[nub340]

Ok here's the deal: I do NOT own an "Apple iPod" I just have tons of mp3s. I am only concerned with how the system works with a USB drive. Now that I've made that disclaimer, here we go:

I've noticed the system appears to work in the following 2 Stages:
Stage 1: Mount
Stage 2: Index

In Stage 1 it appears to mount the USB drive so you can browse/listen by "Directory". Then, a few minutes later, the second stage seems to finish indexing the ID3 tags and all of a sudden the other categories become available (Artist, Genre, Album). Awesome.

For the first couple weeks after I got my car I used a regular 2GB USB flash drive. I filled it with mp3s, plugged it in, and after a few seconds the name of my USB drive appeard in the AUX menu and a minute later I could browse by Artist, Genre, etc. Again, awesome.

2GB soon became annoying so I bought a refurbished 40GB Firelite Bus-Powered USB Drive for $27 online. Initially I copied my entire mp3 collection to it (18GB+), plugged it into my car and after about 5 FULL minutes, lol, the first stage finally finished and I could browse my music. The second stage literally took over 10 minutes to complete before I was able to browse by Artist, Genre etc!! But nevertheless it worked and I could browse all 18GB of my music. Freaking Awesome!!

Quickly I realized that having THAT much music was just WAY too much. Everytime I got in my car it would take several FULL MINUTES before I could listen to any of my mp3s, not to mention having to scroll through it all. So I decided to clean it up a bit. I deleted over 4GB of crap music, eliminated all unessesary nested folders and deleted a bunch of duplicates etc. After spending about a good 4 hours cleaning up my USB drive, I plugged it back into my car. This time it seemed to finish Stage 1 a lot quicker, but Stage 2 still took a WHILE.

Anyhow, after Stage 1 completed I started browsing my music by Directory and I noticed the folders I just deleted were in fact gone. Good.

Then Stage 2 finished and I started to browse by Artist. Guess what? The music that I just deleted is still there and it's playable!!? I double checked (on PC and via iDrive) that the file is NOT there in the directory structure anywhere, yet it is there plain as day when browsing by Artist, AND I CAN STILL PLAY IT!

So this leads me to believe one of 2 things is happening: Either some music is getting cached onboard the car, which I seriously doubt, or the file is really still there and it's just "flagged" as deleted by FAT32 (pure speculation @ this point). I also thought the missing files might just be in the incorrect folder on the drive but a recursive search did not find them anywhere.

So if the file is flagged as deleted, why does the car's indexing service still see it and why can the car still play it? Does anyone know what is going on and/or how to remove mp3s from a USB drive in such a way that the BMW indexing service can't see it anymore? Also, I'm curious now, where does the iDrive keep the index? Is it on the USB drive itself or onboard the car? Is there a way to FORCE the car to re-index the drive?

[jmonier]

I believe that the MP3 index is cached so that it won't take that long time to index every time you start the car. If that is true, then it would make sense that it would still have pointers to the actual file location. When files are deleted, typically just the directory entries are erased and the actual data is still on the drive and is theoretically available until it gets overwritten. This is how recovery programs are able to recover deleted files.

You would think that it would re-index in the background and that the index entries for deleted files would disappear in a while.

[drwtsn32]

Wow, waiting 5 minutes for it to "mount" the bus powered hard drive would suck! I question that stage 1 is merely mounting... if so it wouldn't matter how much data is on the drive. The mounting speed would be the same regardless.

Someone on the forum tried a WD Passport drive (160GB I believe) and it appeared not to work. Maybe they didn't wait the requisite 30 minutes for the drive to mount.

I won't take delivery on my car for another couple weeks, but I already picked up a 16GB USB flash drive. I hope it "mounts" quickly. Does the 6FL resume playback exactly where it left off (middle of a song, etc) when you start the car?

Regarding the other problem you're seeing... it would be an interesting test to format the hard drive and then reload it with MP3s. see if the index is then up-to-date. I can't imagine the 6FL option ignores the file deleted flag in the FAT table. (I don't know how FAT32 works off the top of my head, but I distinctly remember that FAT16 destroys the first letter of a filename when it is deleted.)

[nub340]

Well I used the terminology "mount" & "index" just to clearify that there are TWO distinct steps the system takes when using a USB drive. You are right though, it's not JUST mounting, it's also loading the directory/file structure into the cars memory so it can be displayed on the iDrive. So the bigger the file structure, the longer it will take etc.

I just downloaded a utility called SDelete from sysinternals. It's supposed to "cleanse" the free space on a volume so that the data is unrecoverable. Running it on my drive now, we'll see if that helps when I leave work today.

BTW, I plugged my buddies 120GB Firelite in and it worked just fine, yes it took a while to come up. Also, be sure you use a good USB cable if your trying to use a BUS-Powered USB Drive. The first time I tried it didn't work and I got bummed out. Then I realized if I played w/the USB cable the drive would all of a sudden come on so I just got a new cable and it's been good ever since.

[iatacs19]

Can the USB port provide enough mA? My concern would be frying the USB port by using a spinning harddisk. But, other than that it would be the way to go as you can get huge amounts of songs stored.

Also, I think that if you rename the drive volume it will force the iDrive to re-index the files on the drive. I remember reading somewhere that it keeps a history or saves up to 5 indexes [sic] from 5 unique volume labels.

[nub340]

Ooooh, cool man, thanks for that tidbit on renaming the volume!! I'll try that as well..

[msimon18]

The way I understand it is that when you delete a file on a PC (or drive such as a thumb etc.) the actual file DOES NOT get DELETED rather a 'tag' bit is set in what is called the file preamble to show that the space is now available for something else to occupy it. Until you either format the device or write over it that space the actual file remains in tact. Hence if the iPod adapter in the car does not use the deleted flag bit it will still see the mp3 file.