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Directions for creating a USB drive
- Thread starter bigroccrek
- Start date
Plugging in a card is all that's needed to enable it. But... most (all?) of us are having some difficulty or another. Honestly... has anybody had the camera work correctly and consistently since it was introduced? I can't tell because all we hear are the complaints... and the guesses at a fix.
OKay I finally got mine to work.. first I used command line format in windows. Worked for a few minutes and died. then Explorer DOES let you format FAT32 (basically because that's the existing format). and instead of a quick format, I did a long one. I thinkit took two long formats before it actually started working. fingers crossed!
I'm happy for you.... and yet... I had mine working too. For one day. Then for two days. Then for a week. And now for another day following that week. Sadly it has stopped working all those times between. Until we really know what's wrong, it's gonna be tough to claim that we've gotten it working.
But still... fingers' crossed!
childcarepro
Member
I was in a 4-car pileup on 10.30.2018 in my 2018 MX 100D (picked up new on 8.30.2018, totaled literally 2 months later). I really needed dash cam footage so the wrong party wouldn't get blamed, but was only able to get an unreadable file from the dash cam. Of course, I did not have my USB stick ready (if I'd only known in advance about the accident!), so it was a couple of days later that I got to the tow yard with my properly formatted USB stick. I was told the last 10 minutes of camera footage remains in local memory for download, but that shutting the car off could delete the local memory (my 12V battery died before I got to it).
Bottom line seems to be... you get what you pay for. I just got a 4K BlackVue for the new MX. (Had a 1080p BlackVue in my 2015 MS for 3 years, never needed it. Probably won't actually need this one either. Hahaha)
Bottom line seems to be... you get what you pay for. I just got a 4K BlackVue for the new MX. (Had a 1080p BlackVue in my 2015 MS for 3 years, never needed it. Probably won't actually need this one either. Hahaha)
I recently chased a hit and run driver, i spoke with tesla about video download and i understood them to say that onboard video is stored indefinitely in my X and available with a subpoena .
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
That's pretty obviously nonsense as it'd require infinite storage, which the car obviously does not have
HyperionMark
Member
Picking up my Model 3 in a few days. Any change since this thread was started? Still format FAT 32 and then create a base level folder named TeslaCam?
Something maybe worth mentioning is that flash memory can be a bit of a problem when used for loop recording of video where lots of small files are written then over-written and/or deleted by the device.
Flash has a limited number of read/write cycles and deleting or erasing the files either by the recording device or by you trying to free up space or deleting old recordings can cause the USB drive to become corrupt or fail completely. I think a lot of people think that memory chips are completely reliable and can handle unlimited reads/writes, but it's just not true.
So, it is much better to clear a USB card by formatting it and it needs to be a full format not a quick format.
If you want to use a USB drive for recording your Model 3 cameras and you've used that drive before, make sure you do a full format of it first.
I would also recommend using the quality brands and not some cheap giveaway memory stick you got in a goody bag somewhere. There's a lot of really bad quality memory out there which turns up as either fake brand names or in cheap promotional merch. It's often several generations out of date and is slow and/or will look like it has more space available then it actually has.
Probably worth re-formatting your drive every month or so to clear it out completely and get all the space back, especially if you're regularly deleting files on it yourself.
Hope that helps.
Flash has a limited number of read/write cycles and deleting or erasing the files either by the recording device or by you trying to free up space or deleting old recordings can cause the USB drive to become corrupt or fail completely. I think a lot of people think that memory chips are completely reliable and can handle unlimited reads/writes, but it's just not true.
So, it is much better to clear a USB card by formatting it and it needs to be a full format not a quick format.
If you want to use a USB drive for recording your Model 3 cameras and you've used that drive before, make sure you do a full format of it first.
I would also recommend using the quality brands and not some cheap giveaway memory stick you got in a goody bag somewhere. There's a lot of really bad quality memory out there which turns up as either fake brand names or in cheap promotional merch. It's often several generations out of date and is slow and/or will look like it has more space available then it actually has.
Probably worth re-formatting your drive every month or so to clear it out completely and get all the space back, especially if you're regularly deleting files on it yourself.
Hope that helps.
Blastphemy
Member
When I formatted my 16GB thumb drive on my Mac (Mojave OS) for Tesla's dashcam, I selected:
Name: TESLA
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
Scheme: Master Boot Record
Then I created a folder at the root named "TeslaCam" to store the videos.
I also put several FLAC files on the drive to see if the car could play them while recording video, but they don't show up in the music player. Video quality is passable, but not nearly as good as my WheelWitness dashcam. All videos are 1-minute in length. I have to manually tell the car so save the last 10 minutes of videos to the USB; it doesn't do it automatically (which is dumb, IMHO).
Name: TESLA
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
Scheme: Master Boot Record
Then I created a folder at the root named "TeslaCam" to store the videos.
I also put several FLAC files on the drive to see if the car could play them while recording video, but they don't show up in the music player. Video quality is passable, but not nearly as good as my WheelWitness dashcam. All videos are 1-minute in length. I have to manually tell the car so save the last 10 minutes of videos to the USB; it doesn't do it automatically (which is dumb, IMHO).
srs5694
Active Member
I've also ordered, but not yet received, a Model 3. The advice I've seen is to use FAT32, and that the filesystem can be easily corrupted if you unplug the drive without stopping recording. I don't know if unplugging the drive inappropriately might account for some of the problems described in this thread, but the advice deserves emphasis. This is true of most read-write removable drives, not just the Tesla and its dashcam feature; modern OSes cache their filesystems, which means that they will be damaged if you unplug them inappropriately. Note that FAT32 is the default version of FAT above a certain size, so chances are selecting "FAT" will work fine as a filesystem type. exFAT, OTOH, is an entirely different filesystem.
Earlier in the thread, somebody suggested using ext4fs rather than FAT32. Has anybody actually tried this? Ext4fs is a more modern filesystem that lacks many of FAT's limitations, but I'd expect it to be no less susceptible to damage if it's improperly unmounted. For me personally, using ext4fs is not a problem, since I mostly use Linux as my desktop OS. For non-Linux users, it would be a bit of a hassle, since you'd need either non-native filesystem drivers and utilities or booting to a Linux emergency tool to create and access the ext4fs volume. It might be worth the hassle if it's more reliable, though. (I just checked, and their are some ext4fs-related tools in the Android Play Store, so managing an ext4fs volume on a cell phone or tablet might be an option for some.)
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You'd need to have created a second partition for music AFAIK.
That's not dumb at all- the drive would fill up if it always saved all the files.
It buffers the previous chunk of time, overwriting the oldest stuff- and only if you specifically tell it "save the last 10 minutes" will it move the files for the last 10 to a folder that does not get overwritten.
For those wanting to format a large USB (>32GB) as Fat32 under Windows, this simple utility worked well for me:
Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd
Super basic, but works great. (Make sure to close all your File Explorers, Disk Manager, etc., before running it. Anything else with fingers in the USB will make this format Utility freak out and say it doesn't have exclusive rights over your USB.)
PS: This is necessary on Windows because all the standard tools insist on exFat for volumes over 32GB in an effort to retire the outdated Fat32 format. Other systems and developers keep reusing it because it's simple and widely compatible by default, including very basic systems.
Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd
Super basic, but works great. (Make sure to close all your File Explorers, Disk Manager, etc., before running it. Anything else with fingers in the USB will make this format Utility freak out and say it doesn't have exclusive rights over your USB.)
PS: This is necessary on Windows because all the standard tools insist on exFat for volumes over 32GB in an effort to retire the outdated Fat32 format. Other systems and developers keep reusing it because it's simple and widely compatible by default, including very basic systems.
srredbeard
Blue MS 75D and Black M3
As as been previously mentioned you need to set up a second partition in order to use one USB stick for both music and Tesla Cam.
Since you are using a Mac the easiest way is to use Terminal.
The first thing we are going to do is verify the USB drive is mounted as disk2. If you only have your hard drive and USB it should be disk2 but if you have other disks mounted it could be disk3 or disk4. If the system doesn't report the USB drive as disk2, just replace that disk2 in the second command with the correct disk number.
In the sample below I allowed more space for the videos than for music. This works for me, may not be want you want. Just make sure the percentage equals 100.
Create a TeslaCam folder in the TESLACAM partition and put all your music in the other partition.
At the command prompt type:
diskutil list
diskutil partitionDisk disk2 2 GPT FAT32 MUSIC 30% FAT32 TESLACAM 70%
srredbeard
Blue MS 75D and Black M3
As at least one other poster has mentioned constant writing of video files to a USB drive is not good for the drive and will cause problems that regular formatting can help with. There are lots of articles out there on why dash cameras and security cameras cannot reliably use standard solid state memory and last very long. There are SD cards made for this purpose but not USB sticks.
I used https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B984HJ5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and an adapter similar to this one https://smile.amazon.com/Rocketek-A...tronics&sprefix=USB+sd,electronics,216&sr=1-9
I also use high endurance in my Blackvue cameras.
I used https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B984HJ5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and an adapter similar to this one https://smile.amazon.com/Rocketek-A...tronics&sprefix=USB+sd,electronics,216&sr=1-9
I also use high endurance in my Blackvue cameras.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Uh....SDcards and USB keys use literally the same type of memory.
the idea one is "better" is simply nonsense.
Certainly there's different quality from one brand/model to another- but the same is true for both things. The only difference is physical size/form factor.... Dashcams mostly use SDcards simply because they're physically smaller, not because there's anything "magic" about the flash memory on the SDcard versus the flash memory on the key.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
They go in the front USB ports- only those do power and data...the rear ports are power only
