i have a clarion in dash dvd player with support for i-pod and usb...... i was using a usb drive to store all the music on, but i thought it would be a good idea to buy a external hard drive so i can store more music and movies on it so i can access wat i want without having dvd's floating around throughout the car.

for some reason, this great idea has turned out to be a failure, the dvd player will not recognise the hard drive, just thought that maybe its never supposed to work this way, or im doing something wrong in getting it to work.

all im doing is loading songs onto the hard drive, and plugging it into the usb port on the stereo and turn it on............ all im doing is the exact same thing as i would with a usb drive.

any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

cheers, scottie.

I think it's a power issue for the HDD. Most external drives that I know of are either powered by AC or the self-powered ones need 2 USB plugs to draw enough power to operate.

If it's self powered and has 2 USB plugs, try buying a USB power thingy for your ciggy lighter to plug one of the USB plugs into. Otherwise wait for someone else to reply

Scotty, there's a few reasons why this could be the issue,

1) As Tats mentioned, power. It may needmore juice then the head deck can provide.

2) Format of the HDD. Most will be in NTFS, you might need it in either FAT or FAT32.

3) Incompatibility with the convertor in the HDD. Nothing you can do here.

my money is definitely on the not enough powahhhh problem

i shoulda just brought an i-pod! lol

i've managed to format the portable HD to FAT, made no difference........... i tried putting on a few songs wit no folders to see if that would work.........and it didn't. it only has got 1 usb plug in the portable HD, so i cant see any way of putting an adaptor into it, oh...... and i dont have a working 12v socket anyways. ive even tried to find my destruction manual for the head unit, but cant find that either.

i'll be annoyed if i cant get it working , coz thats wat i brought it for, but if it doesnt, i'll still find a use for it (maybe a door stop!)

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Black-USB-2-0-AM ... 286.c0.m14

something like that im assuming

and you dont have a working 12v socket?
FAIL!

HDD's pull at least 1amp unless its a single platter 2.5" HDD and then you MIGHT get away with one USB port. USB only supplies 500mA (except in weird cases like Macbook Air, but that's not official USB spec, it's their own bullshit)

whats that for? the one i have coming out of the head deck is a single usb line, and the one going into the HD is a single lead, just wasn't sure where u were going with that lead??

owen - thanks for your info............ i only just worked out how to format the HD today, not really sure wat u mean.

owen was just throwing in some big words to sound smart :)...
i have a 10GB 2.5" hdd floating around, but it would be useless as your enclusure is probably SATA.
just get a 16 or 32GB thumb drive...do they come out in 64GB yet??
justins external hdd works with his head unit - i dare say its lack of current

SATA...............thats a big enough word to confuse me!!

i agree wit u x on justin's hard drive, but he has the newer version of my head unit. the HD wont even register that it is connected to the head unit, but as soon as i plug in the thumb drive, it register's with the head unit.

i was told on another forum, that it is possible that the head unit will only support a certain amount of external memory, i dunno if it is true or not, still trying to find the instruction manual so i can confirm it.

Wow, you are behind in the times... They have 256Gb thumb drives out at the moment...

i would say its your deck i tried this 4 years ago with the jvc usb decks.i had the same prob they do mention in very fine print in the overseas jvc instruction man that they only support up to a certain amount of gig space .but maybe a bigger flash drive may work it depends on the head unit .

I'm not in sales, i dont have to keep up
Last time i looked they were talking about a 64GB thumb drive...

As I said, it's purely due to power. External HDD's need more power than your headdeck's USB port can provide, so it won't spin up and work.

http://www.pcdiy.com.au/product_info.ph ... abf6c41da0 <- best price on a 64 i've found.

cheers for the info owen, and others......decided to give up on it, and go back to the small usb drive that i was using before!

on the plus side, the portable HD is currently being used to speed up my girlfriends laptop, so there will always be a use for it, not a total waste!

Sonys have used the 256GB SSD in their new VAIO range

Scottie - ill check tomorrow what i have in stock if your interested?

Im pretty sure we had 32gb & 64gb sticks

nah, its cool...... decided to get a new head unit, as kinda sold my car, and the dvd player is going wit it!

i will be getting a similar head unit anyways, so i'll come see u if i want a bigger usb drive