A USB Recognition problem (and a solution)
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Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 228
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From: Zürich, Switzerland
S560 Long 4Matic (DE) MY 2018
A USB Recognition problem (and a solution)
I was struggling to understand why the car wouldn't recognise the USB flash drives I would connect to the armrest console; 2 different flash drives but COMAND would complain that "the device is not available".
It wasn't the file system (NTFS, exFAT, FAT32; I've tried them all), nor the interface (USB 2 vs 3). In the end it was the partition structure, for which there exist two variants, MBR and GPT.
MBR is the older specification, has some limitations in terms of partition size and quantity, but to this day it's still the most compatible one. GPT is the newer format and I am not surprised to see it's not supported by a 2018 car.
Also, I should note that most users won't encounter the problem, since flash drives are usually formatted to the MBR standard when you buy them and it's not too easy to change them, In my case, I used those drives as bootable operating system installation media and part of the process to make them bootable (in a UEFI system) required to change from MBR to GPT.
So, how do you change it? It's not very obvious and you will have to go through the command line prompt in Windows, but you can follow these instructions on how to do the change. Note that you will need to remove everything from the drive, so take backups first!
It wasn't the file system (NTFS, exFAT, FAT32; I've tried them all), nor the interface (USB 2 vs 3). In the end it was the partition structure, for which there exist two variants, MBR and GPT.
MBR is the older specification, has some limitations in terms of partition size and quantity, but to this day it's still the most compatible one. GPT is the newer format and I am not surprised to see it's not supported by a 2018 car.
Also, I should note that most users won't encounter the problem, since flash drives are usually formatted to the MBR standard when you buy them and it's not too easy to change them, In my case, I used those drives as bootable operating system installation media and part of the process to make them bootable (in a UEFI system) required to change from MBR to GPT.
So, how do you change it? It's not very obvious and you will have to go through the command line prompt in Windows, but you can follow these instructions on how to do the change. Note that you will need to remove everything from the drive, so take backups first!
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Joined: May 2022
Posts: 8
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W222
USB drive no files found
I have a USB-connectable NVMe disk for 1 TB (the same as it put into modern computers, but with USB interface) and some videos and music on it. As well as other regular flash drives of various sizes.
And what I experience is that it often does not work - it just says that no files found to something like that when the drive is connected (it does detect drive name correctly though).
The funny thing is that if I just keep it plugged in, it happens to be so that after many 20-30 journeys it could all of the sudden start working! All of the sudden it can see all files and play them just fine. And all continues to work (for months or even years) until I unplug the device. If I unplug and plug it back in, again no files found.
It used to be so that for some drives it would detect files immediately and for others would require super long "wait".
Recently one of drives that used to work right away also shoes not files detected.
Something weird is going on. Drives are all formatted as GPT partition, so that should not be the issue.
Has anyone else experienced this and found any solution?
Thanks!
And what I experience is that it often does not work - it just says that no files found to something like that when the drive is connected (it does detect drive name correctly though).
The funny thing is that if I just keep it plugged in, it happens to be so that after many 20-30 journeys it could all of the sudden start working! All of the sudden it can see all files and play them just fine. And all continues to work (for months or even years) until I unplug the device. If I unplug and plug it back in, again no files found.
It used to be so that for some drives it would detect files immediately and for others would require super long "wait".
Recently one of drives that used to work right away also shoes not files detected.
Something weird is going on. Drives are all formatted as GPT partition, so that should not be the issue.
Has anyone else experienced this and found any solution?
Thanks!
