formatting flash drive for dashcam

[bernie spier]

i’m having trouble getting the dash cam to work, formatted the drive for mac. any suggestions?

[Steven Paradise]

I formatted mine in the NTFS format they recommend and it works fine on my PC.

Sent from Steve Paradise's iPhone

> On Oct 19, 2018, at 9:13 AM, bernie spier <sbe...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> i’m having trouble getting the dash cam to work, formatted the drive for mac. any suggestions?
>

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[David Chin]

You must format with fat32 and not exFAT especially if your usb drive is greater than 32gb. I used a tool called verbatim to format in windows os. 

Regards,

David

On Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 9:14 AM bernie spier <sbe...@comcast.net> wrote:

i’m having trouble getting the dash cam to work, formatted the drive for mac.  any suggestions?

[Keith Edelstein]

Did u add the file to the drive TeslaCam?? Mine works fine

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 19, 2018, at 9:13 AM, bernie spier <sbe...@comcast.net> wrote:
>

> i’m having trouble getting the dash cam to work, formatted the drive for mac. any suggestions?
>

[bernie spier]

yes, added the file. does the cam icon display as soon as you put the drive in?

[Keith Edelstein]

Yes it should. I formatted on Mac but it didn’t say fat32. Whatever the default was worked

Sent from my iPhone

[Jerry Levitz]

Anyone know if this will work with 2015 MS?

Thanks

[AMP AGE]

I think it is only for AP 2.5

--

[bernie spier]

got dash cam to work.  purchased new 16 gig drive and didn’t format.  worked right away.  most drives have the correct default format.  btw, staples is selling this 16g drive for $7!  memory is cheap these days…

[Jared Banyard]

keep in mind that usb flash drives have different performance levels for reading and writing. If you want to future-proof, you should get one that can write at least over 10MB/sec. Also if you are going to store a lot of video and dont want to transfer them, or if they start using more cameras, you will need space. I sprung for this $30 Sandisk 128GB drive that is super small, and writes around 18MB/sec: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BGTG2A0/ 

[Michael Thwaite]

I’m giving a try with an SD card in an adapter to see how that fairs. To Jarad’s point, not all flash memory is the same and my first 8GB HP flash drive that I picked up for a few dollars died in just a few days! SD Cards are designed for greater writes so we’ll see how that goes. The ultimate choice would be a full duty USB SSD which cost north of $100, typically. Let’s see. 

For what it’s worth, my first ever SSD card has 165GB and cost $1,300... but it worked well!

MPT

[Frantz Rene]

I installed a 64GB 15X USB flash drive. I tested it in my complex and it recorded good video. The other night I was pulled over  by a squad car. The LEO accused me of passing the traffic on the right. I was pretty sure there were left turning arrows only in the left lane but, I didn’t argue with the officer knowing all I had to do was hit the little camera icon to download the event. After citing my missing front plate and the tinted driver windows, he let me off the hook with a warning which I gladly accepted. When I got home, I pulled the USB stick out only to find out the event was not recorded and the drive was full of junk files. Right before I pulled the drive out, I did notice a tiny x on the camera icon. Does anyone know why the drive records without being prompted?

[Michael Thwaite]

I’ve experienced the same, well, minus the first part but the second part where the recorder shows an X. The drive was corrupt, the root full of recovery files, presumably the fskcheck process trying to repair the volume. So far, after switching to an SD Card the recorder is reliable. I think that you may have a bad/slow/faulty USB drive. Alternatively, I winder if the USB drive maintains a good connection in the socket as the car bounces over NJ roads? That said, my first USB drive was both light an cheap so, not definitive.

MPT

[bernie spier]

not sure about the junk files, but the x will appear if the drive is pulled out w/o shutting it off. files are corrupted and drive needs to be repaired.

[Keith Edelstein]

My dash cam stopped working with the latest .41 update.  I have the x now. It worked fine with prior 2 iterations 

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 24, 2018, at 12:09 PM, Frantz Rene <franz...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Rob Marino]

I also have erratic behavior. Drive will work on day 1, but then when I come out the next day, I have the gray X. So I remove & reformat the drive. Insert the reformatted drive on Day 3 and it works fine and then come back out on Day 4 and I’ve got the gray x again.

It is a cheap drive (staples brand 32GB) so maybe that’s it but before I drop money on something more expensive as suggested below, I’d like to know that those solutions are more reliable.

@Jared - Has your USB drive been working consistently? I like the small form factor.

@Michael (or anyone else) - have you had success with an SD card + adapter? If so which one(s)?

Thanks.

- Rob

[Michael Thwaite]

I’ve been using a SanDisk SD adapter with a SanDisk 4GB card (5-year old SLC flash) reliably for 5 days / 300 miles after problems with cheap HP 8GB USB flash.

MPT

[Rob Marino]

Will something like this work: https://smile.amazon.com/SanDisk-32G-microSD-microSDHC-C4/dp/B004WDRS92/ref=sr_1_4?dd=vvXiMLB-uC6XYV7ghh3qrQ%2C%2C&ie=UTF8&qid=1540400382&sr=8-4&keywords=sandisk+sd+adapter&refinements=p_89%3ASanDisk%2Cp_90%3A8308921011

[Michael Thwaite]

I’d anticipate that would be successful based on what we know thus far. At $17 I think it’s worth the risk!

MPT

[bernie spier]

I’m pretty sure its not the drives.  i just repaired my cheap $7 drive and its working again.  just make sure to shut down before pulling it out, that corrupts the file…

[Michael Thwaite]

That’s what lead me to wonder if the connection is loose. I’ve seen recording switch to X without unplugging.

MPT

[bernie spier]

certainly possible

[Edward Iskra]

I've been having problems with a 16 GB Sony stick (Infosys label, so it was part of a free promo) that has a few years on it. Probably USB 2.0.

I would format, make the folder, put it in, it would work for one or two drives, then the icon would show it's no longer recording.

I replaced it with a $3.70 16 GB USB 3.0 stick I bought at Microcenter. (They have the cheap store-brand sticks at the register, not on display.)

Has been working flawlessly since putting in the $4 stick.

[Frantz Rene]

Bernie is right. The drive is constantly recording so pulling it out corrupts writing file. Forty minutes of recording was on the drive except the footage that included my driveway at the end of the recordings. When I pulled the drive out, I must have corrupted the last recording file.

[Michael Thwaite]

A week and two days, I haven’t touched the USB adapter and SD Card and, it died this morning.

MPT

[Steven Paradise]

I reformatted mine and it worked for about an hour and then the “x” appeared and it died. I didn’t touch it either. 

I’ll try it again on the new update (just finished loading) and report back this afternoon. 

Sent from Steve Paradise's  iPhone