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

[GateFather]

I followed the instructions and the partition method was working perfect....for about a week. Now about 2 minutes into listening to music on my USB drive, it tells me there’s a loading error. It’s reset when turning the car off and on but it’s rendered my USB a music unusable.

I have about 5,000 songs I like to shuffle through. Could it just be choking on that much shuffling?

 

[Feathermerchan]

There usually are limits. Like 255 songs per folder. I could not find that info in the Tesla manual though.

 

[StellarRat]

I find it unpardonable that the engineering/QA process at Tesla is so abysmal that 7 pages (..and counting) have to be devoted to a potential fix (hope the Tesla guys/gals monitor these forums). While Tesla has done a great job overall, their attention to detail is woefully lacking.

This is seems a bit overly dramatic to me.

 

[Feathermerchan]

Me too. Mine is working fine since the latest FW release. I followed the instructions here. Great help.

 

[StellarRat]

I followed the instructions and the partition method was working perfect....for about a week. Now about 2 minutes into listening to music on my USB drive, it tells me there’s a loading error. It’s reset when turning the car off and on but it’s rendered my USB a music unusable.

I have about 5,000 songs I like to shuffle through. Could it just be choking on that much shuffling?

The bigger the USB stick is the more chances there are for trouble. Reading in a huge directory of music while at the same time trying to record the dash cam might be too much for the car. I don't have any problems with my 32 gig stick and 2000 songs. You might try a different/faster brand of USB stick. I will say that all my problems went away after the .44.4 release.

 

[WileyTheMan]

Haven't had any problems with the dashcam or USB playback since I got to 42.3, and followed these procedures to the letter (even bought the model of USB drive the OP used). For the record, it would get corrupted all the time when I was on 39.x.

 

[EVnut]

Can music in the music partition be in folders organized by artist (iTunes Media>Music Folder)? Or do all songs have to be in root?

I literally grabbed the file structure from iTunes and dumped it on my drive. So tons of folders (artist) with subfolders (album) then with files. Works just fine.

 

[EVnut]

Update on how the Cam files look these days:

I no longer get the X on the cam graphic... and that's a big improvement. But I DO still get tons of corrupt files in the root of the drive. Beyond that, everything seems to be working as (currently) designed with the camera. Why they can't fix the file corruption issue is beyond me, but here we are. At least it mostly works.

I can't wait until they improve the functionality... adding other cameras?

 

[10splayer]

Is it ok to delete those corrupt root files??

 

[EVnut]

Is it ok to delete those corrupt root files??

Every couple of weeks, that's exactly what I do. If it isn't done, the camera system eventually fails. PITA, but there it is. You just grab everything and delete, then put it back into service. I used to reformat, now I just delete.

 

[BroadRippleSun]

It is easier on a Mac because, unlike Windows, it won't refuse to format a larger than 32GB as FAT32. So the only tool you need is the disk utility -- no third party tools and no need to go to terminal.

I don't have a Tesla so I can't use a procedure and demonstrate that it works, but if needed I can produce one. But it look like a straightforward partition and format with a particular partition name and ensuring a directory for the teslacam.

The partition is grayed out when I select the usb disk, any suggestions? I have tried to reformat with all options first ie, fat32...

 

[Feathermerchan]

Which partition?
Which version of Windows?

With Windows 10 I see both partitions as separate drive letters.

 

[humbaba]

The partition is grayed out when I select the usb disk, any suggestions? I have tried to reformat with all options first ie, fat32...

Grayed out on your computer? In a Tesla? You say you tried FAT32, but did you succeed and is that how it is currently formatted? How is the drive partitioned?

FAT32 is normally associated with DOS partitioning, though you can format an entire disk as FAT32 without any partition. I don't remember Tesla saying that DOS partitioning is required, but I wouldn't expect it to work with GPT partitioning. (GPT can be confusing to people, and devices, because it uses a "protective" DOS partition that is just there to convince (early versions of) Windows that the drive is partitioned and to leave it alone but does not actually partition the drive.)

 

[BroadRippleSun]

Grayed out on your computer? In a Tesla? You say you tried FAT32, but did you succeed and is that how it is currently formatted? How is the drive partitioned?

FAT32 is normally associated with DOS partitioning, though you can format an entire disk as FAT32 without any partition. I don't remember Tesla saying that DOS partitioning is required, but I wouldn't expect it to work with GPT partitioning. (GPT can be confusing to people, and devices, because it uses a "protective" DOS partition that is just there to convince (early versions of) Windows that the drive is partitioned and to leave it alone but does not actually partition the drive.)

Thanks for a prompt reply,
The Mac Disk utility "partition" see pic 1, is grayed out when I select my usb disk 'Tesla"

when I try to select partition. I can erase the disk, format it at FAT32 successfully. I hope these 2 pix show "how it partitioned". Thanks for your help...

 

[EVnut]

Me too. Mine is working fine since the latest FW release. I followed the instructions here. Great help.

Haven't had any problems with the dashcam or USB playback since I got to 42.3, and followed these procedures to the letter (even bought the model of USB drive the OP used). For the record, it would get corrupted all the time when I was on 39.x.

Are you guys saying that when you pull the drive out and look at the files that you no longer have any corrupted files recorded in the root? Or just that you no longer get the gray X? Because mine most definitely still records corrupted files, and as long as I clear those out every few weeks, I also don't get the gray X...

So things are certainly much better. But I don't rate it as fine.

 

[MrMannilow]

Thanks for your work on this! I picked up my Model 3 on Tuesday and have been working fine with no X on the dash cam since Wednesday.

 

[humbaba]

The partition is grayed out when I select the usb disk, any suggestions? I have tried to reformat with all options first ie, fat32...

Sorry for delay, things have been busy. But I now have a L3MR and ran into exactly this. I haven't had occasion to use Disk Utility for a while and Apple has gradually been pruning features.

What is going on is Apple is forcing thumb drives to have a single DOS partition for the size of the drive. In my quick checking this morning I did not find an easy way around this. Because I know partitioning and filesystems pretty well my first solution was to hand edit the partition table, but this is ugly and nasty and should not be required. There is a way.

Apple provides a command line utility, diskutil, which does not suffer from the limitations of Disk Utility. So...

1. open Terminal
2. run, without the quotes, "diskutil list"
3. in the list look for the thumb drive's current name. For example, if it is named 'DASHCAM' it might appear as follows:

4. /dev/disk7 (external, physical):
   
      #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   
      0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *63.2 GB    disk7
   
      1:                 DOS_FAT_32 DASHCAM                 63.1 GB    disk7s1

5. the thumb drive is "/dev/disk7" and the sole partition is "/dev/disk7s1"
6. make 100% certain that you know what the thumb drive device is and that you have the correct device
7. decide how large you want the partitions to be
8. For example, I used a 10GB first partition for DASHCAM and allocated the rest of the disk for music
9. make 100% certain that you are using the correct disk device

10. diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk7 MBR FAT32 DASHCAM 10g FAT32 TESLAMUSIC 0b

11. make 100% certain that you are using the correct disk device
    1. /dev/disk7 was the device file for my thumb drive, yours may be different
    2. the 'MBR' means Master Boot Record, or DOS partitioning
    3. 10g allocates 10GB for the first partition
    4. DASHCAM is the name for the first partition
    5. 0b allocates 0 bytes for the second, which is interpreted as "rest of drive"
12. it will take a bit to complete, but when done you will have both desired partitions

I'm not quite sure why Apple is forcing DOS partitioning with a single volume on thumb drives, but it is annoying. Sometimes Apple sucks.

 

[vadims1]

@humbaba, these were fantastic, I used DiskUtil to do the same via the interface. Took about 4 minutes and I used GUID partition

 

[humbaba]

@humbaba, these were fantastic, I used DiskUtil to do the same via the interface. Took about 4 minutes and I used GUID partition

So a GPT partitioned drive works in Tesla for a dash cam? I thought that wasn't supposed to, but I never tested. Good to know. When you say "DiskUtil" do you mean the terminal diskutil or GUI drive partitioning tool Disk Utility? The latter used to work for this, but I'm on Mojave now and with multiple thumb drives it forced MBR with one partition. Are you also on Mojave or a different version of OS X?

For non-thumb drives (e.g., a spinning platter or SSD in a USB case) Disk Utility in Mojave is still allowing partitioning. It could also be that Apple is basing the decision on capacity: the largest thumb drive was only 64GB while the external USB is 3TB.

 

[vadims1]

I used GUI drive partitioning tool Disk Utility on MacOS High Sierra 10.13. The key for seeing more formatting options was changing the view to "All Devices" and then clicking on Device vs Partition. From there Erase as GUID Partition Map and then create 2 or more partitions, format as MS-DOS (FAT) (this will default to FAT32) from the interface and name your partitions as you wish. Mine are MUSIC and TESLACAM, with latter having a TeslaCam folder in /.

Hope this helps.