Has anyone looked into the possibility of hacking the Gracenote Update process so that you could add other files (reformated mp3, bmp, etc) to the harddrive via CDROM?

Pioneer recently released an update for the Gracenote database. From the update files, it appears it replaces the old database files with the new files provided by Pioneer. There is also a .inf file included with the update that I suspect is the install instructions.

My guess is that every time you insert a CRROM into the AVIC-Z1 it looks for a .inf file. If one is present, it follows the .inf instructions. There is also a .txt file in the install files that says:

Pioneer
DISC:02
MODEL:HD1BT,---Z1

If we can figure this out we could potentially put any file into any desired directory on the drive. At a minimum, we could make it easier to change the startup screen.

Any thoughts?

I was just going to look into that myself.

I seriously doubt it will work. There appears to be no information on the update disk on where to put the files so I would guess there are a set number of files that the update application knows about. It also knows where put them.

That being said, if the update program can update itself you might be able to alter it or it's resource files to allow the addition of your own files.