[rob72]

Originally Posted by Booster4075

The BMW info on the CIC system says the hard drive is "comparable to the hard drive on a home computer or laptop." Its a 2.5" 80 GB drive. In addition, they say the CIC's modular construction make the hard drive independently serviceable - its inside the CIC in the lower half mounted on a slide-in tray. (However, BMW dealers will just replace the CIC as a unit.) If you take the bezel off the front, there is a little rectangular port in which the drive slides out backwards (towards you.) ...see attached

Interesting. It is clearly a Toshiba disk, but unfortunately the resolution is not good enough to get any other details from it.
It could technically still be either PATA (IDE) or SATA. But PATA would not be very future proof, so I would assume SATA.

[drwtsn32]

Originally Posted by Rotary Rasp

I don't think you understand what I'm talking about. Ghost has it's own OS that you boot in to from a flash drive. You never boot into windows.

Ghost doesn't provide an OS; it usually boots DOS and runs from there. That is safe, but I agree with *NEVER* booting Windows with that drive connected. And I also agree that Linux is your best bet for imaging. dd will make a perfect copy. And you are much more likely to get somewhere exploring the disk with Linux.

[SoYank]

I stopped by the local dealership this morning and the service technician provided me with a sheet showing the partitions of the hard drive. He doesn't know where the 4GB that was put towards the entertainment partition came from, though (see marking on the diagram). Thought this might be of interest.

[bsd107]

Originally Posted by drwtsn32

When I get a new car, I plan on getting 6FL so I can just use a USB hard drive. I don't want to bother copying everything to the internal hard drive. Upgrading the drive sounds like a pain in the arse, if it is even possible.

USB Memory Sticks at 64GB are now selling, so really you wouldn't even need to use a hard drive with 6FL. And of course those USB memory sticks will only continue to get larger....

Note that the manual says that "USB hard drives" are not supported - I assume they are just worried about power draw....

[Rotary Rasp]

Originally Posted by bsd107

USB Memory Sticks at 65GB are now selling, so really you wouldn't even need to use a hard drive with 6FL. And of course those USB memory sticks will only continue to get larger....

Note that the manual says that "USB hard drives" are not supported - I assume they are just worried about power draw....

well, according to the manual, the 6fl option can only read 16,000 mp3s. (I haven't confirmed this)

also, I have 145gb (35,000 mp3s) of music so a 64gb jump drive won't cut it.

lastly, the stock drive is most likely 4200 or 5400 rpm. upgrading to a 7200 rpm drive would increase the overall system speed.

[Rotary Rasp]

another thing I noticed is that I was unable to search the 6fl, only the internal hard drive.

[bsd107]

Originally Posted by Rotary Rasp

well, according to the manual, the 6fl option can only read 16,000 mp3s. (I haven't confirmed this)

also, I have 145gb (35,000 mp3s) of music so a 64gb jump drive won't cut it.

lastly, the stock drive is most likely 4200 or 5400 rpm. upgrading to a 7200 rpm drive would increase the overall system speed.

Good point about the number limitation on mp3's. Personally, I don't like lossy compression, and the iDrive hard drive does not support non-lossy compression formats. Therefore, I'm planning on using a 64GB USB memory stick, which will hold ~100 CD's worth of uncompressed PCM audio. The car WILL play uncompressed PCM in WAV format from 6FL, but will NOT do so from the iDrive (including from DVD-ROM discs in the drive slot).

You wouldn't see any appreciable increase in speed from a 7200rpm drive, IMHO. Those drives will give a faster sustained throughput rate, but we are talking really small file sizes here, so I don't think there would be a significant impact on speed (see the web on Playstation 3 upgrades to 7,200rpm drives as an example of how there is no speed improvement in some applications). Plus keep in mind that the 7200rpm drive will run hotter....

[bsd107]

Originally Posted by Rotary Rasp

another thing I noticed is that I was unable to search the 6fl, only the internal hard drive.

Strange - especially as the iDrive is supposed to cache the index for the last 4 USB devices connected to 6FL. Hopefully searching can be added to a future software update?

[Rotary Rasp]

Originally Posted by bsd107

Good point about the number limitation on mp3's. Personally, I don't like lossy compression, and the iDrive hard drive does not support non-lossy compression formats. Therefore, I'm planning on using a 64GB USB memory stick, which will hold ~100 CD's worth of uncompressed PCM audio. The car WILL play uncompressed PCM in WAV format from 6FL, but will NOT do so from the iDrive (including from DVD-ROM discs in the drive slot).

You wouldn't see any appreciable increase in speed from a 7200rpm drive, IMHO. Those drives will give a faster sustained throughput rate, but we are talking really small file sizes here, so I don't think there would be a significant impact on speed (see the web on Playstation 3 upgrades to 7,200rpm drives as an example of how there is no speed improvement in some applications). Plus keep in mind that the 7200rpm drive will run hotter....

I'm aware that only the 6Fl option will play PCM audio and for the few that need that high of fidelity will be limited to the method you mentioned. But for me, and most people, a mp3 encoded at 320kbps sounds excellent. I personally can't tell the difference between a CD and 320kbps mp3, not when played in car at least.

You're probably right about their not being much speed increase, we'll know for sure once someone tries it. 7200 rpm drives have a much fast random seek time which I though would help when calculating routes.

[Rotary Rasp]

Originally Posted by bsd107

Strange - especially as the iDrive is supposed to cache the index for the last 4 USB devices connected to 6FL. Hopefully searching can be added to a future software update?

This seemed very strange to me as well and it's possible I was doing something wrong. Keep in mind that I only played with the system while I was in Europe for a week doing the European delivery.

I was unable to do a search by "artist" from the 6FL. When my car gets redelivered in a month I'll have a chance to play with it more.

[bsd107]

Originally Posted by Rotary Rasp

I'm aware that only the 6Fl option will play PCM audio and for the few that need that high of fidelity will be limited to the method you mentioned. But for me, and most people, a mp3 encoded at 320kbps sounds excellent. I personally can't tell the difference between a CD and 320kbps mp3, not when played in car at least.

Yeah - I understand that I'm one of the few that insists on non-lossy compression.

I'm mainly annoyed that the New iDrive does not support a lossless codec like Apple Lossless or Windows Media Lossless.

Like you, I've also found that the New iDrive will play any MP3 or WMA format (i.e. bitrate, CBR, VBR, etc.) that I throw at it, with the files on a DVD-ROM. But, no PCM WAV from DVD-ROM - only from 6FL.

[bimmernupe]

Originally Posted by E90Eric

I got the HardDrive taken out today. Much to my dismay the drive is an 80GB PATA Toshiba HD. It's a MK8050GAC, if you google it you'll find a press release from Toshiba about their new Automotive drives. My Macbook Pro wouldn't give the drive enough power to spin up in my PATA sled so I've got it hooked to my Windows desktop machine. The computer doesn't recognize the file system so it's def. not NTFS or FAT. Norton's Ghost just recognizes 7 partitions of an "unknown" file type with various sizes. At this point doesn't seem like it would be an easy or worthwhile upgrade. Kudos to someone who figures out the file system and how to manipulate it.

.

[DeFKnoL]

I just removed my hard drive to continue this investigation. In my 2010 (with navigation, STDRD), the drive is still a PATA. The drive info can be found here:

http://storage.toshiba.eu/cms/en/hdd...?productid=226

I use linux so I had a little more luck seeing the partition table to see the partition ID's. This is what I saw with fdisk:

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9729.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdd: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6ad4b821

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1               1        9729    78148161    5  Extended
/dev/sdd5               1        7311    58725544+  4d  QNX4.x
/dev/sdd6            7312        7694     3076416   4d  QNX4.x
/dev/sdd7            7695        7907     1710891   4d  QNX4.x
/dev/sdd8            7908        8050     1148616   4d  QNX4.x
/dev/sdd9            8051        9708    13317853+  4d  QNX4.x
/dev/sdd10           9709        9729      168651   4d  QNX4.x

Command (m for help):

As you can see, the Partition types are QNX, which leads me to believe that the OS may also be QNX. That will require more investigation. The fact that it is Unlix-like is very promising.

For more info on QNX, Google it, I like what I'm reading here:

http://www.operating-system.org/betr...ish/bs-qnx.htm

In linux 2.6.31, the QNX support is still experimental, but I'm not too concerned considering I will never modify the original drive. I am currently dd'ing the drive into an image on my drive and will be getting another drive for hacking soon. If there is anything we can do with this, I'm confident that we will find it. But this is something that requires a lot of care and caution as well.

If anyone else plans to remove their disk in order to hack with this, even though it is QNX, I still recommend that you disconnect the battery before removal. Also, the carriage around the drive is not refined so if you don't handle it with care, the rough edges can slice through your skin.

[Rotary Rasp]

Wow, I haven't checked this thread in a while. It looks like the hard drive is designed for automotive environments, but that's not to say a normal laptop hard wouldn't be fine. With a rotation speed of 4200 rpm, I would think a 7200 rpm wold help speed up POI searches. However, finding a 7200rpm PATA hard drive might be difficult.

As for the OS, if it is QNX, then it could hold lots of possibilities. From what I have read on the OS, it's about as feature rich as you can get for an embedded operating system. However, not much can be done without the source code. If someone were able to get the source code from bmw, the possibilities would be endless.

Here's a screen shot of the QNX gui:

[skier]

Any tips on removing the lower part of the console covering the HD?

Originally Posted by DeFKnoL

I just removed my hard drive to continue this investigation.

[DeFKnoL]

Originally Posted by skier

Any tips on removing the lower part of the console covering the HD?

I basically pulled from the bottom. The pins that hold the piece in pace are metal so don't worry too much about breaking the, Just try to pull everyhting our straight-ward. It is not easy, but they do come loose.

When trying to mount the drive image, I had difficulty (I got the error "wrong fsid" in the system log), but that may be an error that I need to work out in Linux). Let me know what you come up with. I have not given up yet. There are still alternatives.

[MikeLogan]

Bump. Curious if DeFKnoL had any luck with exploring more of the QNX partitions after you mirrored the drive.

[DeFKnoL]

Originally Posted by MikeLogan

Bump. Curious if DeFKnoL had any luck with exploring more of the QNX partitions after you mirrored the drive.

I have put this on the back burner. But my last status was that I attempted to mount the actual drive (not the mirrored one) and got the exact same results. I even put the mirrored drive into the car and it worked flawlessly so I am confident that using dd did indeed produce a perfect copy (as I expected).

I searched around for a driver for this filesystem with no luck. I even downloaded QNX and tried mounting it under tha and still got the same results. I tried all of the Wind River demos that I could with still no results.

My only assumption at this point is that BMW is using a proprietary format on these drives. Likely, the OS is in a chip in the CIC and it just knows how to read the data on the drives without even doing a conventional mount. I guess it would take some hardcore reverse engineering (beyond my current expertise) to read the data off this thing.

[m_thompson]

Posted elsewhere: "April 14, 2010 at 1:28 am By Paul Tan: Blackberry maker RIM has just cut a deal to acquire QNX, the company which makes the QNX RTOS. The QNX system powers BMW’s latest version of the iDrive system, the one with the HDD navigation."

[pcstuff]

For those of you who're brave enough to take out the HDD and do a DIY upgrade, Toshiba just came out with 100 and 200 GB versions of their specially designed for auto-infotainment hard drives:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/15/t...shboard-bound/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...-90899189.html

Anyone going to try?

[DeFKnoL]

Originally Posted by pcstuff

For those of you who're brave enough to take out the HDD and do a DIY upgrade, Toshiba just came out with 100 and 200 GB versions of their specially designed for auto-infotainment hard drives:

Anyone going to try?

Unfortunately, it is not so simple. First we need to be able to read the drive. If you cannot mount it or even properly identify the drive, you won't be able to resize any partitions on it. There are several partitions that each would need to be resized and also have their data copied over.

Partition Magic will not do the trick for this hack.

But, once we figure out the filesystem, these drives will certainly come in handy.

[oilcrankinject]

Originally Posted by pcstuff

For those of you who're brave enough to take out the HDD and do a DIY upgrade, Toshiba just came out with 100 and 200 GB versions of their specially designed for auto-infotainment hard drives:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/15/t...shboard-bound/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...-90899189.html

Anyone going to try?

Interface is SATA so it wont work. We need PATA.

Unless someone can figure out how to mount a SATA adapter on the CIC. That would open up a new world!