r5gordini

Hi All,

Perhaps this should be moved to the FAQ?

I see it's some time since this was thrashed out fully, but I would still like to be able to use a USB hard disk with my 2007(8?) LCI E61...

What hard disks definitely work in the e60? I've tried the following:

1) Laptop hard disk in external enclosure - no luck - drive does not spin up
2) Western Digital Passport 80Gb, 250Gb - no luck - drive does not spin up

Some have mentioned that they think there may be insufficient power supplied through the interface, so I tried the experiment of rigging up a cigarette lighter 12v to 5v power supply to the power input lines of a USB cable, and plugging the hard disk in to that. The hard disk spins up, but is not recognised.

Any suggestions? I've checked that the disks are formatted as FAT32.

I would be interested in all those who have tried to get hard disks to work. Remember - a negative result is almost as useful as a positive one! Perhaps you could answer the following questions?

1) What model of drive?
2) What is its capacity?
3) Does it work? If yes:
4) Does it always spin up, or is it temperamental?
5) How have you got it formatted?
6) Is it always recognised?

Thanks,

Andrew

Rudy

Have you seen this thread?
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=45644

Russ1974

Just to add - be careful about injecting power in to the USB cable in the way you describe. I am (perhaps wrongly) assuming you did not use any protection circuitry, meaning that not only were you pumping 5V in to the HD, but also pushing 5V back _in to_ the car ... ?

Rudy

Don't most external USB enclosures have a dedicated 5V input? (My Dynex does.)

I imagine that would be the safest way to do things..

Russ1974

Some do ... so yes those that do, that's the best option. Those that don't, best option is to use a powered USB hub. I've tried 3 different USB hard drives and none of them have worked so far. Haven't tried external power on them.

r5gordini

Hi Rudy, Russ,

Thanks for your replies to my topic. I must admit I'd not seen the thread Rudy pointed out, though I had done a search on the board... Sorry! Think I searched for "hard disk" rather than "hard drive"

However, my suggestion would be that there should be a topic in the FAQ for this one as it would be useful to have a definitive list of hard drives/disks that work, and instructions on how to get them working.

An update from my end is that I got my Western Digital Passport 250GB drive to work yesterday. My cobbled-together USB cable supplies power to the hard disk (and does NOT inject it back into the car). The key for me is that I wasn't leaving it long enough for the car to recognise (being nervous in case I broke something, I would unplug it fairly soon after plugging it in). Now, it's recognised within a couple of minutes.

To explain my USB cable:

1) cigarette lighter adaptor for charging USB mobile phones: This provides 5v DC, 1A (regulated). I cut the cable from this and stripped the insulation from the + and - leads.
2) I got a USB extension cable and chopped this in half.
3) I joined (soldered) the data cables together again in the USB extension cable, and left the power coming from the plug end disconnected, and wrapped up (insulated).
4) I joined the power leads from the mobile phone charger to the power leads going to the socket end of the extension cable.
5) Insulated, heat-shrinked, etc. my new cable
6) plugged the cigarette lighter adaptor into one of the power sockets in the car, and the USB extension cable into the USB port on the car. The hard disk is then plugged into the socket end of the extension cable.

It works! Providing power to a USB hard disk which doesn't have a separate power input. I only hope that my mobile charger provides a stable enough 5v supply. It hasn't blown up the hard disk yet, but I've only used it for two journeys!

Thanks,

Andrew

Russ1974

Sorry, but how is this not pushing 5v back in to the car ... ?

HDD <------> 5v insert <--{nothing here to stop power going both ways?}----> CAR

BavDude

The USB power spec is 5V, 500mA max. The key to make sure a USB bus powered disk will work is to find one that has a startup power consumption of less than 2.5W (5V at 500mA). Most of the bus-powered USB drives don't tell you what their startup current consumption is, but the WD drive I looked at said it was above 700mA. It may work fine when plugged in to a laptop or PC, but the BMW may have a harder limit at 500mA. Many of the bus powered drives require you to use 2 USB ports for this very reason.

Rudy

So the table I posted here:
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?s=&sho...st&p=485822

Should be able to help determine which drives will work...

r5gordini

No - that's not how it's set up. The power lines from the car's USB interface are not connected anywhere (maybe this wasn't clear in my post!) - they're taped up and insulated, so it's like this for power:

HDD <------> 5v insert

And this for data:

HDD <--------------------> car

It's rather difficult to explain in text(!) The power from the USB charger is fed only to the hard disk and is not connected back to the car. That's why I made the custom lead. There are also (I believe) dual USB leads - where one plug is for power and one is for data, but I don't know where to find one. The lead I made is just an interpretation of that idea. Let me try again with a diagram:

[codebox]
USB Charger USB Extension cable Hard Disk

+ ---------------x------------------------------------- Socket ---------------------- +
- ----------------x------------------------------------- ---------------------- -
|-------- --------------------- data out
| |--- ---------------------- data in
| |
Car Plug + ------------------- n/c | |
- ------------------- n/c | |
data in ------------------------|---x
data out -----------------------x-- |

[/codebox]

(Wow - that was difficult to draw and get lined up!!! - hope it makes sense...)
You can easily see which cables are data and which are power (and in fact the colours of all the wires in the leads corresponded nicely) - look at the USB spec on wikipedia.

Thanks,

Andrew