You're definitely right about that, it would be the cause for keeping the systems as limited as possible.

 

It's just an ATA hard drive so it wouldn't have any type of port that you could use to connect your laptop to it.

 

I will be removing my AV control unit over the next couple weeks and taking an image of it to work on. (You can see my previous posts under the main G35 Sedan '07 forum -- Navigation Lag post).

Nothing is unhackable, it's just a question of how far you're willing to go.

 

theyacolyte or anyone else for that matter,

If anyone removes the hard drive (HDD) (or finds a broken/replaced unit with a hard drive in it) and wants to share the image of it with me I will take a look at it and see what I can figure out. I will ship a HDD to the person so then can ship me the image. With the proper group looking at this we could def figure it out. Let me know

 

Yeah- the hard drive has to accessible somehow. Information can be pulled from it and written to it, so it IS hackable. Its just going to take a brave brave soul tearing into it and getting it into the right persons hands. I am not that person, but I would love for someone to figure it out.

 

Seems like I started an interesting discussion. I'm glad to see that others are interested in figuring out other ways to fill the music box also.

Although I do not own a g35 yet, I will probably place my order within a week or so. This board has been very helpful.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Well the biggest problem IMO is gonna be messing around not with the files, but with the information about the files.

When dealing with the CF card you can see that the thing just reads the contents and creates and index that you can browse and play... but with the CD ripping, it seems to store the data differently. That's why you need that Music Box Update (using TitleSearchInfo) when you rip a CD that is not in the car's database.

Unfortunately after messing around with Gracenote's SDK I couldn't figure out how to mess with the import/export data files that you can use when loading the missing album info... obviously they're encoding the data somehow and reading it with the software in the car.

But some of us are braver than others, and we're working on it, don't worry...

 

And we are glad you are! Seriously, we want options but are too chicken to do it ourselves.

 

Well the only reason why I haven't posted anything about it is because I ran into a wall when dealing with the gracenote stuff... makes no sense to get into the physical part of thing (removing the AV unit, removing the HD) if you can't deal with the data once you do.

And dealing with the data itself is another story... the gracenote sdk is provided for free under a non-commercial agreement, but I don't think that they intended for you to do this type of stuff with their data, so my hat is very gray at this moment. And seeing how "some people" that should go unnamed on this forum are a little bit strict when it comes to bypassing things, I'd much rather keep the specifics on the low.

But no worries... IF we get to some results -- good or otherwise -- I'll share what I know.

 

I understand the reasons behind keeping some things in the dark so to speak. I am married to moderator after all. I would like to hear if you get any results though. Good luck and make sure when you post that you try to do it in stupid speak instead of geek speak. LOL Otherwise, someone will have to translate.

 

Viguera,

I have not picked up my G yet. As soon as I do I will start looking at this as well. A PM with what you have would be a great jump start. Let me know.

Thanks

G

 

Tell me about it. The SM mentions the HD in a number of places, but doesn't give you any details whatsoever of where it is in the AV control unit, how to replace it, etc.

 

Please keep us posted. There are a lot of us interested in being able to manipulate the harddrive and its data...

 

I am also very interested in this project. I think that it's a shame that the only way to get music onto the HD is to rip from a regular Audio CD.

 

What about using a CF to "something" adapter?

Like, for example:
This: http://www.flash-memory-store.com/msacmcf1n.html

...which could somehow with a pin-to-pin mapped cable then connect to...

This: http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=37101569

Basically, it seems like you could add a hard drive externally via the CF slot, but I'm at a loss to find an adapter that makes a hard drive plug into a CF slot. Lots of adapters going the other way...