[andybarton]

In all previous BMWs I’ve owned that had USB ports, I have put my mp3 collection on a stick and had access via the iDrive system.

I’ve had my iX1 for a couple of months and it will just not read either of the Type C sticks that I bought. One was 500GB and one was 1TB.

Previously I haven’t had any trouble reading USB1 sticks. A 256GB one works perfectly in my wife’s i3.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Tunners]

Did you format the stick as xfat. I haven’t come across anything that says there is a max size GB compatible but maybe worth trying the 256gb.

[andybarton]

Originally Posted by Tunners

Did you format the stick as xfat. I haven’t come across anything that says there is a max size GB compatible but maybe worth trying the 256gb.

Thanks for coming back. Your help is much appreciated.

Yes. They’ve been reformatted a couple of times as ExFat and all Mac OS hidden files and folders have been removed.

Sometimes the car will load a single folder (album) on the stick, other times it can’t find anything.

[Tunners]

There is a thread re this problem, have a read through see if this helps.

https://u11.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...ght=Usb&page=2

[andybarton]

Perfect. Thanks. Will try the left hand port later.

[Tunners]

Hope it sorts it out for you.

[andybarton]

Unfortunately using the left hand port in in front of the arm rest hasn’t helped.

I will have to see whether I can get a smaller USB-C stick and try that.

[MarcVD]

I’m using this and it works perfectly : https://www.samsung.com/us/computing...-muf-256da-am/ , so size isn't an issue. Thousands of files, two levels of folders. Using only the exploration by folders and file names.
Xdrive 30e on 11/2023.30.

[andybarton]

Originally Posted by MarcVD

I’m using this and it works perfectly : https://www.samsung.com/us/computing...-muf-256da-am/ , so size isn't an issue. Thousands of files, two levels of folders. Using only the exploration by folders and file names.
Xdrive 30e on 11/2023.30.

That’s great. That drive works fine. Thanks so much for the tip 👍

It’s just a FAT32 drive, not an ExFat one, so that may be the difference.

I’ve partitioned the SanDisk 500GB one and reformatted one half to FAT32. I’m hoping that will work too, so that I can have two drives in the car.

[guppy]

if it helps, I bought a Lexar USB C/A drive on Amazon (128GB) and it's formatted exFat and it works flawlessly in the left USB C port (I did not try the right one). I'm guessing it's highly dependant on the make of the drive....

[andybarton]

Originally Posted by guppy

if it helps, I bought a Lexar USB C/A drive on Amazon (128GB) and it's formatted exFat and it works flawlessly in the left USB C port (I did not try the right one). I'm guessing it's highly dependant on the make of the drive....

I think so. The SanDisk one (FAT32) does work now I’ve partitioned it, but only one partition shows in the iDrive.

All very flakey…

[andybarton]

I’ve given up with this. Three different USB sticks and still not working reliably or even at all.

With the interface disaster that is iDrive 8, and the dangerous navigation of albums when the drive did work, I’m safer without my music collection.

Too late for me, but for goodness sake BMW, bring back the physical rotating knob interface and some physical buttons. Keep the lovely big screen, but think about how your customers use the interface.

[John27]

I recently purchased this one. Works perfectly. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EZ0X3...roduct_details

Good luck

[andybarton]

Thanks.

I can’t keep buying USB sticks though. I’ve already tried three different ones including the Samsung recommended previously.

The car sometimes recognises the drive for about five minutes and then unmounts it.

In all previous BMWs, they’ve been totally reliable.

[rocketman99]

The old system wasn't great either, it would basically memorize the stick so it didn't have to analyze contents every time. Which was great...but then if you added more stuff to it, it wouldn't update the contents until you did the 5 stick swap trick to force it to analyze again. There has to be a better way than the current or the old...

[andybarton]

At least the old system had a hard drive that you could fill with music.

The new iDrive system is a definite backward step