AVIC-Z3 Hard Drive Image **OFFICIAL**

[gmschiller]

So lets say I have two drives. Drive A has a good sized music library, Drive B is just the naked Z3 image. You're saying that I cannot copy the music partition from A and transplant all the files directly onto B and it work?

 

Um, yes, I believe that will work. Seems very similar to the Franken-Z* process out there right now with keeping the original settings and music during the "upgrade". The music in question was ripped on the original Z* deck correct?

 

It seems the problem is in the encoding process and format. I'm actually looking into it now. Atrac was used in mini disc players originally as far as I can tell. Guess Pioneer liked it for whatever reason. Maybe so it wouldn't be so easy to rip it ourselves. Or maybe it had to do with the voice recognition searching.

[Hyperite]

The issue isn't so much in the encoding, I believe, but in adding the reference to the AVIC database, since it doesn't just open the folder and see what's playable.

[mquraish]

 

Once I got a full trial version of Acronis, it was no problem. I went through 2 downloads that didn't work from the Acronis website. The trials were not fully functional. I tried this on a Vista machine and I don't know if it was Vista or the Acronis Trial that was causing the problem. Got my music partition up to 29.9GB and changed the splash screens. I noticed you can add your own bitmaps to the "PREINSTALL" folder for backgounds instead of burning a CD with JPEGs to load. Also, the preset pictures for phone ID - I changed the names in Notepad (make sure to keep all the same spacing (number of spaces) AFTER the name otherwise it messes things up. I'll bet you could add a bunch of stuff there too instead of burning a CD for people's pictures in your phonebook. Haven't tried this yet though.

 

For some reason if I add pics to the drive while it's hooked up to the pc or the laptop, I get an error when I try to view them on the Avic. It tells me that the file is corrupt..?!

 

weird - are your files ".BMP" files (in caps)? Are you saving in 8 bit BMP or higher? I can't remember what bit the OEM AVIC bitmaps are, but I'd say make sure it is the same when you add new ones.

[Riceburner98]

As many have said before, Thanks Guys!! I just ordered the 80Gb Toshiba drive from Newegg; they have the 60Gb listed but I've seen reference that it's been discontinued and people have recieved different drives in its place.. The 80 is only $5 more anyway.. I'll follow the instructions and see how it works out; half of the POI's I enter near where I work take me to the Mass Pike on-ramp! Funny the first time it happened, fortunately I knew where the restaurant was anyway. Not so funny on the several other occasions it happened.. Hopefully the Z3 maps will take care of that.

Also wanted to say that I want to try some experiments with drives, I've read quite a lot here about the stacks of drives people have tried and the issues they've had. Unfortunately I don't have a stack of drives to test with, but I would like to once and for all put an end to the "power requirement" issue if possible... -> I plan on trying a couple of drives powered up with an *external* 5v supply running off my Z1's incoming 12v. Not sure if it'd be a problem having it powered on all the time the Z1 is (doubt it since it should power up immediately anyway) but if you had to the 2ndary power supply could be switched on by the Z1's 5v output.

Probably a lot of trouble just to verify what some other's have mostly figured out; that it's not the power supply just the drive make.. But I like power supplies and such, so we'll see. For giggles I'll try to connect and power up a standard 3.5" ATA drive with the Z3 image on it as well. I'm a Test Engineer, so hopefully I won't FUBAR my Z1 too bad.

Within a day of buying the thing I had it torn apart with the intention of remote-mounting the screen. Scary. I ended up just mounting it normally behind my flip-up cover thing instead, not enough time to play with it.. (in a Scion tC) I did however lose the CD "finger" closer spring, that pulls the CD loading "fingers" towards the middle of the unit. (shot across the car into never-never land!) I replaced it with the only thing that would fit, a piece of elastic thread. LOL Still haven't found a suitable spring to replace it, but it's worked fine for over a year. Anyway, enough about that! Happy modding!

[gmschiller]

Sounds great riceburner98. I look forward to hearing what your results are.

 

I opted to simply start from scratch with the original hard drive. It does seem a little faster to me. Not a whole lot, but I think the maps look a lot better. At least they do here in the San Diego area. I haven't taken any trips down town yet to see what they look like in 3d yet, but maybe I will this weekend. All in all, I'm pleased. Oh, and I noticed that some have said that they still get the annoying echo with the blue tooth. Mine has gone away since the upgrade. Volume is better as well. I'm a happy camper!

[big-fokker]

I have the Toshiba 40 gig and mine starts up in half the time than the stock drive used to.

My maps look better to me, but that could be because I came from the Z1 maps and half the roads around here weren't even on there...

[livnlo]

thank you to all in advance

i got my z2 up and running last night with the new z3 software and toshiba bigger drive. today while driving around didnt notice any improvements over how my unit worked before. i did notice my fm radio was cutting out every now and then witch it never did before. tried the voice comands with no problems. just curious to see what anyones input is??

 

this is what it says now.

version 3.000

cddb 07.01.0030

 

this is what i have

july 2007 z2

bypassed

with ipod rear camera front camera

[i.b.dat.fo]

can someone help me..... i downloaded all 14 files from piratebay and i try to image it into my toshiba 40gb but its keep on telling me the file is corrupted. i was able to image the other 3 images individually but cant image the first one which is the 17.52gb one. does anyone know what is the problem? hope this is not a stupid or newbie question..

[Riceburner98]

Well now... Be VERY careful if you order a drive and the 2.5" drive adapter from Newegg. The drive adapter is made WRONG. Or at least the one they sent me was! The 2.5" connector on it is flipped around backwards. I just blew up my new 80Gig Toshiba. I will say their shipping is really fast, I had the drive and adapter in 2 days. Unfortunately, now both are useless. The drive adapter has an etch blown off it, and the drive is completely non-responsive both in my USB 2.5" drive enclosure and with a "Good" drive adapter. (I'm using it right now to format a Hitachi 30Gig drive, so I know it works) They better send me a new one... For $58 I'm sure they will, but still. What a pain. Argh.. Was looking forward to having the Z3 image working today. Hopefully I can try it out for 10 minutes before it crashes on the Hitachi. LOL

[Riceburner98]

Good news, they're going to swap me a hard drive. They're going to refund the price of the adapter, I don't want another bad one anyway. You think they'd want it back to verify that it's bad, and possibly check their inventory to make sure others don't get bad ones, but... Apparently they don't do tech support or anything. Either way I get a new drive, but I have to send this one back first, so it'll take a while. I suppose I could desolder and flip the connector around, or since it's really only the "key" hole in the 2.5" socket that's wrong (looks like it's cast into the plastic, but the pin is there under it) I may be able to just dig that key hole out and repair the blown etch.. Is it worth it since I already have one? I dunno... Fun! The 30G is done formatting, I'm going to try and unlock it now and burn it with the Z3 stuff. Yay. Don't know why I bothered formatting it as it's going to be repartitioned anyway... ah well.

[Hyperite]

can someone help me..... i downloaded all 14 files from piratebay and i try to image it into my toshiba 40gb but its keep on telling me the file is corrupted. i was able to image the other 3 images individually but cant image the first one which is the 17.52gb one. does anyone know what is the problem? hope this is not a stupid or newbie question..

There's only one "image", and if any part of it was corrupt, you'd get that message before you could do anything. So... no idea what you did.

[i.b.dat.fo]

can someone help me..... i downloaded all 14 files from piratebay and i try to image it into my toshiba 40gb but its keep on telling me the file is corrupted. i was able to image the other 3 images individually but cant image the first one which is the 17.52gb one. does anyone know what is the problem? hope this is not a stupid or newbie question..

There's only one "image", and if any part of it was corrupt, you'd get that message before you could do anything. So... no idea what you did.

 

i redl the all files from you website and got it working thanks! maybe something wrong with thepiratebay? dont know but thanks!

[gmschiller]

can someone help me..... i downloaded all 14 files from piratebay and i try to image it into my toshiba 40gb but its keep on telling me the file is corrupted. i was able to image the other 3 images individually but cant image the first one which is the 17.52gb one. does anyone know what is the problem? hope this is not a stupid or newbie question..

There's only one "image", and if any part of it was corrupt, you'd get that message before you could do anything. So... no idea what you did.

 

How did you open the image? Did you use Acronis? If so, what restore option did you use? It seems easy enough, but if you choose the wrong options, you could have opened it as a writable image and then you could corrupt it. I would run a file recheck with your torrent downloader and make sure it recognizes all the files.

[blwnblue]

So either I did something wrong or I didn't need to download all 14 parts of the Z3 image...I had upgraded to the Z2 a week ago...and never put music on the new drive bc I figured I'd lose it anyway when upgrading to the Z3..now the instructions on the first page just show to move the 1 file over to the drive...so am I correct in saying that I now have a Z3 or am I only partial Z2/Z3? What am I missing...What features are not there that I could benefit from just reloading all 14 of the .tib files to the drive? also is there a write up of how do to that...or do I just load all 14 .tib files onto the new drive?

[Hyperite]

So either I did something wrong or I didn't need to download all 14 parts of the Z3 image...I had upgraded to the Z2 a week ago...and never put music on the new drive bc I figured I'd lose it anyway when upgrading to the Z3..now the instructions on the first page just show to move the 1 file over to the drive...so am I correct in saying that I now have a Z3 or am I only partial Z2/Z3? What am I missing...What features are not there that I could benefit from just reloading all 14 of the .tib files to the drive? also is there a write up of how do to that...or do I just load all 14 .tib files onto the new drive?

I think you have a general misconception about how Acronis works. Read the instructions again and check out acronis website for how hard drive imaging works. There is no way to "move the 1 file over".