bob.a

Most delighted to hear that; but unfortunately these drives don't seem to be as readily available over here as in WPB! Nor do the "order now" prices encourage a lot of blind experimentation! Could you post details of the drive and enclosure?

Russ1974

I've tried three different external USB hard drives and none of them work in my car - and this includes ones which other people report as working fine elsewhere. Bob - you are in the UK?? External hard-drives are really cheap and easily available, I'm not sure why you can't find them.

Google ... "external usb hard drive uk price". Take your pick from the hundreds that appear!

I bought all of mine from here ; http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.AS...;Thumbnails=yes

The latest one I tried was the Fujitsu Handy Drive. Others here reported it as working fine, on mine it doesnt get recognised by the car.

I also have problems with large USB sticks - I am sticking with my 4Gb one which seems to be working ok, albeit the occasional "jump back to FM" issue.

bob.a

Russ. I've been reading your posts with interest - in fact, I was on track to order a Fujitsu HandyDrive from an ebay UK shop when I saw your report about it. (Thanks!)

My post today was intended to be specifically about 1.8 inch low current hdds, preferably the new 3600 rpm "entertainment drives" which impose much lower startup loads than 2.5" data types like HandyDrives.

I'm also concerned about the enclosure. USB power control is quite complicated, so depending on the extent to which the relevant sections of the USB Standard have been implemented (by both enclosure designer and BMW), there's a great deal of scope for incompatibility and variability in this situation; but do I think a lower consumption hdd should be less troublesome than a higher consuming one, so I'm hoping a "known good" 1.8 inch enclosure/drive combination should be a good bet. Bob

jfisher08

Here is the info on the drive and enclosure got both from ebay

Hard Drive:
Toshiba 1.8" ATA Laptop Hard Drive 2MB Buffer ZIF connector 60GB


Enclosure:
SquareTrade ? AP6.0

Hi-Speed USB 2.0 EnclosureFor 1.8" Hard Drive with ZIF Connector

Product Features

This external ultra slim enclosure is designed for 1.8? ZIF hard drives, either Toshiba or Hitachi . This tiny portable device provides maximum durability, flexibility and portability with standard USB 2.0 Hi-Speed interface. Just plug the USB cable into any notebook, desktop, or Macintosh with USB ports and you have instant connectivity. With built-in hot swap technology, you can connect and disconnect the drive at any time.
Slim Aluminum case
Plug and play
Stable and Quick
Large Storage Support
No External Power Required




FEATURES:

USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 standards
Chipset: Prolific PL2506
Windows 98/2000/ME/XP/2003/Vista, Mac compatible
High speed data transfer up to 480 Mbps
Suitable for 1.8" hard disk with ZIF connector (either Toshiba or Hitachi)
Full Aluminum Magnesium alloy Material
Two colour LED indicator

Size: 108mm x 60 mm x 10 mm

flipside

Bumping up an old thread...

Seems the best thing to do is use any 4G or newer ipod in disk mode. I have my files encoded at Lame 320 VBR and they sound amazing. I'm using a 5G 60GB ipod with the ipod cable plugged into the usb port. (I'm not using the BMW Y cable, that cable ports the audio through the analog aux in port) Using the standard ipod cable you have full digital transfer to the audio system in the car, and like I said, it sounds amazing.