[V9] How to Format USB into 2 Partitions for DashCam and Music [Windows]

[SomeJoe7777]

Yes. It said 3rd party tools would cause errors for the TeslaCam so Windows had to be used for that partition? Has that changed?

With the latest software on the Tesla this restriction may no longer be the case. You may try a 3rd-party formatting tool and see if the dashcam continues recording for several days.

However, it may not be necessary to have a TeslaCam partition larger than 32GB unless you anticipate saving a lot of footage.

 

[Knightshade]

With the latest software on the Tesla this restriction may no longer be the case. You may try a 3rd-party formatting tool and see if the dashcam continues recording for several days.

However, it may not be necessary to have a TeslaCam partition larger than 32GB unless you anticipate saving a lot of footage.

32GB is way more than enough for dashcam use.

It's potentially (very) insufficient for Sentry mode if you park someplace it will trigger often.

 

[billh13850]

32GB is way more than enough for dashcam use.

It's potentially (very) insufficient for Sentry mode if you park someplace it will trigger often.

Do you know how much room is used up on the drive per Sentry mode incident?

 

[Knightshade]

Do you know how much room is used up on the drive per Sentry mode incident?

Initially the same as dashcam, in that it "saves" all 3 cameras for the previous 10 minutes- but it does this every time it's triggered which can be many many times in a day... and it'll "keep" saving until that specific triggering event ends.

Several folks with 32GB keys have mentioned filling up the drive in one work day of having sentry mode armed in a busy (lots of pedestrian traffic) parking area.


So how much an issue this will be for you depends on where you tend to park and how much not-actually-dangerous movement near the car there's likely to be (causing false positives and taking up space)

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Do you know how much room is used up on the drive per Sentry mode incident?

I don't have the software with Sentry mode yet so I can't say for sure. But once I get it, I'll do some tests and post a table here that shows how much footage can be stored given different-sized partitions.

 

[voip-ninja]

Do you know how much room is used up on the drive per Sentry mode incident?

Another thread claims that it's 1GB per incident and the incidents are stored until you delete them, so depending on how many you get in a busy parking lot a small drive will likely fill up very quickly.

 

[voip-ninja]

That looks great if you want to split the disk evenly but I'd have to look a bit further on what the command syntax is if you want to asymmetrically partition the disk.

Just to follow up on my own post. Definitely doing this on a Mac with the CLI syntax that was previously provided is the easiest way to do this.

It literally took less than 2 minutes.

If you specify two partitions and tell it how big you want the first partition to be it will automatically give the remainder to the second partition.

I've only done one drive with it but it appears to be working fine.... USB music on the other hand ......

 

[WileyTheMan]

Yes. It said 3rd party tools would cause errors for the TeslaCam so Windows had to be used for that partition? Has that changed?

*edit* I followed the guide here verbatim and had no issues. Third party formatter and all.

 

[rlb4]

With the latest software on the Tesla this restriction may no longer be the case. You may try a 3rd-party formatting tool and see if the dashcam continues recording for several days.

However, it may not be necessary to have a TeslaCam partition larger than 32GB unless you anticipate saving a lot of footage.

32GB is way more than enough for dashcam use.

It's potentially (very) insufficient for Sentry mode if you park someplace it will trigger often.

I will be using Sentry Mode as well as Dashcam. Do I need to create separate partitions or root folders for each or will they both record to TeslaCam folder? What is a simple to use, free 3rd party formatter/partitioner?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I will be using Sentry Mode as well as Dashcam. Do I need to create separate partitions or root folders for each or will they both record to TeslaCam folder? What is a simple to use, free 3rd party formatter/partitioner?

No separate partitions are necessary for DashCam + Sentry mode functionality. The procedure at the start of this thread to do dual partitions is only if you ALSO want to use the same USB drive for music.

There is a 3rd-party formatter listed in the first post that will work to format FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB on a Windows machine.

 

[rlb4]

No separate partitions are necessary for DashCam + Sentry mode functionality. The procedure at the start of this thread to do dual partitions is only if you ALSO want to use the same USB drive for music.

There is a 3rd-party formatter listed in the first post that will work to format FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB on a Windows machine.

Can I just use that Ridgecorp program to re-adjust the partition sizes for both my TESLACAM and MUSIC partitions? Or do I have to go through all of the other steps again? Right now they are at 32GB for TESLACAM and 27GB for MUSIC. I would like to increase the size of the TESLACAM partition since I will be using Sentry Mode.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Can I just use that Ridgecorp program to re-adjust the partition sizes for both my TESLACAM and MUSIC partitions?

That program is a file system formatter, not a partition utility. To change the size of the partitions, you'll have to use either the Disk Management tool or Diskpart. Then you can use the Ridgecorp program to format the partition to FAT32.

 

[rlb4]

That program is a file system formatter, not a partition utility. To change the size of the partitions, you'll have to use either the Disk Management tool or Diskpart. Then you can use the Ridgecorp program to format the partition to FAT32.

I guess I'm confused. My USB drive is in FAT32 now with the 2 partitions(Teslacam 32GB and Music 27GB). I just want to change the partition size allocation. I thought Windows was not able to make a partition greater than 32GB? How can I do that?

 

[PoitNarf]

I guess I'm confused. My USB drive is in FAT32 now with the 2 partitions(Teslacam 32GB and Music 27GB). I just want to change the partition size allocation. I thought Windows was not able to make a partition greater than 32GB? How can I do that?

You can resize the partitions to any size on windows. It's the formatting of the partition where the limitation is. If formatting as FAT32 then Windows will limit it to 32GB unless you use a 3rd party utility to do the formatting of the >32GB partition. You're going to have to wipe out the drive and start over, you can't dynamically size the existing partitions.

 

[Knightshade]

You're going to have to wipe out the drive and start over, you can't dynamically size the existing partitions.

Well, you CAN, but that too requires 3rd party tools, and not always the easiest ones to use either.

 

[humbaba]

I just got a new thumb drive in anticipation of sentry mode (I haven't gotten that update yet) and am allocating 100gb for camera partition to (hopefully) avoid any possibility of space becoming an issue. Even at 1GB per incident I hope it wouldn't run out. Still leaves me ~300GB for music which has some headroom as well.

I did try going the OSX GUI route for partitioning and formatting and even as GPT it wouldn't let me resize or add partitions so I did the terminal one-liner. I prefer the terminal anyway

 

[thharter]

Thank you, SomeJoe7777, for the phantastic instructions! Worked like a charm on a SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.1 64GB and a Samsung USB 3.1 Fit Plus 256 GB. Also had not problem using the 3rd party software. Like others, I really appreciate the detailed, straight-forward and safe instructions!

In my case, the only difference was that the message I receive when using "diskpart.exe" to create the first partition is different ("DiskPart has referenced an object which is not up-to-date...." see below) and may be confusing. I ignored it and wanted to confirm (for others that may get this message) that the process was still successful.

 

[Spanky]

I couldn't deal with all of this technical hoop-jumping. I did find a "Tesla Enabled" flash drive on eBay that is pre-formatted to work with Teslas, so going to try that for now.

 

[frankusb]

You can resize the partitions to any size on windows. It's the formatting of the partition where the limitation is. If formatting as FAT32 then Windows will limit it to 32GB unless you use a 3rd party utility to do the formatting of the >32GB partition. You're going to have to wipe out the drive and start over, you can't dynamically size the existing partitions.

Windows allows formatting natively, but only at the command line.

format /FS:FAT32 X:

Where X: is the drive letter of the USB drive.

 

[brianman]

*edit* I followed the guide here verbatim and had no issues. Third party formatter and all.

Point of clarification:
Are you saying you used a 3rd party formatter for the TeslaCam partition?

You will need the 3rd-party Fat32Formatter utility to format the music partition, as Windows cannot format a partition larger than 32GB in FAT32. Do not use this utility to format the TeslaCam partition, this is what causes the corruption that stops the dashcam from working.

I think this is worth investigating, and I'll probably try to take a look in the near future.

I'd like to try to get the minimum repro.

1. insert USB drive into Windows PC
2. remove all partitions from USB drive
3. create <= 32GB partition titled TeslaCam
4. (optional?) use remaining space to create additional partition titled Other
5. (optional?) format the 2nd partition
6. format the 1st partition using Fat32Formatter as FAT32
7. eject USB drive from Windows PC
8. insert USB drive into Tesla
9. (within days) drive exhibits corruption issue with Tesla dashcam feature
10. remove USB drive from Tesla
11. insert USB drive into Windows PC
10. format the 1st partition using Computer Management / Disk Management / right-click / Format... using FAT32
11. eject USB drive from Windows PC
12. insert USB drive into Tesla
13. drive no longer exhibits corruption issue with Tesla dashcam feature

@SomeJoe7777 - Is this correct?

If yes, then perhaps identifying the issue looks like this:
1. insert USB drive into Windows PC
2. remove all partitions from USB drive
3. create <= 32GB partition titled TeslaCam
4. format the 1st partition using Fat32Formatter as FAT32
5. create "fragile.img" image of 1st partition
6. format the 1st partition using Computer Management / Disk Management / right-click / Format... using FAT32
7. create "stable.img" image of 1st partition
8. compare fragile.img and stable.img to identify what step 4 is doing differently


Also, for anyone using a > 32GB partition and not having issues, what formatter are you using for that partition? If the answer is 'Mac' in most (all?) cases, then we might want to look at the "mac.img" as well.