This message is marked as Important.

Subject: Simple and Hackless 160gb iPod to 500gb-1TB hard drive conversion Author: Rogue7 (moderator) : member since January, 2006 : 5947 posts Posted on: 2009-09-23 01:36:12

For all BMW's with the factory ipod pig-tail integration.
If you're like me than you definitely have more than the 160gigs of music that the ipod classic can hold. I thought it would be
cool to have EVERY song and playlist that I have on my home media center in my car as well. Since my iPod was
maxxed out sometimes it would freeze up when I went to start my car forcing me to do a hard reboot, other times it would just take forever to
navigate the damn thing and I think that was related to the can chiller keeping the center console cold.

I figure since a USB thumb drive works why not get one of my 2.5 inch hard drives and stick it in an external case that used an A-type (large) plug on both ends, load it up with music and plug it into the USB port. This did not work because the BMW USB port alone was not powerful enough to get the platters spinning, with an external power supply the platters would spin and the BMW would see the hard drive but would not access the file system. As for keeping constant power I could have spliced in to a source under the center console but this is something I DID NOT want to do,,,,yet.

Stumped about not seeing the files I realized that every computer XP and after formatted in NTFS and exFAT, even doing a forced DOS FAT32 format the size of the drive would be limited. A little digging around the internet and I found
FAT32 FORMATTER to solve the file system and the size barrier. However, after trying 3 different hard drives in 2 different A-Type plug cases I could not get the 335 to spin them up.

I finally realized A-Type plug (large) USB cases require A LOT of power to get the platters spinning so I hauled ass to Office Depot and bought one of the new, on sale, Seagate Freeagent GO external hard drives that only require a MINI-USB plug, came home, forced a FAT32 format with Fat32Formatter 1.0. VIOLA! onboard 500gig music keg with all the same I-Drive options that an iPod has. Tomorrow I will be going back and exchanging this 500 for a 1 terra drive.

An added benefit of the hard drive system is all sound and control is processed through the USB port, this frees up the AUX plug and I can now keep my Sirius tuner plugged into the AUX at all times and switch between the hard drive and the Sirius via iDrive.

• Simple and Hackless 160gb iPod to 500gb-1TB hard drive conversion (pic) (url) - Rogue7 2009-09-23 01:36:12 (87 views)