AMI with USB Hard Drive Problem

[tc4332]

Help.
I am now suffering from the complexity of the A8.
Why can't it be really and completely plug and play.
I retro fitted an AMI and it worked really well once I realised that the storage device being used via USB must be formatted with Fat32. I have been using a 32GB SD card without problem.
I bought a used 230GB Audi hard drive on fleebay, formatted it with Fat 32 and it worked fine whilst testing it on the AMI when it had a few files recorded.
I went daft and saved quite a few files on the hard drive, fitted it in the car and it works spot on . . . . some of the time. When it does not work the message "device not connected properly" comes up. This happens when starting the car i.e. ignition switch on. The only way I can then get it to work is by unplugging the micro USB plug on the hard drive, wait a few minutes, plug it back in and away it goes. Then the thing works really well until the next time I start the car.
When it works it seems to take longer to "initialize" itself than the SD card did.
Has anyone else met this problem?

[Johnmed]

I had the VERY SAME issue with a 64gb Kingston USB thumb drive. Gave up bought a 32 gb thumb drive that I knew, from reading here, would work. Shame cos I have a spare 320gb HD from my MBP that works, but I know will just be more hassle than it's worth!!!!

[Delboy]

I beleive that there is a limit on how many tracks can be read by ami, I think it's about 4000.

If a new memory stick doesn't sort it out have a look through the hidden menu, there is a setting relating to ami sync time, perhaps that has some bearing on it?

[limoncello]

i have many thousands of tracks on my 320gb harddrive, the AMI has no problem with it. it may be that it cant handle more than x number of files in the same folder, all mine are in folders by artist > CD Title etc

[tc4332]

I have saved them in a number of folders and sub-folders,
1 Artist
2 Album
3 Tracks

To me this makes sense both for me and the machine to understand.
I am nowhere near the 4K possible maximum, but then I don't think there would be a limit so low. Possible if there was no folder heirarchy. I did read somewhere before I bought the AMI that there is a limit in a folder but by introducing sub-folders this problem could be covered.

I am leaning towards some kind of timing problem. Tomorrow I wil have a peek in the hidden menu and see if something jumps out at me. As I said earlier, once it starts it is marvellous, wish I did not have to stop the engine on ocasion.

[tonupkid]

Um perhaps that's why that HDD was for sale on ebay.
My 320 Gb Samsung drive has worked flawlessly for over two years now and I I'd guess its way over 4k tracks on it.
For some reason (I can't remember why but it may be significant) I have 26 folders, A-Z, and each artist sits in their appropriate lettered folder.

[tc4332]

Nothing wrong with the drive, was a very good buy. The previous owner had been clever and deleted all his data by reformatting the drive in a windows 8 PC. Of course that was in NTFS, which the AMI cannot read, so I formatted it in FAT32 and it works without fault on all my PCs.
My problem is that AMI cannot read it reliably.
I have found an AMI firmware update that I will try later.

[tc4332]

Tried the AMI firmware update and the "Audi" bit of AMI stepped in and rather rudely said "b!"££$r off". Well it really said "No compatible update software on this device" which I think means "b!"££$r off".
Seriously I think that it means my AMI is already at this level and therefore it cannot do anything with it.
Strange thing is that today it worked like it should, even rememberred where I was (music wise) last night.
I have now put my artists into sub folders named "A - I", "J - Q" and "R -Z".
It has just worked OK, but the proof will appear over the next few days.

[Duffy]

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9483

this might be relevant