Cruzer 16gb Not Working in Car

I have several other flash drives full of music. Some are SanDisk; some are not. Some are larger capacity; some are smaller. Some even have a mixture of music, video, text and program files, but they all play music in my car stereo without any problem.

When I put this particular flash drive into my car stereo, it comes back with “Unit Error”. The flash drive works fine on my computer, but it does nothing on my stereo.

All of the files are .mp3; they were all put onto the drive in the same manner that I always use. I have not reformatted the drive or fiddled with it at all. It did not come with pre-installed software.

About two years ago I had a different brand of flash drive (Kodak) that gave me a “unit error” message. I dropped it into my console and ignored it for a while, then one day I forgot that it did not work and I stuck it back in. It worked fine and never had a problem again. I did try that this time as well, but it has been over 3 months and I have not had any magical transformation from broken to fixed. I did not actually think it was likely that it would work anyway. I have no idea why it worked the first time.

Do you have any idea why it will not play music and/or what I might be able to do or install to make it work? Obviously, I will try almost anything.

Thanks,

Harriet

I’m guessing that your car stereo is looking for a format system. Maybe NTFS or FAT 32. Try to double check this.

So should I reformat the flash drive and try again? Is there any reason to worry that reformatting it will make it worse? Right now it works in computers, but not the car stereo. Also, which system should I pick? NTFS or FAT32?

Thank you for your help.

Harriet

So should I reformat the flash drive and try again?”

I do NOT recommend formating it.  Especially since it works in your computers.  Address the problem, the car stereo.  What are it’s requirements?  What does it’s error msg mean?

The USB stick comes formated as FAT32 which is the most universally recognized format.  Maybe your car stereo only supports FAT16.  Maybe the car stereo has an option to support FAT32.  But can pretty much quarantee it doesn’t support NTFS.  Maybe a connector in the car stereo’s USB port is dusty or oxidized.

Check the car’s manual for what options/requirements the car stereo has.  Check the car stereo’s vendor’s website for information.

Hi,

But could you please let me know how is it possible that 4gb sandisk curz is supported by the car system and 16 gb is not both having same configuration.

Having NTFS file system.

Please help

I have already formatted the PD lot of times. but it still unreadable.

Thanks

Gaurav Gandhi

@kumargaurav001 wrote:

 

Having NTFS file system.

 

 

Memory cards & flash drives up to 32GB come pre-formatted from the factory with FAT32. All car stereo systems I know of recognize and use this format as well. If you re-formatted it to NTFS, that could be your problem. Re-format it to FAT32.

I have just purchased a 16gb Cruzer car for my 2016 Kia Venga.

It was formatted to Fat32, but when I plug it into the car I get “No device Present”

I have an unbranded 32gb stick that works ok, both devices are formatted as Fat32, but the Cruzer wiil not work. 

The device package states for use in Car audio systems and should be 16gb but only formats at 14.5 gb.

Is there sometning on the card that I need to remove before it will work?

@enfield250 wrote:

I have just purchased a 16gb Cruzer car for my 2016 Kia Venga.

It was formatted to Fat32, but when I plug it into the car I get “No device Present”

I have an unbranded 32gb stick that works ok, both devices are formatted as Fat32, but the Cruzer wiil not work. 

The device package states for use in Car audio systems and should be 16gb but only formats at 14.5 gb.

Is there sometning on the card that I need to remove before it will work?

Congratulations on your new (to you) Kia! I have a Sorento myself.

Your Cruzer flash drive might have come with “Secure Access” on it, which is a “vault” for encrypting & storing sensitve files/content. I suspect your car’s head unit is seeing this and giving you the error msg.

I would re-format the card (FAT32) which will remove this & then you can re-load the drive with your favorite tunes. Everything should work as it should after.

Yes, eliminating the Secure Acess files will free up a bit of space, but you will never see the full 16GB of space due to mathmatical differences explained here.

If you have any other problems, let us know. :smiley:

I’m pretty sure simply deleting the unneeded files and folders is adequate.  Hold the Shift key when doing it so Windows doesn’t create a recycle bin folder.  No need to format which might change the drive’s cluster alignment.

@ed_p wrote:

I’m pretty sure simply deleting the unneeded files and folders is adequate.  Hold the Shift key when doing it so Windows doesn’t create a recycle bin folder.  No need to format which might change the drive’s cluster alignment.

Yeah, that might be simpler & better.

I believe the problem is the drive is formatted using GPT partition table, most usb stereos require Fat32 format using the MBR Partition table. Use Rufus tool to format it, choose the drive, under boot selection choose non bootable, then select MBR partition scheme. Press start, wait for completion. Re-add your music files and try it in the car

I have this same issue in my Chevy Sonic. Looking through Chevy docs, I found a note that the USB device must be “Mass Storage Class” compliant… Additional searching, i see that there is MSC vs. MTP (Multimedia transfer Protocol)
Is it possible that the memory stick is set up only to respond to MTP devices? The car, looking for MSC, doesn’t find it? In my case, I have a SanDisk 32GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive - SDCZ430-032G-G46, that the car just won’t see. I have big clunky memory sticks that work fine - most were smaller capacity, one was 32Gb Kingston, worked fine. I got this sanDisk for the ultra small size, so it won’t get bumped around in the console where the USB port is… Is there something about making this super small dude, that there is something missing that the car needs? Sorry if that sounds silly, but all this stuff is just magic to me anyway!

I don’t remember if SanDisk starts using the exFAT format for 32GB flash drives or 64GB ones. But if it’s 32GB that could explain your car problem. Check the format and if exFAT you will need to backup your files, reformat the drive to FAT32 then restore your files.

You could also write to Chevy and ask if they have plans to enhance their USB options.

Thank you for the suggestions - yes I did look at this. It was originally Fat32, with allocation size 16 (incidentally, identical to a Kingston 32Gb stick that does work). For giggles, I did reformat the Sans with various formats and allocation sizes- whatever options the Windows right-click utility offered, threw on just a dozen or so MP3s, no luck. Went back to the original FAT32/16, still not working. I found a GM document that indicates 32Gb is the max size (and 10000 max files total, but even the fully loaded Kingston is at about 4000 files, so I’m good there), I find no mention of format configuration. I have not tried to contact anyone at GM yet. Might try to if the following doesn’t work.
I just ordered a Samsung branded 32Gb of the same small form factor I’m wanting, should be here today, we’ll see how that goes…

Update: the Samsung “Fit Plus” drive worked fine, (Note it came as a FAT32 alloc.unit 16, same config as the SanDisk) at least with the 1Gig or so of music I threw on to test. Later today, I’ll load it to capacity, see if it continues to work, and hopefully continue to work with both 32Gb sticks in. Song shuffle heaven!

At this point, my assumption is there is a configuration issue with SanDisk. This is the only brand of stick that would NOT work in my Sonic… I’ve tried a large handful of the misc 1 to 4 Gig sticks i have laying around, they all work. Maybe it gets dicier at 32Gig, which is the stated capacity limit, but so far, at 32G - Kingston=yes, Samsung=yes, Sandisk a big no… (I’m gonna scrounge back through that bag of smaller capacity ones I tried - don’t remember if there was a low capacity Sandisk in there or not…

When you get the Samsung check it’s drive format.

Oops! We cross posted. I see you’ve already checked.

I have been using a SanDisk 16GB 3.0 and a SanDisk 128GB 3.0 in my 2015 Sierra for several years and both work great. (No, I don’t need 128GBs, I just had it laying around and used it.) I recently purchased a SanDisk 32GB 3.1 USB to use. I didn’t look to see how it was formatted, just reformatted it NTFS to get rid of the software that was installed on it, and that is the format the other two USBs use. The truck’s audio system didn’t even know it was present; no errors or anything. The audio manual says NTFS or FAT32 work so I tried FAT32. Same thing, not recognized. Just for the heck of it I tried ExFAT - nothing. It also did not work in my wife’s 2015 Nissan Juke with any of the formats. It DID work perfectly in all three of my PC’s and in all three formats.

I sent it back and purchased a Samsung 64GB 3.1 Fit Plus. It came formatted in ExFAT and for the heck of it I threw a couple of mp3s on it and tried it. It was not recognized, but then, the system is not supposed to support ExFAT. I formatted it NTFS and put a couple of mp3s on it and BOOM! there it was and working perfectly.

Based on my experience and the posts I have read here, I think SanDisk did something to their USB Flash Drives that make them incompatible at least with my truck, and my wife’s car.