Usb Portable Hard Drives

[Blacky]

Hi all

Is anyone using a portable hard drive off the USB under the armrest for their music or video files?

Cheers

[dis-lex-sic]

Not possible.

[Lexus Nerd]

I did some Googling ... one person with an MY10 RX did get his old 80 GB hard disk, in a cheap enclosure, working. Here's my guess on compatibility:

1. The brand of enclosure might not matter - or, at least, you won't necessarily need a name-brand, feature-packed one.

2. The disk will almost certainly need to be formatted in FAT32. Since Windows will not format disks above 32 GB in FAT32, you may need to obtain a third-party utility to format the disk in FAT32. (If the disk is under 32 GB, why bother? Use a flash drive.)

3. If your enclosure has an optional second connection for DC power (either a second USB or a round jack), and you're experiencing problems, try attaching the DC power.

4. Despite following #2 and #3 above, you may still run into problems with larger capacity disks - my guess of the upper limit is 120 GB.

I'm not inclined to re-format any of my external HDDs right now (they invariably contain useful junk on each of them!), but I'll update this thread if I manage to test this myself.

[dis-lex-sic]

80gb HDD????

Why wouldn't you just use a 160gb iPod?

Especially as it has a better menu system as displayed on the cars EMV.

Search options are as follows.

HDD: Folders & Files only.

iPod: Albums, Artists, Songs & Playlists. There are a few others choices that I can't think of at the moment.

[Blacky]

Ok, thanks for your help.

iPOD is certainly a valid point just didn't want to leave it in the car all the time.

Have purchase a Flash drive and just down loading songs now to see how that goes.

Cheers for the comments.

iPOD does sound like the choice though.

Does it matter what model iPOD you use?

[DANSLEX]

Guys, you can definately format a large hard drive in FAT32 format, there are ways to do it. You're certainly not limited to 32 gigs only.

Plenty of info on the net if you google for it. Here's one:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

[dis-lex-sic]

Hey Blacky,

From my experience it doesn't matter what iPod you use.

I use an 8gb iPod nano & an iPhone 4. Both work the same.