How does the Z110 order digital audio or video files on CD/DVD/SD/USB? Or more to the point, how do I get it to keep them in order?

I listen to audio books often in my car, to keep from having to exchange CDs every 74 minutes its much easier to rip the whole thing to mp3 then put it on a media card or something. But obviously its critical that the audio files play all in the correct order.

I have mine named with leading 0's 01 – xxx, 02 – xxx. It seems to work but I had one anomaly. I had one file that was too long (long chapter name) and the Z110 couldn't read it although windows could. I took the SD card out and renamed the file then the Z read it just fine, but it placed it at the end of the list. It was chapter 17 of 38 or so, all which had been listed on the Z110 in proper order using numbers with leading zeros, but when I renamed that one file so it could be read it ended up at the bottom of the list.

There must be some way to predict how it will read/order the files. How do I need to name them to make them sort correctly?

Again, USB is not the source to rely on in this manner.

same result with CD, DVD, SD, and USB. what's the proper way to do this? I can force them to go into order by their physical location on a disc by using an audio CD, but that kind of defeats the whole point now doesn't it? I want to have a large collection of mp3's, and have them play in order. the way I name the files they would play in proper order whether the unit uses alphabetical, numeric, or alphanumerical ordering. for it to fail it must just read in no order in particular, but even if that were the case, why does it appear to try to keep them in order, but then have just one file here and there out of their proper place?

As I said, the USB file support on these units is limited. You can rename your files with numbers in front of the titles and that may fix the problem. If not, your just going to have to deal with. This units strong point is iPod control. Non of those limitations apply to the iPod interface.

That's odd that it does it with CDs too don't you think, vblue?

I guess. I cant remember the last time I played a CD.

This unit plays back music files in whatever PHYSICAL ORDER they are on the drive, USB or SD, etc. (I don't know about CD since I have never even put a CD in my unit) If you want the unit to play them in alphabetical order you have to physically put them in that order on your USB/SD etc.

There is a small free program called DriveSort that works very well for this. Do a google search and I'm sure you'll find it, it's pretty easy to use and it works great.