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Best practices for loading music on 430n HDD?

31K views 48 replies 17 participants last post by  Andrew Klossner 
#1 ·
Seeking input from JGers on best practices for loading up the hard drive on a 430n (or 730n if applicable). Goal is to optimize use of media center's GUI during search and playback and to utilize any other secret sauce that these features provide.

So far I have been creating folders and using naming convention "[artist name]-[album name]", copying as many as will fit on a thumb drive, and loading via front panel USB port on head unit. I am not sure if the Gracenote DB obviates the need for my naming approach, or if it would recognize and correctly group songs by album/artist/title if I merely dumped loose songs onto the jump drive (not that I would ever do that as it would violate every fiber of my nature).

Also considering the use of a much larger portable drive even if I have to connect it to external power during the transfer process.

Any tips, strategies, how-to's would be appreciated. TIA.
 
#2 ·
I am interested in hearing what method people are using as well. I attempted using a WD My Passport (250GB) and it would not recognize the drive. There is a small chance this is drive related so I am going to try reformatting and trying again.

Will the 430n rip mp3's from a DVD?
 
#4 ·
604, I have that same drive but have not tried it yet. I assume you had it powered externally before connecting it to the USB port on the head unit via cable? I'm almost positive that a drive of that size would not get enough juice from the head unit port to power up, but could be wrong.

Not sure about your 2nd question.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Flash drives are generally formatted in FAT or FAT32 whereas your WD Passport drive is most likely NTFS unless you specifically formatted it as FAT/FAT32. I'd give that a shot before you think the drive is just not compatible.

I had the same thing happen on my a/v receiver in my house, didn't work until I changed it to FAT32.

Sorry I don't have any input on the original question of filename formatting, I'm not sure what the 430n displays things as I don't have one.

Good luck!
 
#7 ·
Flash drives are generally formatted in FAT or FAT32 whereas your WD Passport drive is most likely NTFS unless you specifically formatted it as FAT/FAT32. I'd give that a shot before you think the drive is just not compatible.
I'm having one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments - completely forgot it was NTFS - Thank you!

I'm almost positive that a drive of that size would not get enough juice from the head unit port to power up, but could be wrong.
As far as I can remember the drive did spin-up just with the usb but I will have to double check that. I'll keep you posted on if the FAT32 formatting allows the drive to be recognized.
 
#8 ·
Just in case you didn't know, you will lose all the data on the drive if you format it so back up the data elsewhere and then format it and copy the data back.
Yep, that's why I'll probably stick to the biggest thumb drive I can find; too much hassle to wipe/reformat a drive for this job (IMO).
 
#6 ·
I use a program called Double Twist (http://www.doubletwist.com/). Reason is all my music is in iTunes and this program can sync that same music to almost any device (so long as they are not DRM protected). So I have it set to sync certain playlists, then I insert a flash drive and the music gets copied there. The program automatically organizes folders by Artist then Album. From there you could either play directly off the flash drive or copy it to the 430n hard drive.

This works in another car I own with no problem, can't test it on the 430n for another 10 days (hopefully!!!!!)
 
#10 ·
I use a program called Double Twist (http://www.doubletwist.com/).
Sounds interesting but I am an iPhone4-usin' Mac driver. May look around for a similar product for OSX/iOS.

My initial question is more platform-neutral and has to do with pre-load prep and organization (if any) on the music files so as to get the most out of the 430n's interface. Thx.
 
#9 ·
All of my non-drmed music is just ripped using the standard rip software from media player ony Win 7 machine.

I then copied all of the folders as is to a thumb drive, inserted it into front USB port and copied over using the onscreen menus. So far I have copied about 15gb of music onto the hd
 
#12 ·
Thank you, Haloed One, but isn't that still for use w/Android phones only? My apologies if not. Anyway, I have a solution for syncing my phone's music with my other devices. It's a matter of adopting the best process for organizing my tunes for migration to the 430n. That may or may not involve 3rd party s'ware solutions. I was hoping to KISS and just see what others were doing vis-a-vis naming and organizing files.
 
#13 ·
Android is what it is commonly used for but it can sync to almost anything. I use it with a flash drive no problem. I see what you are looking for though. This works for me because I don't have to manually copy the mp3 files, it does it all for me and organizes it to.
 
#14 ·
I don't think you need to worry about the file/folder structure. I didn't. Just copy the file folders as is onto a thumb drive and let the system copy them over as it sees fit.
 
#15 ·
I don't have it yet but if the 430n just reads the id3 tags in the mp3 then that's correct, it would not matter how the mp3s are organized. What I have now looks are the folder structure.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Switching the My Passport drive over to Fat32 worked like a charm. If anyone is looking for a better solution than thumb drives the WD Passport is perfect for transfering media! It's powered by the usb cable alone, is very small (about the size of a Blackberry phone), and comes in sizes up to 1 TB.

I plugged the drive in and instantly it started playing the mp3's - went into myfiles and selected all to copy to HDD and away it goes! Very good transfer rate, I had 7GB to transfer and it was less than 15min total. Not too bad at all! FAR faster than the HDD/Nav system I had in my 2010 VW GTI


*** UPDATE *** Apparently all of the files did not transfer for some reason and I only got about half my library. It was not recognizing songs after it got to a certain folder on the drive. I then deleted all the files that did transfer over from the drive and now it will copy the folders again... kinda strange but at least its working!
 
#22 ·
This is good intel, both the FAT32 formatting and the fact that the Passport can run on the juice from the head unit w/o other external power. I'm pleasantly surprised by that.

Your update touches on another question I have. One of my folders didn't seem to copy over so I loaded it again, only to find I had created a duplicate. Unfortunately the HDD management options are all or nothing when it comes to deleting files. Is that right? It gives you a choice of what content to save, not sure why it wouldn't give you the option to selectively delete.
 
#23 ·
Try this... (taken from another forum)

Push the Menu Button
Select My Files
Select My Music
Select My Playlists
Edit (Playlist)
Select Delete Songs From This playlist
Check the songs you want deleted, then click the on screen Delete Button

Hope it works!
 
#27 ·
Try this... (taken from another forum)

Push the Menu Button
Select My Files
Select My Music
Select My Playlists
Edit (Playlist)
Select Delete Songs From This playlist
Check the songs you want deleted, then click the on screen Delete Button
Those steps were a little sideways but got me pointed in the right direction. The Menu button is a red herring, and there is no command related specifically to Playlists. Push the My Files button first, then navigate thru My Music to the option to Delete Music from HDD. This is where I stalled before because I am used to seeing "..." after commands where I will have some options for bailing out. I went ahead and chose the command to delete music files and was indeed given options for choosing which files to delete. I chose the duplicate folder, selected all songs in it, and the system was smart enough to also delete the empty folder when it was finished dumping the contents.

The simple addition of an ellipsis ("...") to the end of some commands would be an improvement to the GUI by bringing it in line with commonly accepted interface guidelines.

Hat tip, 604.
 
#31 ·
Yep, it's the same process as using an iPod or iPhone. The only thing is that there is no easy way that I know of to get the tracks, folders, and metadata from iTunes to a thumb drive without using 3rd party software. You can burn them to a CD but depending on the number of tracks, transferring tracks via CDs can be time consuming. Somebody mentioned a program called doubletwist that can sync iTunes on to a thumb drive. I might look into this or something similar.

Right now, I'm just using my ipods and the only tracks on my hard drive are new CD's.
 
#36 ·
So far I've tried using Mediamonkey, DoubleTwist, iTunes Sync.... not having any luck here at all.

It's a little ridiculous that it's this hard to get album art to show up when it is supposedly "supported"
 
#40 ·
Has anyone tried including the cover art as a jpeg file within the album music folder? For instance, on Windows if you include a file called folder.jpg inside a music folder it will show as the cover art with windows media center. wondering if that would work.
 
#41 ·
Has anyone tried including the cover art as a jpeg file within the album music folder?
Yes - still no luck. The only time I have seen album art in the jeep is when I put a store bought CD into the 430n. Hopefully this will be solved with a future software update!
 
#45 · (Edited)
I am a new member and found this forum doing a google for the 430n cover art problem. I have have my JGC Limited for 2 weeks and love it but the album art glitch is a bug. My first seven albums loaded just fine with the art. Then after that i tried to load cds but they recognized the tracks but the no art or wrong art... The beach boys showed the rush album I loaded three cds before. I am very disappointed. are there any fixes on the horizon?
 
#47 ·
Album Art - I was having this issue with my RBZ radio (430) in my 2011 Town & Country

to expand a little bit:

First 8 or 9 CDs I enter -No issue with album art, everything displays correctly.

CDs 10-15 (give or take) - No album art at all (shows the music note)

CDs 16 and above - Shows album art for the CDs in range 10-15. Meaning, 16th CD put in shows the album art for CD #10. 17th CD shows the album art for CD 11.

I had done some searching over the past week or so, cause this is a very annoying issue to me.

Not sure if you already got your issue resolved or not, but there is an update disk for the RHB (430N), for Sirius Travel Link that also fixes the album art issue.

This apparently also works for the RBZ radio (both 430 radios are affected), but Chrysler will only officially provide the disk to those with RHB radios as that is what the disc indicates.

The DVD is called "TravelLink Update" and this same DVD also has the fix for the gracenotes cd cover recognition error. This was confirmed with the radio manufacturer (Mitsubishi America) by a user on a dodge challenger forum, so ask the dealer to install it (if you have an RHB). The update disc part number is 68141133AA. This will update the radio from 20.02.01 to 23.04.41. Both RHB and RBZ share the same radio version/functionality. RHB just adds all the nav stuff.

If you have an RBZ, you'll either have to purchase the disc from Chrysler/Jeep dealers ($40 from what i was told), or burn it with the rip provided on mofv.com forums.

The artwork issue sounds insignificant, but it is super annoying to me.

If you have an RHB radio, you should get the disk sent to you for free (if you haven't already). You should get the update anyway for Sirius TravelLink.

This did resolve the cover art issue for me (as far as it being incorrect when CD is loaded).

I haven't had any luck with album art being recognized on mp3s, even with this update.
 
#46 ·
Just adding to the thread and answering the ~6 month old question that was asked in regards to the 430n ripping mp3's from DVDs. Yes it will. As everyone else has stated, USB transfer is the way to go.
 
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