[V9] How to Format USB into 2 Partitions for DashCam and Music [Windows]

[cbutters]

My raspberry pi dashcam storage project is able to dismount the partitions; run a linux fcsk to fix the filesystem errors and re-present the drive to the Tesla with a clean filesystem; all without unplugging the USB cable from the Tesla.

here:Pi Zero W - Dashcam and Music Sync Control from Browser

 

[abhik]

Hi All,

I followed all steps and the dashcam is working correctly on a 64GB stick (16GB for dashcam and the rest for music).
I am on v9 and cannot see USB in the music to play the songs off the USB drive. Is there a limit to the number of files/size of files/format of files on the USB for it to work? I have mostly 128kbps mp3 files but a ton of them (10GB worth).

All the screenshots I have seen with USB music working are from v8. Not sure what I am missing.

Thanks in advance!

 

[GPinzone]

Hi All,

I followed all steps and the dashcam is working correctly on a 64GB stick (16GB for dashcam and the rest for music).
I am on v9 and cannot see USB in the music to play the songs off the USB drive. Is there a limit to the number of files/size of files/format of files on the USB for it to work? I have mostly 128kbps mp3 files but a ton of them (10GB worth).

All the screenshots I have seen with USB music working are from v8. Not sure what I am missing.

Thanks in advance!

If your drive has two partitions, you should see two USB sources on your menu. One should have music and should show XXX songs and the other should show 0 songs (the one with the TeslaCam directory.)

 

[abhik]

If your drive has two partitions, you should see two USB sources on your menu. One should have music and should show XXX songs and the other should show 0 songs (the one with the TeslaCam directory.)

The drive has 2 partitions. I checked both in PC and in the Mac. One is called MUSIC and other is TESLACAM (exactly as the guide suggested). I cannot see the USB source for music. DashCam is working 100% since I inserted the USB yesterday. I have a USB3. Would that matter?

 

[SpudLime]

The drive has 2 partitions. I checked both in PC and in the Mac. One is called MUSIC and other is TESLACAM (exactly as the guide suggested). I cannot see the USB source for music. DashCam is working 100% since I inserted the USB yesterday. I have a USB3. Would that matter?

Is DashCam on the first partition or the 2nd? I thought I read one post where dashcam should be the first partition for the music to be seen on the 2nd.

 

[Glamisduner]

I got the camera with the X on it this morning. Reason is unknown. What do I need to do to the flash drive to make it work again? I got 3 days of recording before it went kaput. I followed the directions on the guide. Do I need to reformat the TESLACAM partition or just remove the files? I have a ton of FSCKXXXX.REC files. I also notices I no longer have any footage from last week (did the tesla remove the footage even though I have a 16GB partition with 15GB free?

 

[ddm3]

I partitioned a drive into cam and music. I plugged that into a 3-way splitter along with ipod and console charging cable. I was able to get all 3 working at the same time though the ipod music did stutter a couple of times. I haven't run a long-term test on it so I'm not sure if I'll get cam file corruption.

I didn't have any music on the other drive partition, but it did seem to show up in the music window along with the ipod. (I basically use the ipod as a USB drive because the Model 3 doesn't support it any other way.)

 

[Canuckle]

I found out it is much easier to do it from command line on Apple Mac, using "diskutil"

Thanks so much for this - I bought a new 128 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro and the Disk Utility app wouldn’t let me partition it (though it worked for another 32 GB stick I had). Your instructions worked perfectly (except I used 96 GB for the Teslacam).

 

[PoitNarf]

Thanks so much for this - I bought a new 128 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro and the Disk Utility app wouldn’t let me partition it (though it worked for another 32 GB stick I had). Your instructions worked perfectly (except I used 96 GB for the Teslacam).

Likely because the USB flash drive was already setup as MBR (Master Boot Record) which Disk Utility on a Mac cannot overwrite without doing some extra steps. I've seen others mention that possibly setting up the flash drive as GPT (GUID Partition Table) would work better and be less prone to the dreaded X on the camera icon than a drive setup as MBR. My own USB flash drive has corrupted at least twice already so I just changed it over to GPT.

This can be done in Disk Utility on a Mac very easily, no need to venture into terminal to run diskutil. In Disk Utility go to the View menu and then select "View All Devices". This will allow you to see not just the partitions but the disks that the partitions are on. Select the drive, not the partition(s) on the drive, and then select "Erase" which will now allow you to change the scheme from MBR to GPT (GUID Parition Map in this case). The "MS-DOS (FAT)" format listed in Disk Utility is actually FAT32.

Now that the drive has been converted from MBR to GPT we can re-partition it in Disk Utility if you want to have separate partitions for TeslaCam and music. If you don't need to add any music to your USB flash drive then you don't need to follow these extra steps. Click the Partition button and you'll now be able to re-size the partition. Note that you will need to change the format to something else other than MS-DOS (FAT32) in order to re-size the partition. Don't worry, this is just to re-size the partition and create a new one. After the partitions have been created you can go back and use the Erase function to format the partition back to FAT32. Select the size of the partition that you want and then click Apply. After you have re-sized the original partition you created you can then select the unused space and format it as FAT32 as well.

Once both partitions have been successfully created double check if they're both formatted as FAT32. If not just select the partition and then select Erase and change the format to FAT32 (remember that "MS-DOS (FAT)" in Disk Utility is actually FAT32).

 

[Glamisduner]

I'm on GPT, Samsung USB3 drive 16gb for Teslacam and the rest for music. I still got the dreaded X. It also seems it overwrites old videos way faster than it fills up. 15gb free and it wrote over videos from just the other day.

 

[madhaus]

Thank you for this writeup! I don't know what's going on but all your pictures are busted. I'm literally seeing the broken photo icon for every single one. The photos in the comments show fine, so it's not that I can't see pictures.

Your directions worked anyway even though I was flying blind.

 

[Knightshade]

I'm on GPT, Samsung USB3 drive 16gb for Teslacam and the rest for music. I still got the dreaded X. It also seems it overwrites old videos way faster than it fills up. 15gb free and it wrote over videos from just the other day.

it's supposed to do that (the overwrite, not the X)

It's supposed to overright after 1 hour which is only 1.8GB of video. Anything bigger than 2GB will never fill up unless you fill it with a ton of 10 min clips (or have a lot of corrupt REC files I guess)

 

[10splayer]

Likely because the USB flash drive was already setup as MBR (Master Boot Record) which Disk Utility on a Mac cannot overwrite without doing some extra steps. I've seen others mention that possibly setting up the flash drive as GPT (GUID Partition Table) would work better and be less prone to the dreaded X on the camera icon than a drive setup as MBR. My own USB flash drive has corrupted at least twice already so I just changed it over to GPT.

This can be done in Disk Utility on a Mac very easily, no need to venture into terminal to run diskutil. In Disk Utility go to the View menu and then select "View All Devices". This will allow you to see not just the partitions but the disks that the partitions are on. Select the drive, not the partition(s) on the drive, and then select "Erase" which will now allow you to change the scheme from MBR to GPT (GUID Parition Map in this case). The "MS-DOS (FAT)" format listed in Disk Utility is actually FAT32.

View attachment 346265

Now that the drive has been converted from MBR to GPT we can re-partition it in Disk Utility if you want to have separate partitions for TeslaCam and music. If you don't need to add any music to your USB flash drive then you don't need to follow these extra steps. Click the Partition button and you'll now be able to re-size the partition. Note that you will need to change the format to something else other than MS-DOS (FAT32) in order to re-size the partition. Don't worry, this is just to re-size the partition and create a new one. After the partitions have been created you can go back and use the Erase function to format the partition back to FAT32. Select the size of the partition that you want and then click Apply. After you have re-sized the original partition you created you can then select the unused space and format it as FAT32 as well.

View attachment 346266

Once both partitions have been successfully created double check if they're both formatted as FAT32. If not just select the partition and then select Erase and change the format to FAT32 (remember that "MS-DOS (FAT)" in Disk Utility is actually FAT32).

View attachment 346267

Awesome post. Thanks

I had the same problem as

I got the camera with the X on it this morning. Reason is unknown. What do I need to do to the flash drive to make it work again? I got 3 days of recording before it went kaput. I followed the directions on the guide. Do I need to reformat the TESLACAM partition or just remove the files? I have a ton of FSCKXXXX.REC files. I also notices I no longer have any footage from last week (did the tesla remove the footage even though I have a 16GB partition with 15GB free?

I reformatted my USB stick. I f I get the same as @Glamisduner again Ill try your method.

How long has your USB stick been running without the dreaded x @PoitNarf ???

 

[10splayer]

By the way...anyone using any of these USB sticks? If so results when you plug it into your iPhone?

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandis...lightning-flash-drive/5061603.p?skuId=5061603

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/kingst...ng-flash-drive-silver/6063600.p?skuId=6063600

 

[PoitNarf]

How long has your USB stick been running without the dreaded x @PoitNarf ???

Well I just reformatted last night so less than a day. I've heard others mention that having the drive setup as GPT doesn't do anything to prevent the X showing up on the camera icon. This is likely due to the car not unmounting the drive or it's still writing to it when the car goes to sleep which can lead to corrupted files and/or file system. I'd expect to see this fixed in a future software update.

 

[chinnam3]

Windows 7 doesn’t recognize 2 drive letters for multi-partitioned usb drives. I think that didn’t become available until windows 10. I tried doing this on a windows 7 computer and it errors trying to create a second primary partition. I even tried using a third party app. It’s a no go unless you’re on windows 10 (no go for me anyway)

I tried same. Window 7 does not allow you to do more than one partition on USB flash drives(regular Harddisks no problem). Windows 7 can not even see that second partition on USB flash drive. Windows 10 did not have problem in partitioning or accessing the 2nd partition.

 

[10splayer]

Well I just reformatted last night so less than a day. I've heard others mention that having the drive setup as GPT doesn't do anything to prevent the X showing up on the camera icon. This is likely due to the car not unmounting the drive or it's still writing to it when the car goes to sleep which can lead to corrupted files and/or file system. I'd expect to see this fixed in a future software update.

Makes sense...I wonder...has anyone deleted the FSCKxxxx.rec files and put the stick back in if that would work????

So far 2 days mine has been running but thats what happened last time...I got 2 days :-/

 

[GPinzone]

I tried same. Window 7 does not allow you to do more than one partition on USB flash drives(regular Harddisks no problem). Windows 7 can not even see that second partition on USB flash drive. Windows 10 did not have problem in partitioning or accessing the 2nd partition.

You can get Windows 7 to see all the additional partitions: Removable USB Flash Drive as Local HDD in Windows 10 / 7 | Windows OS Hub

 

[ceekz]

I got the camera with the X on it this morning. Reason is unknown. What do I need to do to the flash drive to make it work again? I got 3 days of recording before it went kaput. I followed the directions on the guide. Do I need to reformat the TESLACAM partition or just remove the files? I have a ton of FSCKXXXX.REC files. I also notices I no longer have any footage from last week (did the tesla remove the footage even though I have a 16GB partition with 15GB free?

Reformat the USB drive (just deleting the files apparently does not work). It will preserve the partitions but you will need to recreate the TeslaCam folder. I've heard that pressing and holding the camera icon to turn it off before locking the car allows the drive to disconnect, and avoids corrupting the files but I haven't lost my red dot yet after a reformat.

 

[chinnam3]

You can get Windows 7 to see all the additional partitions: Removable USB Flash Drive as Local HDD in Windows 10 / 7 | Windows OS Hub

Yes, that is the work around to mark drives as local drive, not removable Drive (Rmb bit change). By default/Natively Windows 7 does not allow/access any removable drives to have more than 1 partition.

Since I have window 10 handy, did not bother with workaround. But again there is no guarantee that RMB bit change will work with all drives.

Nevertheless, for folks who do not have access to Window 10 OS, it is worth a try using utility.