Camaro5 Chevy Camaro Forum / Camaro ZL1, SS and V6 Forums - Camaro5.com
 
Roto-Fab
Go Back   Camaro5 Chevy Camaro Forum / Camaro ZL1, SS and V6 Forums - Camaro5.com > Technical Camaro Topics > Audio, Video, Bluetooth, Navigation, Radar, Electronics Forum


Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 05-05-2013, 06:46 AM   #1
spmike
 
spmike's Avatar
 
Drives: 2011 Camaro RS
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Saint Paris, Ohio
Posts: 7
Post Informational: 2011 Camaro RS USB flash drive tests and summary

I wanted to use the USB port on my 2011 RS for playing MP3's, so I put some MP3's on an old 16GB flash drive and plugged it in and it worked, so I bought a 64GB flash drive and it would not work. I checked the owner's manual and GM web site for specifics on what drive formats and sizes will work, but found nothing useful for this vehicle. All I found was, "not all flash drives are compatible" and "only the 1st 10,000 songs will be recognized." I find this quite frustrating as you know someone at GM knows the exact specs, so why won't they publish them? I also found numerous posts from other users with questions, suggestions, and statements like, "mine just worked" which were not helpful at all. Being a computer geek, I performed a series of tests and the results follow. I hope this will be useful for someone else.

64GB, formatted with factory FAT32, does not work
64GB, formatted with NTFS, does not work
64GB, formatted with ExFAT, does not work
[ thinking the limit was less than 64GB, I tried incrementing ]
30GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
32GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
40GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
48GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
50GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
55GB partition on the 64GB drive, formatted FAT32, 32KB/cluster, works
64GB partition (full drive), formatted FAT32, 32KB cluster size, works!

So it appears that the factory FAT32 format, with a cluster size that I did not make note of before reformatting, is incompatible, but reformatting with 32Kbytes per cluster works just fine.

Notes on Windows 7:

Windows 7 will only allow you to format drives larger than 32GB with NTFS,
so you need a 3rd party app to format them FAT32. I used fat32format, available here:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

Also, if you go into the disk manager on windows 7, you will see that the option to delete the partition is greyed out. To delete it, you need to use DISKPART from the command line that comes with Windows 7, but I am not going to post instructions on how to do so, because this is a tool for advanced users and you can easily wipe out your hard drive if you don't know what you are doing. Advanced users can seek info on diskpart and figure it out pretty quickly. If you want to use the full drive you do not need this. You can take a drive with an NTFS format, run the fat32format program above, and reformat it to FAT32 without deleting the partition or volume.

Notes on brands:
Several people post things like "brand X works" or "brand Y does not work." Brand has NOTHING to do with it. As long as the device is USB 2.0 compliant, the radio has no idea what brand you are using. It just sees a USB flash drive.

Let me know if you find this posting useful.

Mike
spmike is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 06:59 AM   #2
The Stig
knows 2 facts about ducks
 
The Stig's Avatar
 
Drives: ...and they're both wrong
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The HMS Invincible
Posts: 25,072
Out of curiosity, how many songs were you able to fit on the 64G drive?
__________________
Click to view my build thread
The Stig is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 07:23 AM   #3
spmike
 
spmike's Avatar
 
Drives: 2011 Camaro RS
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Saint Paris, Ohio
Posts: 7
number of songs

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Stig View Post
Out of curiosity, how many songs were you able to fit on the 64G drive?
I have not filled mine yet, but I just did some calculations for you. The exact number will vary as the size of the files vary with quality, but my MP3's are averaging about 6 Megabytes per song. Doing the math, that would allow me to store 10,922 songs on this drive, just over the max the radio will recognize.
spmike is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 07:51 AM   #4
RubyCamaro
Jan
 
RubyCamaro's Avatar
 
Drives: 2010 Camaro 1LT Red Jewel tintcoat
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Springfield, TN
Posts: 16,225
Okay as one of the old fart generation (those who do not work in a tech related job), you are still speaking greek. Just tell me what flash drive I can buy that will work. That is about as much as I can handle. But thanks for posting this info for the tech savy younguns' as this is a very frustrating issue.
__________________
RubyCamaro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:12 AM   #5
The Stig
knows 2 facts about ducks
 
The Stig's Avatar
 
Drives: ...and they're both wrong
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The HMS Invincible
Posts: 25,072
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmike View Post
I have not filled mine yet, but I just did some calculations for you. The exact number will vary as the size of the files vary with quality, but my MP3's are averaging about 6 Megabytes per song. Doing the math, that would allow me to store 10,922 songs on this drive, just over the max the radio will recognize.
Curious to know what'll happen if you try to index more than the 10,000 song limit.
__________________
Click to view my build thread
The Stig is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:13 AM   #6
rich3fan
What's this button do?
 
rich3fan's Avatar
 
Drives: 2019 Black 2SS
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Wylie, Texas
Posts: 1,364
I don't own 10,922 songs!
rich3fan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:25 AM   #7
Runawayhacker
 
Runawayhacker's Avatar
 
Drives: 2012 Camaro 2SS
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 184
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Stig View Post
Curious to know what'll happen if you try to index more than the 10,000 song limit.
My understanding is it will begin to omit those entries. I had another USB related question a while back and was able to get in touch with one of the programmers for the radio here on the forums (codeman71). The radio only has a certain amount of memory allocated to index/buffer these songs, the number of max songs (10,000) isn't a hard coded number and may rely on the size of the files.

Here is one of my earlier posts about trying to get the indexing done right. It may be a little unrelated, but still has some good information about the system.

Quote:
I had a similar issue, but was able to easily solve it. I got in touch with one of the programmers for the radio (codeman71) and found out that the indexing is done when the USB device is first plugged in or if there has been any changes to the amount of data on the device (add/remove music).

As for the order of the songs, it is based on the ID3 tags of the mp3s. I was frustrated as well when a filename would be something like "Pink Floyd - Sheep", but it would either not show up or be listed under "unknown artist" on the radio. Sure enough, the ID3 tags for the mp3s were incorrect. Be sure they are all the same as well as capitalization makes a difference.

Example: Having 2 MP3s with one as "Pink Floyd" and another as "pink floyd" will make 2 separate entries for Pink Floyd on the radio.

I had an iPhone previously and it worked perfectly with the setup. I now have Android (love it), but have to use it in UMS mode to simulate a USB stick. I'm working on an app for Android to mimic the functionality of the iPhone. When the iPhone/iPod is used, the device itself is piping the music to the radio unlike the Android/USB method where the radio directly reads from the media.

Also be aware that when using a USB stick with the radio, there is around a 10,000 song limit.
Runawayhacker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:37 AM   #8
oldfriend


 
Drives: Fiat 500 E
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: 32.7607/N. 16.95947/W
Posts: 7,816
So , I another words , we better keep the IPHONE for now , till you come up with the APP for the Droid .
Fair enough !
oldfriend is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:38 AM   #9
spmike
 
spmike's Avatar
 
Drives: 2011 Camaro RS
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Saint Paris, Ohio
Posts: 7
what drives will work

Quote:
Originally Posted by RubyCamaro View Post
Okay as one of the old fart generation (those who do not work in a tech related job), you are still speaking greek. Just tell me what flash drive I can buy that will work. That is about as much as I can handle. But thanks for posting this info for the tech savy younguns' as this is a very frustrating issue.
The bottom line is almost any flash drive will work, but it may not work right out of the box. Worst case you could print my post and take it to a computer shop and have them reformat it as above. I would not expect them to charge much, if anything. But if you buy a smaller drive, say 16 gigabytes or less, it will probably work out of the box.
spmike is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 03:54 PM   #10
2012-1822


 
2012-1822's Avatar
 
Drives: Black ZL1
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: City of Champions, Alabama
Posts: 3,698
Quote:
Originally Posted by RubyCamaro View Post
Okay as one of the old fart generation (those who do not work in a tech related job), you are still speaking greek. Just tell me what flash drive I can buy that will work. That is about as much as I can handle. But thanks for posting this info for the tech savy younguns' as this is a very frustrating issue.
I second this
__________________
Check out Alabama Camaros, for Camaro enthusiasts all around Alabama https://www.facebook.com/groups/1739...group_activity
2012-1822 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 04:08 PM   #11
MMC

 
MMC's Avatar
 
Drives: CGM 2SS/RS, 1987 & 2014 Silverado
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Spencerport, NY
Posts: 1,012
Quote:
Originally Posted by RubyCamaro View Post
Okay as one of the old fart generation (those who do not work in a tech related job), you are still speaking greek. Just tell me what flash drive I can buy that will work. That is about as much as I can handle. But thanks for posting this info for the tech savy younguns' as this is a very frustrating issue.
I have a couple 16GB Sandisk Cruzers from Amazon and they all work great. Deleted the lock files that were on them and sinc them to my PC with Windows Media Player, all ripped to MP3 at 128kbps.
__________________
MMC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2013, 08:33 PM   #12
RubyCamaro
Jan
 
RubyCamaro's Avatar
 
Drives: 2010 Camaro 1LT Red Jewel tintcoat
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Springfield, TN
Posts: 16,225
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmike View Post
The bottom line is almost any flash drive will work, but it may not work right out of the box. Worst case you could print my post and take it to a computer shop and have them reformat it as above. I would not expect them to charge much, if anything. But if you buy a smaller drive, say 16 gigabytes or less, it will probably work out of the box.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2012-1822 View Post
I second this
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMC View Post
I have a couple 16GB Sandisk Cruzers from Amazon and they all work great. Deleted the lock files that were on them and sinc them to my PC with Windows Media Player, all ripped to MP3 at 128kbps.
Thanks Guys but you lost me with this last bit?
__________________
RubyCamaro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2013, 08:19 AM   #13
meissen
Founder - Michigan FBody
 
meissen's Avatar
 
Drives: 1994 Camaro LT1, 2012 Camaro 2SS/RS
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: New Haven, MI
Posts: 2,599
Been awhile since I've formatted a USB drive, but I wonder if you can make the same change to the block size while formatting for NTFS as you did for FAT32? I would imagine that it has to be able to read NTFS flash drives...
__________________
2012 Camaro 2SS/RS L99 - "Zooma"
1994 Camaro LT1 A4 - "Red Alert" - v6-to-LT1 Swapped Cruiser; Cammed, Stalled, Enjoyed

"Gone But Not Forgotten"
2016 Camaro 1LT A8 - "Elmo"
2014 Camaro 1LT M6 - "Cherry Bomb"
2012 Camaro 1LS M6 - "Clifford"


Michigan FBody Association
http://www.mifbody.com/
meissen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2013, 09:14 AM   #14
silverds
2015 SS 6M
 
silverds's Avatar
 
Drives: 2015 SS 6M
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 561
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmike View Post
Let me know if you find this posting useful.

Mike
This is great work and a valuable contribution. Thanks to you.
__________________
silverds is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply

Tags
compatibility, flash, usb

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:52 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.