Argh - USB Flash drive into Sony car stereo

[hornetrider]

Got myself a new Sony head unit with a USB port on the front.

Have bought a 1gig USB memory stick and have copied my music onto it - but I keep getting "error" on the car stereo when I insert the drive. Doing my head in! How do you store music on CD-R's and drives - is there a way to sort the files so they can be read by the stereo?

At the moment the USB drive just has say 15 folders each titled as the album name, and the mp3's are in the folders... anyone help?

[KJR]

Complete guess but the "15 folders" bit could be the problem. Not sure if the Sony head unit can handle folders. Try putting music files onto the usb flash drive without folders ?

KJR.

[hornetrider]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I thought of that but the thing is all the tracks get mixed up then - I tried doing that on the device but the track names start "01", "02" etc so all the track 01s get lumped together rather than each album being in order... pain in the ass!

[tinman0]

Did you formated the usb key ring before using it? I'm sure i've seen usb memory in the past where you can load up files without formatting, and then run into problems later, generally with non PC devices.

[FunkyGibbon]

Is the Sony head unit capable of playing mp3s or is it locked to Sony's proprietary ATRAC format (for which you'd need the shockingly bad SonicStage software - which may have come on CD with your head unit).

[buggalugs]

I've got one of those sony jobbies and use my usb stick with it. Currently got about 25 mp3 albums on it in various folders, even folders within folders. I'd make sure that the drive is fat32 formatted, and maybe try dropping one album at a time on it and testing it to see if its just one particular album that it doesn't like. HTH.

[hornetrider]

Cheers for feedback folks.... I did try downloading the (yes shocking) SonicStage s/w as a Sony FAQ said the stick couldn't be organised using MS Windows Explorer - FFS!

Anyway, to cut a long story short that was ste. In the end I've copied the files straight onto the drive (no folders) and it works fine - the albums play in the right order too so I'm happy.

In amongst my googling I did see some of this NTFS/FATS32 gumf but I'm afraid it went slightly over my head... but the long and short of it is I have my tunes in the car so am sorted now

Thanks all!

[buggalugs]

Nice one... I love mine. Being able to just drop a few albums onto a USB stick and plug it into the car is so useful, can't believe I ever did without it!

I'm surprised you had problems though, I drop all sorts onto mine with no worries - even loads of stuff thats not even music, it just ignores that and plays the tunes!

[hornetrider]

Yeah we'll see how it goes, I'll experiment as I add more music (or buy more drives!) but it is great hey.

Thing is, the new HU has made a huge difference to the sound but now I'm already considering rewiring the speaker cables, getting dynamat in the doors, upgrading the speakers and also maybe getting an underseat active sub to improve bass response (I have an MX5)

Tis a slippery slope!