USB-stick is a modern drive, probably the most convenient to use and compact, capable of saving up to 32 GB of information. After all, you agree, it is incredibly inconvenient to carry CDs, and where to put them in the car? Fortunately, humanity has created a device called a USB-flash drive, which is now available to everyone, and today car stereos read them without problems. By the way, do you know who made it so convenient to enjoy your favorite music? Of course, thanks to the Japanese, Toshiba employee Fujio Masuoka, he invented the flash drive back in 1984!
Thanks to the progress of flash drives are now used by all, well, or almost all motorists. But, what to do if you insert your drive into the head unit, and it refuses to recognize it? And it is possible that yesterday the same head unit without problems reproduced the contents from the same flash drive… If this happened to you, you have to understand that there are reasons for this, and now we will try to figure them out together.
Most modern head units do not have such an issue. Read our guide on the best double din head unit.
1. Why does the head unit not read the flash drive?
The reasons may be different:
- Viruses. You may have put a virus on your device when you were recording music or other information.
- Too much memory of the thumb drive. Some old single din car stereos do not know how to read large volumes, because when they were made, there were no such large flash drives, and they are not designed for devices that have more than 8GB of memory.
- The reason may be the USB input. Contacts can break off in places of soldering.
- The flash drive can break; it happens rarely, but still…
- Files on the flash drive have an extension that your radio does not read. Or it may be that the name of the tracks contains Cyrillic letters, and the processor of the car radio can only accept Latin characters.
- The head unit is broken, or the firmware’s out of date.
2. How to fix the situation on your own
So, let’s see how you can fix the problem:
- The first thing to do – is to remove the flash drive and insert again, what if …
- You need to check it on your computer or laptop if the files open or not. Then test the flash drive for viruses, but before that, it is better to throw the contents from the flash drive to the computer, because if the antivirus program detects a virus, it can remove all files with it.
- View the format of the files on the flash drive; if they are not readable by your radio, they can be easily converted. There is even an online converter where you can download a file and save it to any other format.
- If the reason is that the flash drive has too much memory, then it should be replaced with a smaller one.
- You may have to make full formatting of the drive; it can be done using Windows, you need to click on the icon of the flash drive right mouse button and select the FORMAT, or download a program for formatting.
- If you find the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet in the files of the stick, then replace them with Latin.
3. Other head unit malfunctions
So, if you have checked all the options, and the files on the flash drive do not play by your stereo, then you need to contact the service center. The experts will find the correct cause of failure and eliminate it.
There are many other causes of car radio malfunctions. Here are some of them:
- main control board fault;
- heavy dirtiness of car stereo with dust;
- power problems, which occur very often.