# MyGIG Hard Drive Failure?



## Zambee500 (Jun 23, 2011)

Before I take it to the stealership and get told the only "fix" requires a new head unit, and quoted $700 for it, I thought I'd check here first to make sure I'm not overlooking a possible simple fix. I have the REN - the touch screen without Navi on the 2009-2010 model years. My REN has Sirius (I understand there were two RENs - one with and one without Sirius). I think the hard drive has failed, but I'm not 100% certain.

A couple weeks ago I tried loading a newish CD (released in 2012) and copying it over to the hard drive directly from the CD. After fully copying (seemed like it took an hour), it recognized the new files/songs'album on the hard drive but the text of the song-titles didn't copy over and it wouldn't actually play the songs. It just showed some generic name in sequence - like Song1, Song2, Song3, etc. And if you tapped the name of the generic song, it would freeze up and not play anything. So I figured the CD might have Sony's copy protection being a relatively new CD. Everything else that was already on the hard drive continued to work fine and played fine though.

So a week or so later I copied to the hard drive an old Beatles CD, and it copied over no problems. All the songs showed up on the touch-screen and were recognized w/ titles and the songs played fine off the hard drive after the disc was removed. After getting home and turning the van off, however, now I get nothing. Nothing on the hard drive comes up. The head unit will still play CDs, but nothing from the hard drive displays and the touch screen "button" for copying CDs to the hard drive no longer appears when playing CDs. And now the head unit does not remember where it left off playing CDs after shutting the engine off. Everytime I re-start the motor the CD starts over from the beginning of track 1.

Is there some way to "re-boot" the drive? I don't care if I have to reformat it and lose all the data. I bought the van used nearly 2 years ago, and the previous owner had loaded a ton of music on it, but frankly I only liked about 10% of what was on there so I don't care if I lose that. I just want the hard drive back and want it to remember where I left off when I power off the unit/engine.

Any suggestions?


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## Zambee500 (Jun 23, 2011)

Looks like it could be a software/firmware issue. Did some online digging and a Harman Becker 'expert' at the JK Wrangler forums indicates HDD corruption is common with these units and what I'm experiencing is one of the tell-tale symptoms. After updating software all the contents of the HDD should eventually re-appear. Post #9 here.

So now it looks like I need to buy a replacement DVD burner for my PC so I can burn the raw data file to disc so I can install the firmware update to the MyGIG unit. :laugh: I guess $40 and some hassle-factor sure beats $700.


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## 97vr6blu (May 7, 2008)

Thanks for the info! Please let us know how it worked out!


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## 58kafer (Jun 27, 2007)

http://www.chargerforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109886

Replace your HDD yourself. I didn't read the entire post but I also think I posted another one on here a while back.


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## Zambee500 (Jun 23, 2011)

Thanks, 58. I'll take a closer look at that link, but at first glance it looks like just an "upgrade" to a larger HDD. In order for that to work, that assumes the original HDD is still functional b/c you have to clone the original HDD to get the OS onto the new, larger HDD. You have to use Acronis or a similar disc-mirror software to clone it. It's not a Windows or Linux OS on these MyGIG systems, but I've forgotten what is used. But again, let me first figure out if I have a hardware or software issue. If it's hardware, I'm afraid it's most likely not as simple as dropping a new HDD into the head unit, b/c you've got to get the OS on there first. Hopefully, a firmware/software upgrade will straighten things out.

I'll post back. Not sure when I can get to this, as the upcoming weekend is filling up quickly. But I'll post back when I figure it out. (Hopefully.)


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## ChiefWilNel (Aug 20, 2009)

I know this is an old post zambee, but who is the expert on Jk forums? I have cloned my harddrive to a virtualdisk, using clonezilla, I created a virtural machine that boots the clonezilla iso, it has a blank virtural disk in this virtual machine, I shot the original disk to the virtual disk. I don think I had harddrive error, probably corruption due to a dying battery soon after I "lost" my music the battery gave out. I noticed from time to time if i loaded the disk into a qnx vm i could see the music in that partition. anyway I have followed many,many, many guides and I have not gotten the music partition to work. Nav still works and all my saved destinations.


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## Zambee500 (Jun 23, 2011)

Hey guys, sorry for not reporting back. It's not from laziness or forgetfulness, just that there's nothing (yet) for me to report back about my experience fixing it (similar to the thread on front brakes - i've purchased the brakeperformance.com dimpled & slotted and premium pads, but haven't yet installed them, but i digress).

Where laziness *is* the problem is that I haven't taken it back to the dealership for a fix. Part of that is I haven't had the time, but also the hard drive gradually came back. Several days after this post I checked the HDD and it only showed the 2 most recent discs of data I had loaded on there direct from the CDs. Prior to that, nothing showed up on the HDD. Then gradually it all came back, notably on an 8 hour road-trip when the head unit was running the whole time (this was several days after the prior time when the 2 discs worth of music first re-appeared). About 4 or 6 hours into the drive, I checked the HDD again and everything was back. So I haven't had the urgency to get back to the dealership.

The head unit still doesn't "remember" where it left off playing CDs after shutting the motor off though, so it didn't fully fix itself. Also, I saw on some Mygig threads on other Dodge/Chrysler forums that this is re-appearance of data is part of the process of the HDD dying/corrupting. If you keep playing it after it has shown indications of corruption, eventually the head unit turns into a brick. So I stopped playing the HDD until I do get the software and firmware updated. Or until I do a DIY update, if the dealership won't do it as a courtesy or my extended warranty denies coverage for software updates.

Anyone know if VW dealerships update the software/firmware for free like Dodge/Chrysler dealerships do? The Chryco dealerships only charge for updating the maps data on the navi units, and mine doesn't have navi. Not sure VWoA's policy on that.


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