Is it possible to have the navigation work without the disc? Is there some hack that can be done to accomplish this?

No. Just program in your route and then take the disk out

No, because there's nowhere for the unit to store all the information on the disk. All it has is the temporary memory where it stores the current route.

Right now i'm working on putting an external HD to the D3 through an XBOX 360. Wonder if there is a way to point where it looks for the NAV, and then it point through the XBOX360 to the HD and have all the info stored on there?

Just a thought... Probably wont work

That would probably require some altering of the programming and/or hardware inside the unit. And at that point, you might hav gone the easy way and buy the Z2...

Have not really heard or researched much on the Z2... It have an internal HD like that or something? OR allow attachments of external HD?

It has an internal HD that stores all the nav info, maps, locations, etc. Plus you can store 10 gigs (IIRC) of music on the HD as well. But it's like a grand more than the D3...

And I recall reading somewhere on this site that you can open it up and swap out the HD for one with higher capacity to store more music.

So what if you don't do any routing? I very rarely use routing. Will it save your local area to the HD so next time you start it the maps are there and you can leave the music DVD in?

So what if you don't do any routing? I very rarely use routing. Will it save your local area to the HD so next time you start it the maps are there and you can leave the music DVD in?

There IS NO HARD DRIVE. If you don't have a route programmed in and the nav disk is not in the drive, it will zoom out really far because it can't access any of the map details, which is basically makes it useless.

u can store like 15 scare miles into memory, if i`m correct.