Can you connect an external hard drive for music to the 900bt and if so is there anything i have to do to the drive to get the unit to read it? I have a 160gb WD passport if that helps.

You should be able to just hook it up and it will work. You'll have to use a file/subfile system to sort your music or it will take you eons to find what you're looking for.

i tried it yesterday and couldnt get it to recognize it, I put all my music seperated by artist into a folder called music. Is there anything else I should do. Also does it matter if some of the folders containing the software that came with the drive are still on there?

The F-Series limit is 2GB for USB... also, we were told that the USB connector can't provide power, so hard drives won't work.

i tried it yesterday and couldnt get it to recognize it, I put all my music seperated by artist into a folder called music. Is there anything else I should do. Also does it matter if some of the folders containing the software that came with the drive are still on there?

Make sure your drive is formatted fat32 and not ntfs.

Damn... I forgot that it says the USB is limited to 2GB. Doesn't make very much sense, though. As a FAT32 drive can be as large as (IIRC) 8 terabytes or something like that. I'd say put all the files back on your computer, format the portable hard drive to FAT32, and put everything back on it and see if it registers it/plays it. If it ends up not working, you really haven't lost anything but a little bit of time.

k I'll try reformating the drive, thx for the help. I'll let you know how I make out.

Let us know. I didn't even think about this until after i bought the unit, i would only use it for road trips but it would be real nice to have.

Can you connect an external hard drive for music to the 900bt and if so is there anything i have to do to the drive to get the unit to read it? I have a 160gb WD passport if that helps.

The WD Passports rely on the short USB cable to draw enough power for the hard drive. If you try to connect it to your PC with a longer USB cable you will find out that it won't work due to increased resistance in the cable and not enough power for the drive to spin up, it only clicks. In our case with the F series the unit alredy comes with a pretty long usb cable wich limits the power down. If you hook up an external power for your drive and then hook it up to the AVIC it should work. I have not tried it yet because I just installed my unit and have not played enough with it, but I am pretty sure that it will work.

Good luck.

I meant to ask about an external power source. I know with SD or any media cards, sometimes it can't handle more than advertised, alot of digital samplers use cards. I've never heard of usb being a problem in terms of size so i was wonder if i'm wrong on that.

Like stated earlier in this topic, the manual says the limit on a USB device it will work with is 2GB. But that doesn't mean that larger won't work... it says the limit for SD cards is 8GB, but some people are using 16GB cards in their units with no problems.

I guess what it comes down to is that you'll never know until you try.

I've just received a response from Pioneer (France). They told me that the F900BT supports USB HDD, but they don't ensure their proper functioning. Pioneer's technical service is establishing a list of the compatibles HDD (no date available).

Voila

I dont see how this is true, I have an Passport drive that connects to my pc on my desk using a 10ft cable (also used by my digital camera) and it connects just fine.

Can you connect an external hard drive for music to the 900bt and if so is there anything i have to do to the drive to get the unit to read it? I have a 160gb WD passport if that helps.

 

The WD Passports rely on the short USB cable to draw enough power for the hard drive. If you try to connect it to your PC with a longer USB cable you will find out that it won't work due to increased resistance in the cable and not enough power for the drive to spin up, it only clicks. In our case with the F series the unit alredy comes with a pretty long usb cable wich limits the power down. If you hook up an external power for your drive and then hook it up to the AVIC it should work. I have not tried it yet because I just installed my unit and have not played enough with it, but I am pretty sure that it will work.

 

Good luck.

@schaferc : Do you have a F5/7/900BT ? Did you try to connect your HDD on it ? Did it work ?