Proper way to format USB thumb drive?

[leeunkrich]

Sorry if this answered elsewhere. Is there a proper way to format USB thumb drives for use in the Model S? I ask because I had a thumb drive formatted on a Mac that I threw some music files on, but when I plugged it in it wasn't recognized. I then formatted a second drive FAT, and that one mounted just fine.

Thanks --

 

[dbullard]

You will probably need to use FAT or similar Windows-based formatting, as most devices won't recognize a Mac file system. Pretty common issue.

 

[brianman]

FAT(16) and FAT32 work fine. Some folks reported issues with NTFS not working in the Model S (which I don't find surprising).

 

[ddenboer]

Hi Lee. Glad to see you here.

This one took me a while to get right, but format the drive as MS-DOS (FAT) on the Mac and it will do just fine. Playing over bluetooth works quite well too, and can even play songs from the cloud via your iPhone.

 

[Jason S]

Fat32 is the usual format that USBs come with, and the Linux based kernel in the Model S sees FAT32 just fine.

 

[widodh]

Anyone tried ext3 or 4? I'd prefer that over FAT32

 

[napabill]

I copied a bunch of songs directly from iTunes on my Mac to a new SanDisk 32GB USB stick. Created a couple of folders and everything works just fine. Except, as near as I can tell, there is no way to randomize the playing of the songs. So every time, it starts with the "A" song or the "A" singer, etc. This won't work. May have just blown $35. And, yes, I can play from my iPhone/iPad and have it "Shuffle." But no browsing on Tesla app, just on the phone/iPad screen.

With all the comments about the Tesla "S" being the Apple of automobiles, this is certainly a slow start. Assume, one day, they'll make the App useable.

 

[pilotSteve]

I copied my "Music" folder (that iTunes uses as its library). Those mostly are .m4a files that have cover art, album, artist, etc. plus MP3 versions of each song. [DRM copy protection is a separate issue addressed in other threads].

In short, copying my entire 'Music" directory with sub folders to a 32GB drive works GREAT. You can browse (with 4.0 sw) by album, artist, folder, etc.

Yes there are no shuffle and and playlist options yet, but at least alphabetical by Genre is enough randomness to keep me sort of surprised for now....

 

[contaygious]

I'd probably usually browse by folder, but I would LOVE a random button too.

 

[gmontem]

For those curious, exFAT doesn't work.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

[widodh]

For those curious, exFAT doesn't work.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

exFat is that new FS of MS which they try to push.

Tesla needs to buy a license for that to work, hopefully they don't.

Filesystems on removeable media should be open source.

That's why I'm wondering if ext3 or ext4 works!

 

[dlmorgan999]

For those curious, exFAT doesn't work.

The sad part about that is that Windows 7 can only format using NTFS or exFAT. Now I need to find a way to format my drive using FAT32. ;-)

 

[brianman]

The sad part about that is that Windows 7 can only format using NTFS or exFAT. Now I need to find a way to format my drive using FAT32. ;-)

On my Windows 7, it lists FAT32 under the File System combo for Format Partition. And my USB key formatted in that way plays fine in my Model S.

 

[dlmorgan999]

Interesting. I didn't see that in the dropdown list. What size is your USB key? Theoretically, FAT32 has a maximum volume size of 32GB. If that's really true then I don't see how it would be possible to use a USB key larger than that. I hope I'm missing something.

 

[LuckyLuke]

There are tools that can format larger drives to FAT32, even up to 1TB (maybe even more but have never tested that)
Like this one: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

 

[spleen]

Interesting. I didn't see that in the dropdown list. What size is your USB key? Theoretically, FAT32 has a maximum volume size of 32GB. If that's really true then I don't see how it would be possible to use a USB key larger than that. I hope I'm missing something.

Theoretically FAT32 can address up to 2 TB. Just need a better disk utility to do the formatting besides the native Windows options (which is limited to 32GB).

 

[dlmorgan999]

There are tools that can format larger drives to FAT32, even up to 1TB (maybe even more but have never tested that)
Like this one: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

This worked great - thanks for the tip! This will be a good tool to have in my toolbox.

 

[brianman]

Theoretically FAT32 can address up to 2 TB. Just need a better disk utility to do the formatting besides the native Windows options (which is limited to 32GB).

Pretty sure my 64 GB formatted FAT32 just fine, and I only have Windows machines at home. Interesting. Maybe I did it on my Server box or something.

 

[dlmorgan999]

Using the utility linked in post #15, I was able to format my 500GB USB hard drive. I loaded it up and now I'm successfully listening to selections from my libarary of 10,000 songs of FLAC goodness in my Model S.

 

[jpasqua]

Working configuration for 64GB flash drive

I realize that this is an old thread, but I thought I would add my experience. I picked up a tiny 64GB usb drive which is actually a combination of a USB "container" and a 64GB MicroSD card (links are to Amazon). I've tried several different formats before I found one that works. By default Windows will format this as exFAT, not NTFS and not FAT32. In my tests the car did not recognize exFAT or NTFS. It does recognize FAT32. The problem is that by default Windows will not give you an option to format a drive as FAT32 if it is larger than 32GB. My music library is bigger than 32GB so I needed another option.

Fortunately, the Mac will format it that way and it can also be done from the DOS prompt or other downloadable utilities in Windows. Once I formatted as FAT32 the Model S immediately recognized the flash drive and played music from it. I just copied a few albums worth of music onto it for the test. Now I'm moving over my whole library.