[jtmccabe]

Well, I went to CompUSA only to find that the 4200 RPM SmartDisk FireLite advertised on their site is actually 5400 RPM. They had no 4200 RPM drives in stock.

I decided to give the 160 GB Iomega drive a try since I remembered reading that someone got an Iomega to work. I also bought a cigarette lighter-to-USB jack adapter so that I could try giving the drive some more power. It did actually work like that, although there is one big problem. When you shut the car off, the drive needs some time to shut down. Unfortunately the cigarette lighter power goes away as soon as the ignition turns off. Then the drive sits there still sort-of on and unable to power itself off, making some sad little repetitive noise as it tries over and over to power down.

The weak USB power stays on for a good 30 seconds or so after you turn the car off. I'm thinking that the solution might be to tap into the USB power lead and drive a relay with that. Does anyone know how much current the USB jack delivers? This would probably work if we can find a relay that requires less than whatever it is. Of course, it would also require running a power wire to the fuse box.

I think this is starting to become more of a PITA than it's worth. I would just buy a 160 GB iPod, except that I've already had two of them and they both had more problems than I could deal with. I'm starting to think I may never have access to all of my tunes in my car.