On Wed, 23 May 2018 06:50:44 +0100, MikeS wrote:

On 21/05/2018 19:52, Newsworthy wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2018 14:15:52 -0400, Paul wrote:

Newsworthy wrote:
Can anyone tell me what is going on here and maybe suggest a cure.
Long explanation follows!
I have for the last 6 months used a 500GB WD My Passport drive with
all my music on it 212GB, 3,479Folders, 41,546Files in my car with no
problems, I recently took it out to add new music, but when I put it
back in the car I got the message 'No music or picture files'
So I reformatted the drive ExFAT, Folders and Files are named thus:
folders A, B, C, etc. with folder with Artist name within and Album
names within that and MP3s within that.
I added a few folders (A & XYZ)put it in the car and all the music
was seen and could be played, so took it back inside added C, D, & E
but then got the message 'No music or picture files' again.
Tried all that again with the same results, then deleted those extra
folders, tried it again and it was now seen, there seems to be some
kind of limit where there was not previously.
How can I have all my music in the car with me again?

Why wouldn't you Google the car make and model and its infotainment
system, to learn of its quirks ?

It sounds like the car is adding files as "markers"
to the file system. CHKDSK on the Windows end is removing something it
doesn't like, then the car notices when the drive comes back.

If your car system has a "quirk", Google should be full of the
details.

Paul

But how come it's only just started happening? surely it would have
happened on previous occasions I've added Folders/Files, I'm struggling
to work out what is different to last week.

Probably because the car system firmware has a limit on the number of
folders and/or files it can handle and you have now exceeded the limit.
With 41,000 tunes I doubt you will miss a few if you try deleting
them.

I had already considered a limit but I am putting on nowhere near what it
was previously able to handle, as I said in my original post, it was able
to see my whole collection, I have now tried another drive and the results
are the same so I suspect a fault in the car system (it is a late 2015
Mercedes c63)
Of course I've tried googling, but putting the words 'hard drive' into a
search are not productive as it throws up 1,000s of unrelated posts.
thanks for your suggestions but I've about given up and am using 2 memory
stick instead, not all my music but enough.