SOLUTION TO TOYOTA TUNDRA NOT RECOGNIZING USB THUMB DRIVE

I have a 2021 Toyota Tundra. I had great difficulty with the USB being recognized to play music. I note this seems to be a problem with other Tundra's as well.

After failing at all the easy "low hanging fruit" solutions, I determined there is a "32GB" thumb drive (TD) capacity limit to the Tundra's USB ability to access the TD. Additionally, the TD MUST be formatted to "exFAT" which is simply the newer more efficient version of "FAT32." I simply numbered my musical folders 1, 2, 3...etc and it's working fine now, and FYI - it seems to only play "MP3" music files (??).

You can purchase 32gb TD's if you want - or generate a 32gb Partition on one you already have that's greater than 32gb and want to use it.

For Windows, go to the "Search" bar (bottom left of home screen) and type in "Disk Management." This function will allow you to format the TD and place a partition on it up to 32GB. If this is your first time - Google "How to partition a thumb drive" and there's good info to walk you through it for the first time - after that - it's very easy to do.

http://woshub.com/creating-multiple-partitions-on-a-usb-drive-in-windows-10/

I hope my experience with this issue is helpful to others who were/are plagued by it!! John

 

I've got a 128gb, FAT32, almost full of music, plugged into my 2019. It works fine 99 percent of the time but is not detected occasionally. When that happens, I just reboot the head unit. The amount of music that can be put on these tiny storage devices just continues to astound me; I still have a turn table and albums, running through a tube amp and speakers I bought 50 years ago.

 

I initially had the same problem as yours. I too had 128GB TD's and the Tundra system choked on them - so I rebooted or removed the TD and reinserted it. Eventually, it simply quit recognizing them at all. I spoke to the Tundra Dealer Service Dept. and they had nothing in their system addressing this issue. Neither do the books that came with the vehicle - I read all the way through. I decided to experiment...reformatted one 128gb TD with a partition of 32gb and BINGO! Not only did that work, it correctly places my folders in numerical order and plays the songs in order as well. I'm certain there must be other viable solutions out there, but this has worked for me in my 2021 Tundra. AND! I too am an audiophile! I have a 1970's turntable and albums, 5-disc CD player, a beautiful 7" open real tape player, Bluetooth setup, etc - a great blend of old and new! I've been researching tube amps, but they are commanding a great deal of $$ in today's world. I had my own in-home studio and taught music. My 1959 Hammond organ used tubes. I replaced them all thru a company in Russia that still manufactures tubes and got them for a good price.

 

Yep. Many many many (most? ALL?) modern music digital electronic files are massively compressed to allow their seamless transport. And this can happen because the vast majority of folk now play their music on their phone. Not on a home audio system (my absolute preference). I still buy/purchase new music only if I can get it on a compact disc.

To the thread content. I too discovered that large thumb drives created problems. I bought a fistful of 8GB drives and problem solved. And 8GB gets me plenty of music. I just keep 3 or 4 of them "active" in the truck and edit & update them as I see fit from my laptop.

Great thread!!!!

 

Was your stick USB 2.0 or USB 3.0?

 

I believe it has to be 2.0 to work with the 2.5 gen Tundra's head unit.

 

Did a slow format to Fat32 and put the songs back on and will give it a try again tomorrow morning, if that doesn't work then I will go get some 2.0 drives to try.

 

I have a big USB that I was intending to use for all my music in my truck but Windows wouldn't let me format it correctly by any method.

 

I had one of these that is USB 3.1. I formatted it with exFat and it didn't work. I formatted it with FAT32 and it works. I put 42 GB of music on it and it works. Not sure if that helps. I had to download AOMEI Partition Assistant because windows would NOT let me format the USB to FAT32.

 

I'm still using a 64G but about to go to a 128. I use Rufus to format to FAT32 with no problems. Also I've got a USB hub in mine with 2 drives, one with my music and the other with stuff my daughter likes.

Oh and check the Toyota Update https://www.toyota.com/firmware-updates they had one for not recognizing USBs a while back that I pushed to mine.

 

I'll have to try that software. My thumb drive is 128 GB, though.

 

I just realized that I didn't link the TD that I was talking about. It's 128 GB. Sorry about that. Definitely a case of CRS (can't remember shit).

$15 SAMSUNG BAR Plus 3.1 USB Flash Drive, 128GB, 400MB/s, Rugged Metal Casing, Storage Expansion for Photos, Videos, Music, Files, MUF-128BE3/AM, Champagne Silver

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BPK3XWW?ie=UTF8

 

You should be good.

Can't remember because it's been a few years but I think I used Rufus to format a 256G HD to FAT32. I'm probably mistaken and I'm sure a more learneth person will chime in but I think the 32G limit with windows back in the day was due to that's all it could read, thus partitioning.

 

I noticed an issue with having more than 9999 items on the drive. If I had more it wouldn't recognize certain items. I don't remember how it's formatted - would need to check.

 

That's good because I only have about 7000 songs.

 

I just confirmed, I'm just at 9963 files, 1055 folders. This is a USB 3 128gb thumb drive formatted to FAT32 through windows - nothing fancy. I have 58.3 gbs on it.

 

I'll have to see if I can convince Windows to format mine to FAT32 or get one of the programs mentioned above.

 

I did get my 32GB 3.0 USB Drive to work after formatting to Fat32, Windows will only format a USB flash drive up to 32GB to Fat32, but there is some software you can use or you can use format command in Powershell or Command Prompt.