Well, i got my NAV update today... Since i work for the dealer, it was easier for me to hold onto the old HD for an extra day or two, so i could take it come, and hook it up to my laptop and see whats on it... I was just curious how it was formatted and how i could edit or manipulate the data in any way. Well, it turns out, that the drive is a 1.6GB 2.5in laptop harddrive, i looked up the specs on it, and its a pretty slow drive, but being that its for a dedicated NAV system, i suppose it doesnt need to be fast. For those who know computers, i saw that the filesystem on the drive is FAT.. everything can be read, copied, etc in windows. Im curious to see if i can copy the files onto another harddrive, and see if it will still work in the drive. For legal reasons, i dont plan on copying this data with the intent on selling it in any way, shape, or form... But i was curious if i could speed up my NAV a bit, with a quicker harddrive.. since ive got a few spare drives laying around im going to try to copy the data onto another drive and see what happens.

For comparison sake, i checked out a navigation DVD... and everything is in a completely different format.. different file types, etc... so my idea of possibly using newer nav updates on the harddrive wont work Oh well.. at least now i know

I know the majority of you guys dont care... and some of you may have even done this yourself. Its all widely accessable info.. as all i really had to do was pull the HD out of my car and check it out... so for those concerned, theres nothin illegal goin on here

 

I always thought about this when I had my GS300 with HDD navigation. I always came to the conclusion that Lexus probably has a custom firmware loaded on the drive to prevent copying.

I never tried it though. Interested in the results...

 

Thats interesting. I would actually like to see if these things can be sped up. I sometimes notice decent delays in the system. What is the speed of the drive in the lexus?

 

Also, if you say the drive is 1.6GB then it is unlikely that the Lexus system would have be designed to support anything over the 37GB limit that was previously encountered with IDE. The system may also be locked into the drive geometry for the factory hard drive and may not recognize anything else.

 

I would also be interested in this custom mod.
I do see all the acura people modified their wallpapers and everything else in their nav data. Please keep up updated on this and let me know if you need any help in hacking this.

 

Well, the model number on the HD is Fujitsu M2724TAM, and when looked up, its a 1.6GB ATA-3 hard drive, with a 128k buffer, 4000rpm speed, 12ms seek time.. here is the link to the drive data from Fujutsu... http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/HDD/m272t-spec.pdf#search='m2724tam%20fujitsu'

There is certainly room for improvement.. i just doubt a higher rpm drive with a bigger buffer would really help that much. but its worth a shot i guess...

 

i copied the old harddrive data onto my computer, so i can go through it... alot of the image files are .img files, and i havent been able to open them with IrfanView... im looking for another program that might help out.. im interested in doing the same thing... i wish i knew something about programming, id add extra features, lol... as of now, im pretty confident that i could copy the drive data to another drive and have it function properly.. i dont see any reason why it wouldnt.. its a FAT file system viewable in windows... the only thing i dont know is what is in the boot sector... but i could make an ISO copy of the drive and copy it that way.. so that doesnt pose a problem either..

 

Go to www.gimp.org, this graphic interface will open just about anything for editing. Not a well documented program but after a while you can figure it out, plus it's FREE!

 

It's not likely that anything is in the boot sector since the hard drive would most likely only store data and images.

 

Any updates on this guys. I am thinking about modifying the drive with custom wall papers and animation also just like to know if the image transfer feature worked.

 

I have an idea!

Create a virtual drive on the hard drive, and put the NAV DVD as a fake cd, and make your own images and w/e =]

 

i just wonderin if we use a bigger harddrive could it be used it to play movies or mp3
just wondering let me know the output of this

 

I will attempt this tomorrow. Here is what I am doing. I will be transfering the image from my current Harddrive to a 250gb Hard drive. I will also create 3 custom partition one for the Navi Image the other 2 for DVD and MP3. FAT file system is perfect for VOB playback. I will try and implement some options where we can install DVD files and play Divx off the Hard drive. Lets see how it works. I have the whole weekend to work on the car since the family will be away. I will post the update by monday.

 

Interesting. I hope you guys get it to work.

 

good luck hksnlper. please do share your info