Alright, I am brand spanking new to both these forums (as a member at least), and JUST installed my AVIC-920. Install went great, no issues with firmware, as I have the most current version installed.

I have been scouring the internet, and these forums looking for a definitive answer on a question regarding portable HDD's. I have a 500gb laptop hdd in a case that is powered by a single USB. I understand that the file system has to be FAT32, and have managed to reformat the HDD to be FAT32. Still won't recognize it as a usb drive tho. I thought I saw somewhere that pioneer has a max storage size for such a device? If so, what is it? Can I circumvent this problem by partitioning the drive to 2 or 3 of the max storage space allowances?

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated, and I am sure there are a few out there who would like to know once and for all if there is something that can make a larger HDD work....

Thanks!

i was under the impression that HDD's required too much power from what the AVIC can supply and therefor will not work.

It appears to power up fine, though it's tough to say what the problem is really.

Make sure you have enough power, if you can do a dual input cable that sucks the voltage from a 2nd USB connector (they're out there) that will help resolve the potential power issues. Even though it "appears to power up fine" you may not have enough juice to keep it spinning and the interface up.

The other gotcha is that the non-ipod folder management just plain stinks IMNSHO, it's not worth my aggravation compared to how nice the ipod integration is.

The other gotcha is that the non-ipod folder management just plain stinks IMNSHO, it's not worth my aggravation compared to how nice the ipod integration is.

no joke, there is nothing as simple or convenient as filtering through music by tag info, maintaining folder structure is just a pain in the ass

Provided that the hard drive has enough power.I have found that a max of 100GB partition is all it will handle. It will not use multiple partitions either.