Just thought I would throw my setup out there.
I have a pioneer 6900 with a toshiba 120gig usb drive connected to it. The head unit would not power the usb drive. I put together a small power supply using a couple of caps and a LM340T5 5 volt regulator in a small aluminum box. 25$ at most. I connected the supply to the switched power routing the wires through the hole in the glove box to the back of the H/U. The usb drive sits in the sun glass holder in the glove box lid. Works great. I have about 45g of 320k mp3 on the drive. The only drawback is that the head unit can take a while to scan the drive. Probably about 30secs at most.
This is a cheap setup. the Pioneer deh-6900u can be had for about 130$ off of ebay and the harddrive was about 60$.
By making my own power supply I don't have any wires running all over the place from the cig lighters.

 

Sounds like a nice system just wish BMW/Mini would come up in this worls with a good stock radio system.

 

i tried it both ways, with the software and without and the car says "The Device Cannot Be Read" but whats weird is that my 1 gig version has the software on it and it worked perfectly the first time, also i tried my friends 16 gig that has no software and it didnt work either.

 

Pics, we want pics!!

 

I get you some up tomorrow.

 

Did you actually format the USB drive or just remove the software. Your best bet is to reformat the drive using the command line that will wipe all data from the UBS drive and then it should work

1. Click run type cmd and click okay

2. in the window that pops up type

format x: /FS:FAT32 /V:Label (ensure spaces are in this line or it will not work)

where x = the drive letter and Label = what ever you want the drive to show up named as (no more than 8 characters no spaces)

If it does not show up after this then there is a problem with the USB Drive.

 

Pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/usafDan/ElementalSubs

 

it showed up, and it ran and did everything but it still didnt work in the car. thanks for your help so far, any other ideas of whats keeping it from working? btw my one gig was formatted just to FAT and it works, i tried reformatting the 8 gig to that and it says its too big, think the car reconized the FAT file system first and now it wont accept anyother types? do you know how to reset the cars computer?

 

It should not mater as far as i know if it is FAT or FAT32. Do you have access to a 1 gig that is formated in FAT32 (a friend maybe).

How long does it stay in the loading mode?

How many tracks do you have loaded on the USB Drive?

Also please note that USB system in the Mini can only handle up t0 20,000 data items. That is not tracks. Each track has a file name, a title, a track number, an artist, and other data items attached to it. So for instance if all your tracks have 6 tags (data items) then 20,00 data items = only 3333 tracks, but if each track has 10 tags then it is only capable of 2000 tracks.

After this limit is reached then from my experience it starts dropping the first info i scanned. So if you have say 10,000 tracks all with 5 tags then the first then the first 30,000 data items scanned get dropped and causing the first 6000 tracks or so to be dropped.

I have only had limited testing on this as but these are my initial findings.

 

i'll try to find one, i might have a 256 one around here somewhere, and i dont think i've reached 20000 items of info yet, i've only had about 10 cds worth of info on the 1 gig drive and they all have all the info for the cds and songs, and with about 8 to 13 tracks per cd and about 5 pieces of info each it only really adds up to about no more than 650 bits of info, its really quite annoying that this drive isnt working, and the flash drive is fine its self anyways. also, if i were to had reached the 20000 limit, when i plugged in the new flash drive with new info, it would just drop the info from the 1 gig drive to make space and read the new one right? also with only 50 -100 mb of data on the 8 gig, about 1 cd i've just been trying to get it to work with for now, it SAYS "load" for a few seconds, maybe 10 max. then goes to " - - " and i can click it again and it will say "load" again, but then if i leave it alone for a bit and then go back to it it will say "empty" the loading time really hasnt been much different from when it had 5 gigs on it to when it has had 50 mb on it. my 1 gig loaded and playing in a matter of seconds. its quite the conundrum... thanks so far. also i've tried putting the same cd as i have on the other drive to see if it reads the info it already has stored in the computer of the mini, but nothing.

 

Great job! Looks real nice!

 

so i went to best buy and swapped out the drive for another one, like a even swap, because i bought the 8 gig on like one of those weekly sales and it was down from $80 to $40, so i could only get either the samn drive or one of lesser storage, so i got home, put a cd on it, Serj Tankian's Elect the Dead, awesome album. and plugged it in and lo-and-behold it starts playing!...my enthusiasim was short lived as only about 20 seconds into the song it stopped playing and the screen came up with "not connected" and then the "device cannot be read"... wow. wtf?, going to return this one for a 4 gig unfourtunalty and see what happens, next step is just my money back.

 

alright, i swapped it for a PNY 4 gig Flash drive and this one works, it has no software, no frills, no nothing, kinda stinks cuzz the sandisk was a nice one with the extras. strangly this one is formatted to FAT32 also, just like the other ones so i dont know what was up. other people have reported 8's and even 16 gig flash drives working flawlessy. oh well, i'll just have to watch for when best buy puts the PNY 8 gig on sale and try and swap this one for it - thanks for the help anyways Schatzy

 

Picked up my new MCS this weekend. MA handed me the cable. The sticker clearly says "Convenience Package ... Comfort Bluetooth and USB/iPod". I bought a MC 3 months ago from the same dealer. Same story. No extra charge.

 

Sorry. Wrong thread.

 

Picked up my new MCS this weekend. MA handed me the cable. The sticker clearly says "Convenience Package ... Comfort Bluetooth and USB/iPod". I bought a MC 3 months ago from the same dealer. Same story. No extra charge.

 

See whether it helps to reformat with a freeware utility called fat32format: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...32format.shtml. It was described in this thread as enabling hard disks to work: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80270. Not all FAT32 formats are the same. A parameter called cluster size can be given different values, which may affect whether the reader can handle it.

 

rkw, thanks for finding the e90 thread i have been looking for that info from it for a few days now and unable to find it. i had read it a couple of weeks ago but lost the bookmark to it.

Thanks again.

 

I've searched to see if anyone else has run into this problem. My 08 MINI Clubman (w/ upgraded sound and Ipod Integration - USB/Aux) recognizes the Ipod, and I can select it from the Audio Menu.

I can scroll through the albums/artists/playlists/etc, I can choose a song to play and it shows up as current and the Ipod shows the play symbol (as opposed to pause).

I however have no sound. I've checked the LEVel and set it to max. Still no sound. Now, if I connect the Ipod through the Aux port I have sound, but obviously no Ipod integration (display lists,etc).

Any ideas as to why? Perhaps the bitrate is greater than 320kb? The Ipods are borrowed (my children's). I wanted to try the function before I go out and purchase an Ipod.

Still brings me back to why no sound?

Thanks,
OilSpot

 

What exactly are you doing? When using the iPod Y cable, both the USB and aux connectors need to be plugged in.

 

As rkw states both the connectors on the y cable need to be connected otherwise it will not play the audio.

 

Thanx!

 

rkw & schatzy62: Thanks. My bad. Didn't even begin to think that the USB is for ipod control and the aux is for the audio. Makes sense now that I think about it.

I'll have to once again request that my kids loan me an ipod so I can try it out. If it's as successful as everyone indicates I'll be in the market to purchase an ipod to supplement the audio choices.

Happy Motoring! w/ Tunes!!!

Daniel

 

Hi every one.

I've been looking the way to get my old Ipod nano to work properly(ish) with the mini (08), I just had the USB/Aux connections.

I configured the Ipod to be used as external disk and using the oem cable included by mac (white one) tu plug into minis USB, and works perfectly as an USB external, I just loaded one album in mac format (.m4a) to check if it worked.

Now when connected it always shows "Do not disconnect" screen even after I turn off the car, is it normal or may cause any "damage" if I leave it plugged, or is it necessary to unplug it?

Since 4 gb is not enough for the music I have so I'm planning to buy a bigger one (80gb maybe) , but I wonder if the USB can handle it as an external disk.


best regards and thankyou for your answers.

 

flamartin - I'd love to know exactly what ipod you are using! I have a Nano as well (older thin white one - no video), but have had no luck getting it to load with only the white cable.
Did you format the ipod as FAT32? I'm intrigued!!