Has anyone tried removing the music box hard drive and hooking it up to a computer? I wonder if songs could just be copied from the computer and then recognized when the hard drive is put back in the car. It would take a lot less time this way instead of loading one CD at a time. Does anyone know where the hard drive is located? Is it easily accessible?

Thanks,
Mike

One additional question, can one throw in bigger drive?

No one has tried this to my knowledge so I don't think you'll find a definitive answer to your question. Seems like more trouble than it's worth if you ask me.

Don't forget that the Navi software is loaded on the HD, so if you install a bigger HD what do you plan on doing then for Navi? Not to mention voiding your warranty by installing a different HD.

Ghost can easily copy nav info to a new drive. it would be very worth it for those who have excessive amounts of music, as well as those who do not own proper CDs, but rather download all their music at 99c a pop.

But we don't even know what file system the HD is using, therefore Ghost could be completely useless. I just wouldn't install a bigger HD, void my warranty, and chance having things like the Navi and voice commands not work properly. I am sure there will be some people other there that will try it, but it just won't be me.

When you find out WHERE the HD is and HOW to tap into it and can mirror the Nav files, please do share!!!! I think there are a lot of people interested in this for a plethora of different reasons. I would like to be able to directly load my music onto it as well... this is the reason I dont use the musicbox.

Sean, it looks like the HD is built into an AV Control Unit, which is directly behind the in-dash CD player. The radio, HD, CF slot, bluetooth, and CD player make up this AV Control Unit. From what I can tell, any malfunction in one of these components will result in a AV Control Unit replacement. So who knows how easy/hard it would be to swap HDs. If the service manual doesn't tell you how to do it, something tells me it's not straight forward.

Also keep in mind the HD is probably made for the mobile envronment (designed for vibration and temperature extemes). You probably can't just stick any old 500Gb drive into the AV control unit.

Yep, that's correct Terry. It uses a 30 GB Seagate EE25 (Extreme Environment) Series hard drive. And the biggest Seagate makes of this type is 40GB.

Mike,

You cannot remove the hard drive as you suggest (a good idea, though), since the hard drive is located in the main audio unit. The AV Control Unit and the CD Player/Changer are all one unit (not two separate units as some of you have suggested), I know this because, my Audio Unit had to be replaced since my CD's were getting stuck (they would not eject).

After the new audio unit was installed, I had to restore ALL of my navigation settings and defaults, re-pair my bluetooth phone, reload all of my phonebook entires and voicetags, and rip all of my CD's over again to the Music Box hard drive (I had over 30 CD's loaded to the hard drive).

I know this is not what you wanted to hear, but you did really expect Infiniti to make it that easy?

Regards,

Even if you cannot 'remove' it. Can you connect to it in order to upload/download information to or from it. This is the area that interests me. Much more so than actually replacing it with something else. I would just like to find a port or connection of some type to be able to connect it to a laptop and upload/download files to it-

You would think that the Bluetooth connection would be the easiest way to upload files to the HD. That's what is great about this car and frustrating at the same time. I think we or they ( the auto industry ) are several years away from coming to the PC/mod world that some of us are so familiar with. For now there's the CF slot and I would think USB would not be very far away.

-Frank

I think there are limits to what they are doing based on the copyright protections, etc. I am sure they are capable of doing lots of things that the industry is not ready to do simply because it makes it easier for people to pirate music.

Without getting into a philosophical discussion I think the music industry and the MPAA has done a very very good job in using the, "Everyone is going to pirate music or movies so we'll make it as hard and inconvenient as possible for people to move digital media from one system to another."

That said, if we were all college students then I think Nissan would have an argument but since this is a $33-40K vehicle to begin with I would venture that most of the owners can afford the original CDs or the 99 cents to download it from ITUNES.

I have hundreds of CDs on my computer and many more individual songs downloaded from the online music stores. It would be great if you could utilize the full potential of the HD by moving this music there.

The CF is nice but it has it's own limitations.

I don't agree that the piracy thing is a good reason - I just realize that is the likely cause.