[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by emanmor345

yea so music transfers seem finicky, same as well for map updates

i put my old hdd back, did the update, and wrote that back to the ssd

Like you and others in this thread I had the same issue, nav would work fine but updates would fail.

Also my DVD on the cic would not pay disks either saying "checking..." or "unreadable format". Music CDs would play fine.

Anyway I put the orig HDD back updated maps and played a DVD, it all worked fine, first time. So maybe there is some DRM or something else going on in the background tied to the original hard drive e.g. serial no, maybe it writes some authoriasation to the HDD?

[opjose]

No there is no DRM on the hard drive.

If writing maps fails then either there is a hardware issue or the drive is not formatted properly.

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by opjose

No there is no DRM on the hard drive.

If writing maps fails then either there is a hardware issue or the drive is not formatted properly.

Thanks for the reply. So you're saying the problem is either hardware or software I did not expand the partitions, only did a 1:1 copy using dd on a mac.

It is odd how sensitive the system is to SSD upgrades.

Like I say the DVD works fine with the HDD. So it is not the CIC HW or original HDD that is bad. Maybe the SSD. But the SSD is mostly read-only (not written to very much, or so we thought.)

My understanding is there no software running from the HDD, only data (maps, ripped music, FSCs etc). All the CIC software is run from the CIC internal flash. Even if my SSD formating is bad or my SSD hardware is bad, what data on the SSD is needed for DVD playback(?)

Others have experienced the same and had to go back to the HDD to do the maps upgrade. e.g. https://forum.bmw5.co.uk/topic/14190...blems-bricked/ ("Edit: fixed - I took out the SSD drive and put the HDD back in and it worked perfect the first time. Only explanation I can think of is the SSD is faulty.") and https://cartechnology.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=44718 ("Are you running stock hard drive in CIC, or SSD upgrade? I've seen this before on an SSD, I think TRIM was causing problems. ")

Others like Beachparty have issues reading CDs after SSD upgrade. For me DVD work only with the HDD installed CDs work with either the SSD or HDD.

I will try to re image my HDD onto my SSD to see if that makes a difference to DVD playback.


edit: typos and added link/quotes

[POBEP]

Originally Posted by AstroZ

It is odd how sensitive the system is to SSD upgrades.

...

Maybe the SSD. But the SSD is mostly read-only (not written to very much, or so we thought.)

My vote would be for the low grade SSD.

I did the same (on 2009 E91): macos + dd (no resizing) to industrial grade Micron init.
Absolutely zero issues for over a year now, including map upgrades.

Just got another Micron for the new fleet addition (2011 E90), planning to image sometime soon.

[opjose]

The hard drive or SSD is constantly being read from while using navigation.

When using the radio or satellite radio, it is used to buffer the on air data including your DVD viewing.

That is why if you pull the drive your radio also stops working.

Btw the CIC can record radio programs to the HDD.

If there are issues writing and reading from the HDD you end up with pauses and performance issues with the CIC in general.

I have had an SSD in my car now going on five years without a single issue.

I don't see the system as "sensitive" but it requires very specific drives to work properly.

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by opjose

I don't see the system as "sensitive" but it requires very specific drives to work properly.

Not senstive, but only works in very specific circumstances

Surprising how much the HDD (SSD) is used by the CIC for day to day tasks. Some wrong info out there says it is mostly read-only.

Mine is working again All I did was reimage the HDD back to the exact same SSD. This time I used /dev/rdiskN rather than /dev/diskN which made the clone much faster. No issues. Can play DVDs now but did not try map update as it was already updated to latest. I did update gracenote to 2019 and that worked ok.

POBEP I agree it could be the SSD drive I'm using, a samsung ?851. I would have done a SMART check on the SSD (may have found poor SSD health?) but needed to use the car so did not bother. I will look into a higher rated micron SSD when it fails again.

[opjose]

Yeah the "raw" disk block write is the proper way to clone it.

Congrats!

[Ian mead]

Ok guys. Wonder if anyone can help.
E93 2009 with cic factory fitted,

My music folder has suddenly greyed out and cd player just says reading.....

Would it be possible for someone to fix that issue or if I bought another hdd would someone be able to clone my old one
And then copy to new hdd

There is absolutely no way that I have the computer knowledge to do as per the original post.
I’m based in London if anyone can do. Obviously would pay. !!

[E82Spain]

Really informative topic, so thank you for this. Prior to plunging into swapping out the HDD for an SSD I just have one question.

I have a 2009 E82, meaning my allocation for SatNav updates is only 8GB & therefore unable to complete a map upgrade beyond 2015 maps (as they require 16GB of *******.

With a larger SSD (128GB), will this in turn open up more space for current map updates?

[opjose]

The maps partition would have to be enlarged.

That is not trivial and similar to making the music partition larger. It also modifies the disk layout.

I don't know if your CIC firmware version supports it too.

[POBEP]

For some reason I can not get SSD to work on the 2011 E90 335d.
I had zero issues a year ago on 2009 E91 328i

Micron mSATA SSD, Ableconn adapter, full disk clone, no resize.
The old HDD works fine.
The Micron mSATA SSD (with the Ableconn adpater) shows cloned partitions correctly when in the old Dell 700m laptop ...

sha256 checksum on new and old drives came out identical ... must be that CIC does not like the adapter

[Leucosticte]

I'm having issues trying to clone the CIC image onto the SSD. I'm using the M500it drive with the Marvell mSATA to to IDE adapter, along with an IDE to USB adapter. When I tried to restore the image using the method in the OP the SSD would have a partition that said it was 640GB which made no sense to me as its a 120GB SSD. So I tried using clonezilla instead and it gave me a "can't find partition sdc5" error when I tried to restore the image. Can anyone with experience in this sort of stuff help me out?

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by Ian mead

Ok guys. Wonder if anyone can help.
E93 2009 with cic factory fitted,

My music folder has suddenly greyed out and cd player just says reading.....

Would it be possible for someone to fix that issue or if I bought another hdd would someone be able to clone my old one
And then copy to new hdd

There is absolutely no way that I have the computer knowledge to do as per the original post.
I’m based in London if anyone can do. Obviously would pay. !!

hi

sorry to hear you are having issues. This is a common failure of the original hard drive. I take it you do not have a SSD installed and it's not a retrofitted head unit.

you do not need to try to recover your old HHD all you need is the right HDD with the right data preinstalled the right hdd is TOSHIBA HDD 80GB MK8050GAC

check out the following:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333975474658 (archive.org)
or
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263019540045 (archive.org)

you would need to get maps activated via FSC code, fairly easy nowadays via usb stick and Jagaer 1b fsc calc. or you can get the vendor to install it per your vin.

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by E82Spain

Really informative topic, so thank you for this. Prior to plunging into swapping out the HDD for an SSD I just have one question.

I have a 2009 E82, meaning my allocation for SatNav updates is only 8GB & therefore unable to complete a map upgrade beyond 2015 maps (as they require 16GB of *******.

With a larger SSD (128GB), will this in turn open up more space for current map updates?

it should be possible, as it works for music, I cannot see why not for map data. I looked in the file system of my CIC today via telnet and there are no hardcoded sizes for partitions.

The only issue as noted by @opjose is creating resizing the partition using QNX. It can be a pain if you are not used to UNIX/Linux VMs. I have the QNX virtual machines already running... and did not bother with resizing (yet)!

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by POBEP

For some reason I can not get SSD to work on the 2011 E90 335d.
I had zero issues a year ago on 2009 E91 328i

Micron mSATA SSD, Ableconn adapter, full disk clone, no resize.
The old HDD works fine.
The Micron mSATA SSD (with the Ableconn adpater) shows cloned partitions correctly when in the old Dell 700m laptop ...

sha256 checksum on new and old drives came out identical ... must be that CIC does not like the adapter

Why did you make a new clone or clone from a HDD? perhaps your SSD is bad? try the SSD in windows and check the smart status.

not sure if you are having the same issue as me, I redid the clone when I noticed DVD video and map updates would not work. I used the /dev/rdiskN to clone. It worked perfectly with a second "fresh" clone from the original HDD onto the cheap samsung SSD.

I read somewhere that it could be a TRIM issue when SSDs are used in applications where a spinning HDD is expected.

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by Leucosticte

I'm having issues trying to clone the CIC image onto the SSD. I'm using the M500it drive with the Marvell mSATA to to IDE adapter, along with an IDE to USB adapter. When I tried to restore the image using the method in the OP the SSD would have a partition that said it was 640GB which made no sense to me as its a 120GB SSD. So I tried using clonezilla instead and it gave me a "can't find partition sdc5" error when I tried to restore the image. Can anyone with experience in this sort of stuff help me out?

That is very strange!

I would use a linux virtual machine (e.g. Ubuntu) and an IDE to USB adaptor to make the image. using guest additions in virtual box, you should be able to connect the USB drive directly to the ubuntu virtual machine. here I can attach my USB stick:



use dd to make a disk image from your old/original HDD and used dd again to copy that image to your SSD. your Virtual machine will need at least 80gb free space.

BE very careful with dd commands. Pointing to the right device (sda sdb) is crucial. in dd commands the "if" parameter means "input file" and "of" means "output file". you should be OK if you only read from your old HDD and only write to the new SSD. use the mount command to check drive names before and after pluging in to work out which device is your USB disk.



1) copy the old HDD to an image file:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/AstroZ/cic-HDD-copy.img bs=1M

n.b. /dev/sdb means your HDD drive the letter "b" in sdb could be any letter (a-z) and we are reading from sdb ("if") to a disk image file ("if")

this will take 120+ minutes, even on a fast machine

2) once dd is done, unplug your hdd, store it away safely

3) now plug in your new SSD and connect to the virtual machine

(optional), zero the new drive (SSD) for a fresh start:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc bs=1M

4) copy the .img HDD image file to the new SSD:

sudo dd if=/home/AstroZ/cic-HDD-copy.img of=/dev/sdc bs=1M

5) plug the SSD into your CIC, all being well it should all be working

n.b. here "/dev/sdc" means your SSD drive, the letter c in sdc could be any letter (a-z), and we are writing to sdc ("of") from the img file ("if") that was created in step 1

this will take 120+ minutes, even on a fast machine

Similar steps can be used on a mac, where I recommend you use /dev/rdiskN rather than /dev/diskN

there are lots of dd tutorials on youtube, too

good luck!

[POBEP]

Originally Posted by AstroZ

Why did you make a new clone or clone from a HDD? perhaps your SSD is bad? try the SSD in windows and check the smart status.

not sure if you are having the same issue as me, I redid the clone when I noticed DVD video and map updates would not work. I used the /dev/rdiskN to clone. It worked perfectly with a second "fresh" clone from the original HDD onto the cheap samsung SSD.

I read somewhere that it could be a TRIM issue when SSDs are used in applications where a spinning HDD is expected.

AstroZ - thanks!

I am leaning towards "bad" original clone too.

I did checksum the image I cloned from HDD and another checksum of image from SSD. Perhaps the original cloned image was not good - I am just verifying 2 bad images ...

I verified smart status of the HDD and SSD - it was OK.

Last year, when I did E91, the HDD smart status reported multiple bad blocks being relocated.

[Leucosticte]

Originally Posted by AstroZ

That is very strange!

I would use a linux virtual machine (e.g. Ubuntu) and an IDE to USB adaptor to make the image. using guest additions in virtual box, you should be able to connect the USB drive directly to the ubuntu virtual machine. here I can attach my USB stick:

Attachment 2595368

use dd to make a disk image from your old/original HDD and used dd again to copy that image to your SSD. your Virtual machine will need at least 80gb free space.

BE very careful with dd commands. Pointing to the right device (sda sdb) is crucial. in dd commands the "if" parameter means "input file" and "of" means "output file". you should be OK if you only read from your old HDD and only write to the new SSD. use the mount command to check drive names before and after pluging in to work out which device is your USB disk.

Attachment 2595367

1) copy the old HDD to an image file:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/AstroZ/cic-HDD-copy.img bs=1M

n.b. /dev/sdb means your HDD drive the letter "b" in sdb could be any letter (a-z) and we are reading from sdb ("if") to a disk image file ("if")

this will take 120+ minutes, even on a fast machine

2) once dd is done, unplug your hdd, store it away safely

3) now plug in your new SSD and connect to the virtual machine

(optional), zero the new drive (SSD) for a fresh start:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc bs=1M

4) copy the .img HDD image file to the new SSD:

sudo dd if=/home/AstroZ/cic-HDD-copy.img of=/dev/sdc bs=1M

5) plug the SSD into your CIC, all being well it should all be working

n.b. here "/dev/sdc" means your SSD drive, the letter c in sdc could be any letter (a-z), and we are writing to sdc ("of") from the img file ("if") that was created in step 1

this will take 120+ minutes, even on a fast machine

Similar steps can be used on a mac, where I recommend you use /dev/rdiskN rather than /dev/diskN

there are lots of dd tutorials on youtube, too

good luck!

Here's what happens after I follow the process:






What am I doing wrong?

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by Leucosticte

Here's what happens after I follow the process:






What am I doing wrong?

All looks ok. How was the img file made? It seems like your mbr may have been corrupted. The partitions are not showing. Post the results of

sfdisk -d /dev/sdc

fdisk -l /dev/sdc

[POBEP]

Originally Posted by POBEP

AstroZ - thanks!

I am leaning towards "bad" original clone too.

I did checksum the image I cloned from HDD and another checksum of image from SSD. Perhaps the original cloned image was not good - I am just verifying 2 bad images ...

I verified smart status of the HDD and SSD - it was OK.

Last year, when I did E91, the HDD smart status reported multiple bad blocks being relocated.

AstroZ - thanks a lot for hints.

Drive re-clone did not help.

I was pulling my hair for a week.

Incidentally, I had exactly the same IDE-2-mSATA adapter I bought a year ago for my E70 which I did not get a chance to use.

After swapping the adapter everything work as expected.

Same PCB, same chipset ... the only difference is manufacture date

[StevenN]

Hi,

Well I changed my CIC 80gb HDD to a 120gb MSata, using the same parts as detailed on the installation instructions (Page 1). Everything worked fine, until now, And similar problems to what others have had I think? However, I may have a reasoning for this, if others could help with my reasoning, that would be appreciated.

This weekend, I noticed the CD Player would not work, unusual as I rarely use it, it simply reported, "Unreadable Media".

On checking the music collection within the HDD, this would also not play. I then deleted the collection, and tried importing again through the USB. The also failed, with the message, "Import Failed" However, it had written something as I was able to "Delete" the collection again, even though there was nothing on it. Everything else worked fine, SatNav, commands, etc. although I have not tried a SatNav Map update.

Yesterday, I took the MSATA out and wote the cloned disc image back to it, everything is all working perfect again. This leads me to a possibility that the QNX system and Controller are not compatiable in the usage of the MSATA. I am thinking, that the MSATA has not corrupted, or suffered heat stroke, but has become full, and cant be erased deleted by the QNX and Controller.

With a HDD, you can simply write data back and forth to the HDD, however, with SSD's, you have to firstly delete the old data, and then that block can be used. Something that possibly the controller was not doing correctly.

So, on looking around the web, I found this PATA SSD Drive:

https://www.memoryc.co.uk/16612-128g...SABEgJyEfD_BwE

Does anybody have any experience of using these type of drives? Or can suggest an alternative?

Thanks

[AstroZ]

Originally Posted by POBEP

AstroZ - thanks a lot for hints.

Drive re-clone did not help.

I was pulling my hair for a week.

Incidentally, I had exactly the same IDE-2-mSATA adapter I bought a year ago for my E70 which I did not get a chance to use.

After swapping the adapter everything work as expected.

Same PCB, same chipset ... the only difference is manufacture date

That is very interesting - can you post a few pics of the device(s) you used and links to where you got them from?

so it could be a firmware issue with the adapter. The sata -> ide chlp must read some data from the SSD to present it as an IDE drive (this is why the drive appears as a "samsung" when connected to a machine, and the size appears right).