2015 stereo not detecting USB device. Any suggestions?

Hello,

I cannot seem to get the stock stereo to detect my USB device. It is a 64GB SanDisk USB 3.0 Ultra Fit. I read the stereo is USB 2.0. I've also read that USB 2.0 devices can read 3.0 and vice versa (I am not sure if this is true)?

I've formatted the USB "exFat" (the default) - the only other option is NTFS. I've dumped music on it and the stereo just won't seem to detect it. The USB slowly flashes a red light when plugged in.

Has anybody expierienced this? Do you think I need to return this USB 3.0 and get a 2.0?

Thanks in advance!

-Ryan

 

This is just a guess . . .

It may be that you will need to use a smaller USB Flash Drive. The JVC unit I installed in my truck will only read FAT and FAT-32 formatted USB drives. I use a 32GB drive and am able to format it as FAT-32. Due to the 64GB size, the only formatting options available to you are Ext-FAT and NTFS.

Ext-FAT vs FAT-32

 

I use a 64GB Sandisk Cruzer Fit USB3 flash drive on my Entune radio.

I formatted the drive to FAT32 using this utility.

I made sure there were no extraneous (non-MP3) files on the drive, only MP3 files.

I have my folders set up as artist, then albums, and made sure my MP3 tags were correct.

Works perfectly!

 

Most likely a format issue. The OEM stereo makers are usually not up on the latest USB technology. Try FAT32

http://doughaslam.com/2010/11/04/fo...for-your-car-a-solution-to-a-nagging-problem/

 

cant get my 2015 to read any kind of USB either....

 

Thank you all for your input! I FINALLY got it to work. Any device by default over 32GB or so “cannot” be formatted FAT32 through Windows. FAT32 IS the file system the 2015 Tacoma reads... sooo I tried using @tomwil’s suggestion, but that utility doesn’t work with Win 8.1, so I dug deeper and found a WikiHow article that shows you steps to format a large drive through DOS on your Windows PC...well I tried, it took 45 minutes of formatting and then gave me a “Failed, device is too big” error. Brutal.

THIS IS HOW I DID IT:

I found a very helpful YouTube video that explains how to do it using a FREE utility that I downlowded through CNET called “EaseUS Partition Matser Free” where you can easily partition/format the 64GB flash drive to a FAT32 file system (I used 64kb clusters in the options). **MAKE SURE YOU ARE FORMATTING THE CORRECT DRIVE**

Once completed, the computer recognized it as a Fat32 drive, I dumped all my music on it (all MP3s sorted by folders by Artist>Album>Track) and BOOM! I plugged it into the truck and it sounds great! I have over 50GB of my favorite music (or podcasts, etc) to listen to when I want! The Tacoma Stereo allows you to browse by album, artist, etc...

This will be great for when I am out of cell range (I typically use Pandora) and the XM radio I have free for 90 days runs out (I am not impressed at all with XM and won’t be paying for it).

The Sandisk UltraFit I am using is so small you can barely tell it’s plugged in, and it has a little cover/case for it, so if you aren’t using it daily (I typically don’t) , just throw it in your console, it takes up no room, and you are good to go when you need it!

Thanks everybody for your help and I hope I can pay it forward with this post to the next person who is having difficulty getting their Tacoma to read a USB Flash drive so they can enjoy a cheap way to keep tons of music/podcasts, etc in their truck! I only paid $30 for the 64GB flash drive (when somebody reads this post 5 years from now, they will laugh at that price per gig!)

Cheers!!

RYGAR

 

Good call using the EaseUS software. I love partition master for hard drives and flash memory. Basically it forces Windows to do things it should do on it's own. Funny, how we accept an operating system that is so bad we have to force it to do it's job.

BTW, anyone out there ever try an external USB harddrive in the Etune system? I would be curious to know if it reads. Nothing like a terrabyte of music.

 

If you did that then you would have to use a hard drive that is able to have a straight data USB plug in and a USB that independently powers the drive itself and that is its sole purpose. That would also require a power inverter or tapping into the current power inverter on our trucks to give you power for the drive.

 

I have over 8,500 songs on that 64GB flash drive, that's good enough for me!

 

Anything is doable with the right cable, but as the OP mentioned 64 gig is a ton of music. My whole MP3 backup is only 50 gig.

 

thanks for easeus info - i have a 128G fit coming that i just ordered from Amazon for $30

 

I just installed a 64gig in mine as well. Wonderful to have all my songs in one place. It did take a while for the stock HU to digest all the info. I guess it has to parse all the index data and store it somewhere. It took a good 2 days before I could search. Still really cool to have so much music at my finger tips. Up till now, my biggest MP3 player only had 16gig.

 

Thank you, just found your post. I got the exact same flash drive, dumped a bunch of music on it, plugged it in anddddddddd...nothing.
Thought it might've been a USB3.0 issue and it didn't occur that the formatting was wrong seeing as Windows only gave me the exFat option.
Downloaded a utility to reformat in FAT32 and am currently impatiently waiting for the music to copy back over.
Thanks to you and the others that posted how to format it, I think I'll be good to go now.

 

you may have to convert the music to MP3 in order the the music to compress and fit into the usb, I think music will play with the headunit via usb is when its in MP3 format in the usb chip http://convert2mp3.net/en/

 

I threw about 25 gigs of mp3 files on there for starters and it's rockin and rollin.

 

cool man I love loading music on the usb I get it free from youtube and use that link to convert it, no need to lug CDs around no more or buy music

 

I have a 2015 Highlander, which I think has the same audio system. I can play music from a USB flash drive, but it is not automatically detected when I start the car. I have to unplug it and plug it in again to get the vehicle to detect it. Has anyone here experienced this issue?

 

Just bought a 2016 Tacoma and having problems getting the audio system to read my external hard drive. A friend (retired classic rock station manager) loaned me an external powered 1 terabit hard drive with 395GB of music. I plugged it into the USB and had it worked fine. I bought a 1 terabit external hard drive Passport (non powered) and copied all of the music to the Passport. The audio system will not recognize Passport hard drive. Any suggestions as to how I can access this gold mine of music? I will gladly copy all of this music to your hard drive for any sucesfull replies.

 

Those passport drives come formatted as NTFS, I believe. Use a formatter like this one

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

..... to format the passport drive as FAT32.


I've had a couple of USB drives that I've had to switch from exFAT and NTFS. Neither format works in my 2017. Once it's in FAT32 format, you should be good.

***edit*** make sure you are picking the correct drive to format****

 

I had computer wiz neighbor format my Passport——No Luck. The truck will not recognize the Passport. So strange that the original files on the ancient externalhard drive and 110V power supply work fine. Any more suggestions would be welcomed.