# Supported USB Thumb Drives



## TSURacing (Jan 1, 2011)

I am the one using the 16GB Sandisk Cruzer blade. works great, every day. It was formatted FAT32.


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## DeLorean_Josh (Dec 6, 2010)

Thats interesting.... A flash drive is a flash drive is a flash drive.. well not completely true but there shouldnt be anything to get in the way of this. I myself have used a 8GB and 16GB flash drive with success on both as well as my Droid X and it's worked the same every time.

Try plugging it into your computer and formating the drive in FAT32 and/or NTFS and see if that does it.

secondly it used to be a thing or flash drive developers to put in what seemed like a partition into the flash drive, so that when you plugged it in it loaded up a browser or software preloaded on the drive, or appeard as 2 different drives; one with the blank sotrage space and one with programs to instal. If you plug it into your PC, get 1 drive in My Computer and it doesnt have any sign of preloaded anything or optional software with it or even so much as a custom icon being shown in My Computer for that drive then thats a good indication that its a plain simple flash drive without any crap on it thrown on my the creator.

Let me know how it goes.


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## FanDamNCSU (Dec 23, 2010)

My thinking exactly Josh. The drive has been formatted in FAT32 and tested with that File System - there is no hidden partition or proprietary OS. I did not have time to reformat to NTFS, however, I am going to try NTFS when I get off work I am also going to try formatting to 16GB just to make sure there is not a size limitation issue. I should know this evening if any of these methods work out.


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## spacedout (Dec 7, 2010)

I had a 4gb PNY drive that when hooked to a 2010 GMC terrain USB port it took 10minutes to access. Even then it was very slow & buggy. I used 5 other Sandisk drives without any issues.
6months later the PNY drive completely failed. This was the second PNY product I have had fail, a 4gb micro SD card also did. I never had any issues with any of my sandisk drives/cards.

As for formatting the drive NTFS I would be surprised if that works, the most common format is fat32 for flash cards & usb sticks. NTFS is a Microsoft proprietary format & not very compatible with anything other than windows.


EDIT: I should also have said all the USB sticks I did try that worked were 8gb or smaller. Also sandisk used to always have some built in software on the drive called U3, you need to use some special software to remove it. Formatting still leave the hidden part of this behind & the drive will not work with the cars USB port with it installed. 
The newest sandisk I purchased didn't come preloaded with U3, but if yours did you need to get the software to remove it from sandisk. 
http://u3.sandisk.com/launchpadremoval.htm


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## SilverCruzer (Nov 30, 2010)

I am successfully using a cruzer in my Cruze [ rim shot ]
I started with it clean, the copied my music file structure and folders from my PC directly to the thumb drive. I used Windows Media for music.
Plugged it in, let it index, now it works exaclty like an MP3 player in my car. I am happy with it.


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## MikeW (Nov 29, 2010)

I picked up a new PNY 8gig from Wal Mart for under $15, loaded up a bunch of MP3s, in folders by artist, and even created a few playlists with WinAmp and saved the playlists on the thumb drive. It has worked without a single problem so far.


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## scaredpoet (Nov 29, 2010)

Silly question, but I'll ask anyway: Are you _sure_ the files were MP3s and not with an extension like M4P or M4A?

If it's an M4P/M4A, then it's an aac audio file, which the Cruze stereo won't play.

Only reason i ask is because you mention you have an iPhone, which usually requires iTunes. Anything music you buy from iTunes will come in aac format. And by default it'll use aac to rip CDs unless you tell it you specifically want MP3s.


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## ALiCE (Jan 15, 2011)

Try to format your flash drives with this utility.
It should remove all partitions and proprietary software.

Choose device, filesystem FAT32 and mark only 'Quick format' (no compression, no start-up disk).
Download HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.2.3 Free - Windows-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device - Softpedia


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## FanDamNCSU (Dec 23, 2010)

Went ahead and picked up a 16GB RocketFish Thumb Drive and it works without any problems. I loaded the same music (all .mp3's) without any issues. I've got it loaded with 14GB of music, my only qualm with the USB stick method is it takes a couple of minutes to index each time the car is started. I can play songs immediately just can't choose specifics while it's indexing.

My next step is that I'm going to go into the properties of the drive and have Windows optimize it for music (doubt this will effect performance in the car). We will see how it works out when I try it though as I'm just curious at this point.


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## TSURacing (Jan 1, 2011)

Let us know if it improves the indexing time. I can see it re-doing the index if you remove the drive, I think its a bit silly that it does it every start-up.


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## FanDamNCSU (Dec 23, 2010)

TSURacing said:


> Let us know if it improves the indexing time. I can see it re-doing the index if you remove the drive, I think its a bit silly that it does it every start-up.


Yeah no luck with any increase in indexing speed. Seems like we are stuck with the 2 or so minutes of Indexing each time we start the engine.


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## ChevyMgr (Oct 27, 2010)

This TSB might help also:

http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/25-s...nical-service-bulletin-thread-3.html#post4682


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## Tear (Jan 21, 2011)

Formatting these USB sticks should only be done in FAT or FAT32. NTFS doesn't work with audio. If you are having trouble with indexing, then use a software such as "Easy CD-DA Extractor" from Poiksoft which fixes the order as you want it. Does a myriad of other things too, and not expensive. (Easy CD-DA Extractor: CD Ripper & Music Converter & Audio Converter & CD/DVD Burner) These USB sticks can be a real pain. I've found that the threshold size for these things to work properly is very low at somewhere like 16Gb max.


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## lostjuan (Jan 21, 2011)

How do you guys find the navigation on the USB sticks. I find it some what cumbersome. If you are listening to artist a and you want to listen to artist k, it can take some dial pushing and turning to get there. And the Alpha search seems to have a mind of it's own to when it's available. I have a Kingston 8g usb 2.0 stick.


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## patricks00 (May 24, 2011)

I know this thread is kinda old, but does anyone know if the stereo will support MP3 _*playlists*_ on a flash drive?


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## CRUISE-CRUZE (Nov 8, 2010)

FanDamNCSU said:


> I decided I didn't want to keep plugging in my iPhone every time I got into the car so I started looking into the Thumb Drive option. I tried plugging in my 8GB PNY Attache but it did not come up - I tried updating my TV with this drive as well which it did not pick up either so I wasn't too worried about this. I looked around the forums for a little bit and noticed that one user had been successfully using a SanDisk Cruzer Blade thumb drive. I went out and picked up a 32GB version of the SanDisk Cruzer loaded it up with a few .mp3's and got the error "No Supported Data Found on This Device..." I referred to the manual which stated that this error means the device is not supported. My request is if everyone who uses the Thumb Drive to post up the models that they know are supported or not supported.
> 
> So far I know that the following are not supported:
> 
> ...


Take a look to this one, you will like it. I know, it has just 4Gb, but it is so small than you can almst close the USB cover on it: Micro Center - Emtec International S100 Micro Series 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive - White EKMMD4GS100 EKMMD4GS100


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