Does anyone know of a decent size USB powered hard drive that is compatible with the usb connection on a kenwood ddx7029.I bought a cheapy £30 HDD off ebay which i transferred music onto but although it powered up fine via the kenwood unit it didnt recognise it yet it worked fine on my laptop.I have used a mains powered external hard drive on it which works fine but i want to do away with the inverter

any ideas?

Does anyone know of a decent size USB powered hard drive that is compatible with the usb connection on a kenwood ddx7029.I bought a cheapy £30 HDD off ebay which i transferred music onto but although it powered up fine via the kenwood unit it didnt recognise it yet it worked fine on my laptop.I have used a mains powered external hard drive on it which works fine but i want to do away with the inverter

any ideas?

why don't you get a flash drive?
you can get 8gb ones now,

have you tried formatting the hdd to fat16/fat32 etc to try?

usb flashdrives are fat formatted

I would format it with FAT16 or FAT32, not NTFS. FAT32 will support single partitions up to 127GB

It is already formatted to FAT32 :wonder:

do you have a flash drive to try?

You could also repartition it with FAT16 - make it nice and small (4GB)

It is already formatted to FAT32 :wonder:

erm. try fat16? lol. sorry no idea, you have to play around

Accroding to the manual for your headunit, it supports FAT16 & FAT32.

It does say that the maximum current on the USB device is 500mA.

It also mentions selecting another source, then disconnecting/reconnecting the USB device before switching the source back to USB. I take it you've tried that sort of stuff already?

yep tried all that im guessing it might be an mA issue then as the big mains powered external works fine in it.I'll see if i can find out what mA the USB powered one is kicking out and compare the 2

cheers for your help

Is it a 2.5" or 3.5" hard disk?

An older 3.5" drive could draw up to 1800mA on spin-up and average 650mA on seeks.

safer bet is a 2.5" if you don't already have one.

to be perfectly honest i dont know what size disc they are.The USB one is a wafer thin one credit card type works a treat on the PC's but not via the high speed usb port on the headunit.If i can source one that i know does work i will be a happy chappy as the inverter is noisy and there are too many wires

Head units generally don't like proper USB hard drives due to power consumption issues. I would first check to see if there are recommended devices for your head unit, and of not go for a flash drive as these have lower power consumption.

I'll have a look into flash drives :thumb: dont suppose you know if they do a 150gb flash drive that would be a start as i could get half of my album collection on then :D

I have tried a few with mine. The last being a maxtor 80gb 2.5" unit. It had a second USB plug that was power only. The drive wouldn't work connected only to the headunit, but when I plugged the second lead into the laptop, it worked fine. I just came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough power on the headunits USB line. I have gone back to a 4gb flash drive for the moment. The best suggestion I can make is to get a large disk ipod, think the lead is about £30.

I also tried the same lead connected to a cig lighter USB power convertor to up the available power, still no joy!

Hmm interesting unfortunately 4gb isnt nearly big enough for what i want as id be swapping sticks over all the time.I will stick with my big 160gb external mains powered one running off the inverter for the time being as that works well

cheers again guys

Hmm interesting unfortunately 4gb isnt nearly big enough for what i want as id be swapping sticks over all the time.I will stick with my big 160gb external mains powered one running off the inverter for the time being as that works well

cheers again guys

does usb hubs work with these? lol... you can plug a minimum of 4 usb flash drives..


or ipods or mp3 players

hubs dont work? if i remember right!!!! get yourself a 8gig flash drive mate,

I got my 160gb external plumbed into it now and it works a treat :D takes a while to scan though