which means, you'll have to wipe the thing clean and lose all of your data. If it's a new drive, it's no big deal, nothing is on it. But just be aware: You WILL HAVE to format (erase) your drive for this to work.

If you want to get a USB powered External HDD to work in your Acura TL w/ USB, here's what you do.

1. Plug your external HDD into your computer via USB. Ignore anything that pops up telling you to install anything, blah blah, just cancel out of any installations, wizards, etc.
2. Go to the Windows Button, and click on "Control Panel"
3. Control Panel opens, Click on "System & Security," then, at the bottom, under "Administrative Tools" click on "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions" [NOTE: Just be careful here, you're opening up a menu that can potentially wipe our your computer, so make deliberate choices)
4. A Pop-Up Appears called Disk Management that will list out the disk drives connected to your comp. Look for your external drive, it'll be noted with the amount of storage capacity it has.
5. When you click on this disk in the list, a visual display of the storage space appears in the area below the list, it will likely just look like one large rectacle, with a blue header... describing what the drive is. Right click in this area and chose "New Simple Volume."
6. Follow the Wizard and when you're prompted to provde a "Simple Volume Size in MB" enter in any number less than 32,000 (basically, I went safe and went 31,000).
7. On the next screen, assign a drive letter.. any letter (well, except for letters already being used by your computer)
8. On the next screen, chose "Format this volume with the following settings:" and under "File System" chose "FAT32," Allocation unit size "default," and "volume label," name it something like "hdd" or whatever (doesn't matter, but keep it simple). Also tick off "perform a quick format" to save you time.
9. Click through the Wizard to finish the format... it'll probably warn you you'll delete everything on this drive, blah blah, if it's a new drive it doesn't matter. Also remember, you can always start over if you make a mistake.
   
   After going through the process you will now have two volumes on your external HDD, one that is roughly 32GB in space and the other that is whatever the remaining size of the drive is. You're not finished yet, though. Acura will still not recognize the 32GB FAT32 volume because it'll get tricked up by the non-FAT32, unused volume.
10. So right click on that other volume and chose "Delete Volume." Again, you'll be warned that deleting it erases data... click through.

Finally, you'll have something like this:



The new drive is where you add your music to and the car will recognize this drive and properly load the music. The whole process can be done in about 3 or 4 minutes, but just make sure you don't accidentally format your c:/ drive or anything else that you use. Also, make sure to use an HDD that is either new or one that you don't care about the data on. You HAVE to format this drive for this to function in the car.

Anyway, I hope that this sheds a little bit of light on this process for some people looking for advice. I'd like to experiment with the remainder of the storage because there's a chance you could format several partitions at FAT32 and they may work .... but I'm not sure.

Anyway, hope this helps some people. If you have any questions about the process, I'll be happy to see if I can help you out.

AcuraTL

Or you can just buy a cheap MP3 player or Ipod and plug it in the USB port and have greater than 32GB.

Pete2010

Great write-up!

This is what I used. Corsair 32GB flash drive, almost the same as the bigger external HD, but the same tasks above need to be done with it.

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Flash-.../dp/B000XUMR6C

MichaelBrazell

Yeah you could get an ipod, but this tut is in the case that you're told at the dealer "A drive up to 2TB will work..." and so you go out and buy a high capacity drive, only to find that it doesn't work

wmahmud

But in your write up it still looks like your basically just getting 32GB of useable space off a larger HDD and the rest of the space is of no use in the car

Am I reading it right?

I did the same and purchased a 500GB HDD, and got UNSUPPORTED error as well, but I want to be able to use the full 500GB if possible?

IrishTR

Guys I don't have my Acura yet (due to deployment!) but as soon as I get home in June its on!

Anyways sounds like the Acura is looking for the FAT32 filesystem. In Windows XP/Vista/7 you can go to command prompt and type the following to format your 500GB drive for example to FAT32. FYI Windows uses newer NTFS but it is not 100% compatible (ie Read and Write with Mac/Unix systems) So thats why you get the option of FAT32 which those OSs can recognize for reading and writing.

Ok from command prompt type the following

format d: /fs:fat32 /q

d: should be whatever your drive letter is for your external.
/fs:fat32 is the file system
/q is for quick format (otherwise will take forever!)
This will format the entire drive to FAT32 and you should be now able to use the entire drive with the TL!

IrishTR

Also formatting the 500GB from a Mac will allow you to format FAT32 as well. The limitation factor for FAT32 is filesizes cannot be over 4GB hence NTFS came about for several other reasons as well.

But for our usage of audio here I don't think anyone has 4GB audio rips if you do thats a shame as its the size of a DVD Movie Rip lol.

Anyways please fellas lemme know once you get your drives formatted if it works in TL *it should but I just cant test here in Afghanistan! And look forward to not having to buy another iPod Classic to tote my entire audio collection around!

IrishTR

Sorry for posting again, couldnt find the edit option...

Looks like you can't use the /q command and will have to endure the lengthy reformat.

So

format d: /fs:fat32

then input the drives current volume name when prompted ie. My Passport (for my WD Drive)

hit Y to answer yes and should start formatting your drive, 250GB took awhile and this was my smallest drive. There are tools out there I found one called swissknife says its suppose to work but have not tested, might be worth a look to speed this operation up.

IrishTR

Ok last time, sorry really wish I could edit post... As multi tasking/testing has me busy and not focused. So the command prompt failed... Nice of them to make me wait an hour thanks Bill G.


Found a quick free program online formatted and verified 250GB 1 partition Fat32!
http://www.freewarefiles.com/downloa...rogramid=38041

Enjoy

DANDEL

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer...5226763&sr=8-1

32G easy to use and the size of a key usb flash drive.

I dont see any reason to use and have to (waste) reformat a larger HDD drive and to store it in your car. Plus heat and cold cant be good for them either.

DANDEL

BTW ^ 32G flash drive is $57.00

IrishTR

Keeping it out of direct sunlight is the only thing necessary ie storage box. As well as from banging around would be the only other downfall. The cars don't get that hot/cold in those areas to have any adverse affects. Ive never had a problem with either in any of my cars that I keep a USB HD in.

And for example 250GB HD $49.99 is cheaper than a 32GB USB Flash Drive. Can even probably find better deals on Newegg too but 250GB is a pretty good music selection hehe. With the price and size of Hard Drives being as cheap as they are these days to me its a no brainer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145321

MichaelBrazell

For command prompt formatting... Even Windows 7 will fail to format a drive that is greater than 32GB in command prompt, it will go about 10% of the way (which takes forever because you can't quick format) and then fail out.

I have drive the SwissKnife formatter, but the only one that works on Win7 64-bit seems to be the pay "advanced" version, not the freeware one.

To answer the question about using a drive larger than 32GB... the car will recognize a drive larger than 32GB as long as it's formatted as FAT32. Formatting in FAT32 is limited with most tools to drives smaller than 32GB, but 3rd party software (Partition Magic or one of the free ones like EASEUS) might do the trick... I can't confirm but will try it out.

MichaelBrazell

Worked in your car? I'll try this out tomorrow afternoon, see if I have any luck with it.

Thanks for the information!

Oh, also, I created this thread so that people who bought large capacity drives can figure out ways how to use them... After searching for an hour online and getting no where, I figured I'd try to get the discussion going. We _could_ tell somebody to junk their large capacity drive and go buy an iPod or a 32GB flash drive, but where's the fun in that?

IrishTR

No unfortunately my car is waiting at the dealer for me to come pickup after I get back from Afghanistan! But I figured I would offer some tech help while I could. Looks like someone above mentioned as long as its FAT32 it works (which I figured).

Yup now I can utilize this 250GB External USB HDs that has been collecting dust since getting replaced with 500GB/1TB drives!

Eli

FAT32 supports up to 2 TB. If it's limited to 32 GB, its some artificial limitation that the car has. Who knows why? The engineers are jerks.

MichaelBrazell

Sorry to bump this as it's a week old now, but just to follow up --

The 32GB limitation is placed on FAT32 by Windows, you cannot format in FAT32 beyond 32GB using windows diagnostic tools. With some external tools, you can, but there has been mixed success with that.

ss284

A 250GB HD doesnt buy you any more usable space than a 32GB flash drive due to crappy acura engineers. A 32 GB flash drive for 10 bucks more gets you a smaller, more robust form of storage that you wont have to worry about. It uses less power, is much more impervious to shocks, seeks to different songs an order of magnitude faster, and is much less likely to fail over the course of its usable life.

IrishTR

Uh yea it does according to my bud who formatted his drive as instructed to FAT32, he has a 500GB identified just fine in his 09 TL. Just knowing and using the proper tools to format the entire drive (not just 32GB of it) in a FAT32 state.

I will be verifying this in person in the next 15days as soon as I return and take delivery of my new 2010 as well.

Power draw is the same 5V USB power so Im not concerned with any fear of a power draw unless I was utilizing the car battery only for long periods of time and more juice from the radio alone would be the culprit. As for speed "most" USB Keys (especially the cheaper brands) actually have a slower read/write transfer rates than hard drives, SSDs are a different story.

And I've had more USB Keys fail than any single hard drive Ive owned all the way back to the 40MB MFM hard drive in the first 286 PC I built back in the 80s so I dont worry. If I was home I'd post you some of the aftermarket installs we've done with 500GB-1TB drives for Multimedia CarPC creations we've done again no problem with those and today the standard would be a 1-2TB drive with those being widely available and cheap as well. Flash memory is also prone to finite number of easy-write cycles which leads to degradation/failure over time the more you write to them. Considering I'm sitting over 150GB of Music and love it all, a 32GB USB Flash for me would be even more prone to failing with the constant changing over its course of usage I would put it through. Again others may have different situations, I just felt like offering up proper advice for those who want to use a bigger, cheaper solution.

Either way I'll be using the hard drive or iPOD classic 160GB in this or my Denali XL, again I've never had a problem in any of my cars using USB Hard Drives and don't foresee any problems with this new vehicle.

BigWopHH

Hey Guys,

Personally, I'd opt for a flashed based device for use in a car, but if you really want to use a portable hard drive there is a SUPER easy way to get around the 32GB FAT32 limit in Windows.

First, download this:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...32format.shtml

Unzip that file, and place it on the root of your C: drive (or anywhere else you'd like if you're comfortable navigating your PC from the command prompt.)

This process will BLANK the drive, so copy anything you'd like to save to your PC before completing these steps.

1) Connect you external USB HD to your PC.

2) Click on your start button, then right-click on My Computer (XP) or Computer (Vista, or 7), and select Manage from the menu.

3) When the computer management app opens, in the left column, click on Disk Management.

4) Find your external USB HD in the list, right-cllick on the partition info (the bar to the left) and select Delete Volume from the menu, then click Yes.

5) The partition info should say Unallocated at this point. Right-click on the USB HD again and then select New Simple Volume from the menu.

6) Follow the on-screen prompts to create the volume, assign a drive letter, but on the third screen select "Do Not Format This Volume" and then click finish.

7) Windows will assign the drive a letter, if prompted again, do not format the volume.

8) Exit the Computer Management app, then open a command prompt (Click Start > Run (on XP) > type CMD and hit Enter...on Vista or 7 just type CMD in the Search field).

9) Once at the command prompt, navigate to wherever you copied fat32format.exe (CD\ will take you to the root of the C: drive, which is why I recommended copying it there).

10) At the command prompt type:

fat32format x: (where x is the drive letter assigned to your external USB HD). And follow the on-screen prompts.

A few seconds later, you'll have a FAT32 formatted drive of any partition size you like.

Now, I'm not sure the TL can access any size FAT32 partition, but it should. I just went outside and tried a 640GB external HD and the head unit recodnizes everything, but my USB port can't power the drive continuously---I think power is going to be the bigger problem, but you could probably work around that with a USB charger for a cell phone and some creative wiring.

normallywho

I wasn't able to get a drive >32GB to be recognized. Maybe it comes down to drive manufacturer or some other compatibility issue... who knows. In the end, I went back to using a USB flash drive. Why? Because, the hard drive I bought would go into a power saving mode after some period of non-use. So, for example, if I started the car up with the radio on and listened to that for fifteen minutes and then decided to switch over to USB, I would see the track and the time on the track tick down, but no sound. My guess is that the drive spins down after some period and it won't spin up again until you unplug and replug the drive in. Something that isn't easily done while driving. Of course, this isn't an issue with a USB key, so I'm sticking with that for now.

Another issue I've run into is issues with some tracks not being readable. In total I have tried three devices attached by USB, first a flash-based media player (16GB), second a 250GB 2.5" hard drive (formatted to ~16GB), and finally, a 16GB USB flash drive. The update lag happens about equally with all devices. It only happens the first time, I expect it's trying to go through all directories and index the files therein. Regarding the unreadable tracks, this was most prominent when using the media player and least with the hard drive. I can't really explain the cause for that, but it's definitely annoying.

Rio Rebel

I have been experimenting with a 120gb hard drive, and I thought I had it working. I formatted it to full capacity using FAT32, copied one album over, and the car recognized it.

Then I copied my entire music collection, and the car can't recognize it. I checked the owner's manual, and found something that some people may be missing: The system can only read a drive with up to 700 folders and up to 15000 files. My collection has over 1100 folders, so I'm going to try consolidating them below 700 and see if it works, and report back.

This will be a very welcome situation if I can get this drive working. I was very disappointed at the ipod interface's inability to search effectively with a large collection (basically spin the knob until your hand falls off to get to the end of a large list of artists)

nine11c2

Thank you. I tried a 4GB flash and it worked fine. Then I bought a 500GB Buffalo drive, copied the bulk of my 240GB music collection and get "USB Loading" and then "No Song".

I always thought Acura would issue an update to quick scroll like Apple does on the iPod. Acura's interface is useless with my 120GB iPod and would have had similar problems if it would have worked with 240GB on the hard drive.

Rio Rebel

Bad news. I moved some folders and files to get under the 15000 files/700 folders limit. I still didn't work.

So I've verified that the car will recognize the drive formatted to full capacity (~110gb formatted in FAT32), but the only time it worked was when I had only one album folder on the drive. I'll play with it some more, but I'm pessimistic that this is going to work for me. Right now, with about 600 folders and 10,000 songs (maybe 40 gig or so), it isn't working.

If anyone else has experience with an external drive, post your experiences. It's a shame to have to find an alternative to an ipod, but that's the only way to organize the files in a way that allows decent searching.

wildchild_8635

Here is something that I realized after using a 250GB seagate in my 09' TL. Ipod is MUCH more convenient, especially if you have a large music library. Reason being, you have the ability to create playlists. On a HDD, whatever is in that folder is being played until you change to something else or change the contents of the folder so let's say you have a collection of songs you want to put together, you have to make a folder for these and stick them in there. And then the next playlist the same. With ipod, if you wanted, you could unplug the thing, make a quick playlist right there in your car, plug it back in and you're good to go. No computer necessary. But thats just my opinion. With ipod, you can scroll through by plalists, artist, genre etc. With HDD, its just folders. thats it.

Rio Rebel

My problem is that I don't use playlists. I have never been someone who sits down and decides that I want to hear a list of songs, and select them to play. I like to scroll through my list of artists, decide on the one I feel like hearing, and then find a song by them. Then I choose the next song the same way.

Maybe I will have to change my way of playing back music. I hadn't considered that option. Up to now, I've been focused on a solution that let's me best search through my list of artists.

If you could create playlists of artists instead of songs, that would be better...I don't understand how creating alphabetical playlists have helped others solve this. Even if you create a playlist for every letter of the alphabet, a collection with 8000 songs will be averaging over 300 songs per letter.

For now, I seem to have two choices - change the way I search through my music, or delete music from my ipod and maintain a smaller list of artists. I could still have a respectable size of music to listen to, I just wouldn't have very many artists with only one album. I'd need to limit it to groups like The Beatles, Rush, U2, Sting, Pink Floyd, etc. where I have almost everything they've released.

jasonwdp10

From seeing the frustration on this thread, and also needing to scroll over 100 folders everytime i want a certain song.

I hope acura reads this somehow and concentrates more on making their audio system more user friendly.

I'm currently using a 16gb flash drive, and may switch to a phone later on. I hate the need to scroll for SO LONG to get to certain songs. So far, it appears that the folders show my order of "date modified" since the newer folders I have are always at the bottom.

I also have trouble with the car not being able to read certain songs, either due to the bit rate, or the language (i have numerous asian songs).

C'mon acura, fix this already.

jnc2000

If Acura can offer OTA updates via the Acuralink system one would think little bugs like this could be fixed via updates that are *pushed* to owners....

normallywho

I've pretty much given up on using any sort of drive (flash or hard) and am just using my phone. Probably 99% of the time I'm using Pandora, otherwise I'll use the media player on the phone and play everything through Bluetooth. While it's certainly easier to find things and generate playlists on the phone, the fact that I can't safely search for tracks while driving (because I'm one of those loons who doesn't want to touch his phone while moving) is definitely frustrating.

The poor interface and bizarre artificial limitations on storage are definitely some of the more significant pain-points with this vehicle.

Rio Rebel

Update:

Deleted more of the collection off the drive, and it "works". I reduced the collection to 4200 files, in 320 folders. The Acura will now read the drive and find the folders...BUT...

The system will only find one level of folders. I had broken up the folders by putting A-F, etc., then a folder for A, then a folder for all the artists beginning with A, and then a folder for each album under that artist. What is returned is simply one big list of all the album folders. Not useful at all.

Looks like this approach is a bust. I really, REALLY hate this interface. It's just inane.

mtbdude

Wish I had read this thread before buying a 64 gb flash drive for 2012 Acura TL w/ tech. Getting "unsupported" message. Properties shows that the drive is formatted w/ FAT32.

iPod Touch works fine, but don't want to leave in the car or always carry with me. The flash drive looked like the solution. Oh well. Keep it for a backup drive...

ctaranto

Digging up an old thread (was searching for how to organize folders on a USB stick).

I had this problem as well. Some Hindi songs wouldn't play. Even a handful of American songs wouldn't, either. I've deduced it to the embedded image within the .mp3 file.

I use Mp3tag v2.50 to load up the directory of files. Select a file. The image appears on the bottom left. Right click on the image, select Remove cover, then save the file. Rinse. Repeat.

Hope this helps...

Cap'n Preshoot

The 32 Gig limit is a WINDOWS limit.

You absolutely can format a 2 terrabyte drive FAT32 but when you're finished WINDOWS will only recognize 32 gigs of it.

Fortunately Acura does not use Windows. I'm not certain of their operating system but my guess would be that it's something Linux based.

ctaranto

I'd be somewhat surprised if it was Linux based since it appears the USB interface doesn't support ext2/3/4.

tenstrum

I tried putting my entire 120,000+ MP3 music collection on a external USB powered hard drive. It recognized the drive just fine, put would only see 700 folders. I've tried trimming the collection down to just a "car only" collection, but there are so many albums that I want to have available that trimming down really isn't that great. I may end up getting an iPod or something just to have my entire collection available.

tenstrum

Well the largest iPod can only hold 160GB. Guess I'll just stick with the external hard drive and keep trimming my music down on it for the TL.

ibs000

Hi,

I scored the web trying to find anyone who is having the same problem as me. I have an Acura 2010 TL, and I've already realized...like most of you...that some usb devices simply don't work. I've learned to live with that, but I have a new problem now. When I purchase an audiobook, I normally rip it with itunes to MP3 and drop it on a thumb drive that works with my Acura. Well, lately, the newer rips are just not showing up in the display in my car. I left the older books on the drive, so when I plug it into my car, all I see are the old books, and none of the new. It is absolutely driving me crazy trying to figure out why... I didn't think that the reader could only read a certain type of MP3...I think I recently updated my itunes. I think that is the only difference from my older files. Does anyone have any thoughts on this???

Thanks...Andy