Apologies if this has already been covered, but I seem to recall there was some discussion a while ago about only being able to copy commercial CD's to the HDD, and if you have loads of downloaded mp3 tracks then you couldn't copy them.

However after a bit of experimentation, I found it is possible to get your mp3's onto the HDD. Its a bit of a pain, but if you burn your mp3 files to a CDR or CDRW, as audio files using Windows media player, then they will copy to the HDD. I also had some old vinyl albums which I had copied using one of the Magix products and these have also copied to the HDD. Of course they are not found in the Gracenote database, so the album data needs to be entered manually.

Thanks for that, I went to the dealers this morning, and while I was there I ask the sales-person if I could put mp3 tracks on the HDD, her reply was, no you can not.


I do not think they can get the staff.......

should have asked on here first............

Well the dealer is right. By burning your MP3's to an audio disk you are converting them to WAV format. The HDD system is still only ripping in a CD and converting it to MP3. What IS different from the manual is that it will rip in from CD-R's, although of course you have to enter in the metadata (e.g. artist, album, track names etc) manually - which can be tedious.

Burning a disc with a heap of mp3s on is better than having to use original CDs, however it's still not ideal, since you may need to be burning quite a few discs, and it's a faff to burn a disc to add just a couple of tracks.

Using the firewire connection next to the CD slot would be ideal.

Mercedes now have a SD card slot, that takes up to 2gb at a time, and you can download your mp3s directly to the HD that way.

Uploading a CD made with iTunes on an Apple iMac went in with no problems.

I agree, it would be nice to be able to download updates for the Nav too and apply them this way. I suspect only a dealer can do this.

I want to clarify though that you must be burning your MP3's to CD as an Audio CD. The HDD unfortunately will not read in MP3's off an MP3 Data CDR. However, it will play such a disc.

Hi wondered what I was doing wrong saving as data discs many thanks

Hi everyone,

I've had my new Prius a couple of weeks now and am loving it.
Anyway, just thought I'd say that the CD player also reads DVD-Rs and RWs with mp3s burnt on them! This is great as obviously they hold a lot more than CDs and you can still organise the mp3s into folders and select them from the folders. Who needs the ipod integration kit anyway!!??

hi all, if you use a DVD for the mp3's, are they burnt as data, like the CD, or are they burnt as audio.........thanks

SUPERB find! - I've just tried it and it works with a DVD-R in my T-Spirit. No mention of DVD support in the manual at all. Kinda makes a slight mokery of the HDD system given that you can get over 50% of it's capacity from a single DVD!

Only 1 issue - I burnt over 400 MP3's onto a DVD in a single folder and it will only read in the first 250 of them - so clearly there is a limit to the number of files supported. The general manual says no more than 255 files per data disc.

You can only burn audio to DVD's as data.

elliotsdad/Ikelos

Great result. I didn't think to try that. I guess whoever supplies Toyota with the drives decided it wasn't worth supplying CD only drives, as they are probably harder to find than combined DVD/CD drives.

All that's needed now is a firmware upgrade to lose the 255 file limit, and then to add MP3 copy to the HDD! However, I'm not holding my breath.

Not as great as I thought! Anyone know the reasoning for the 255 file limit? A bit of a bummer this, so I can't get as many songs as I thought I could. Oh well...

once I had the folder full, I just made another folder and so on, I put about a 1000 tracks on the DVD disk, and there is still loads of space left, I realize I can not add any more to it, but can always make another disk, and all the information is on there as well, only found that bit by accident, when I pressed the "audio" button

So you can access all the tracks on the DVD in your car? Mine only reads the first 255 tracks and the rest do not show.

Hi, yes, just turn the left control knob and it goes from one folder to the next, I burnt them onto the dvd disk with nero after dragging them from my MP3 player........

Have loaded three CDs, which I have previously loaded into my iMac computer and in each case it automatically entered the track details etc via Gracenote. When the same CDs were loaded into the car it was a nil response for details and I entered them in manually.

I then loaded a Linn CD AKD 030, but only recorded a couple of tracks before switching off. The next time I used the car for thirty miles and before switching off had a look and found that not only had all the tracks been completed but all their titles etc had been loaded in from Gracenote. What a boon it would be if it behaved like this all the time.

I assume that the Gracenote database can't be updated so is instantly out of date?

I presume the 250 file limit is per folder?
Does the drive play MP3s on DVD+RW and on a dual layer disk? If it does that means over 100 albums on one DL disk. Who needs the HDD!

Hi guys can any body hlep me I am tring to connect my laptop to via firewire to my prius 2010 (firewire slot near the CD slot )
but I could not find out how. my idea is to download songs in MP3 direct to the HDD ....

Tanks a lot for your help

Armando

yes, it is 250 per folder. I just use DVD-R

What am I doing wrong then, I can't get it to see more than 255 files per disc, even though I have put them into folders? The files and folders after the first 255 files just do not show up.

Same with me. I can only get to to list the first few folders with tracks adding up to 250 (or 255).

You are quite correct, it only sees the first 255 files. I suggested on another thread joining the tracks in an album together (using freeware like Shuangs Audio Joiner). You could miss out the tracks you don't like and end up with 100+ "part albums" on one disc, maybe even 150 "part albums on a DL DVD. You would of course be able to select the "part album" but not the track but at least you end up with a massive selection. Another way to mix it up, would be to select tracks from different albums to combine into one file.

Such a pitty the system doesn't cater for more than 255 files though

Hi from Italy... same problem for me: I can see only 255 files on the disc, no matter if they are in different folders or not.

Furthermore my system does NOT read DVD-R, I had to burn a DVD+R in order to get it work.

Ikelos, could you please tell us which version of software do you have in your system that seems to work with more than 255 files?

Thanks and regards!