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I have a 2024 Civic Sport Touring Hatchback. I've tried two different brands of drives. They are formatted correctly (Fat32) and play my music just fine for a few weeks but then the audio system starts having difficulty finding a compatible drive, though will eventually find it for a time, then it's just gone and I have to reformat the drive and start all over. When I look at the corrupted drive on my PC, all the song names are gibberish. I have a sneaky feeling this is because the phone charger plate is right below where the drives plug in. Cordless charging uses magnetism, right? And magnets wipe out drives. I was wondering if anyone else has had this happen and if they've found a fix or workaround for it. Would it help at all to put a sheet of foil over the charger, or a thicker metal?
Wireless charging doesn't use magnets, per se, but instead use induction coils (albeit via electromagnetic induction). Nevertheless, magnetism doesn't affect flash drives since flash drives aren't composed of magnetic materials like older spinning hard drives.
Just to test this, I took a flash drive of mine that had data on it and rubbed a neodymium magnet all over it like I was scrubbing a spoon, and I had zero loss of data or file integrity.
That said, no idea why your flash drive would be corrupting. Out of curiosity, do you leave it plugged in, or do you remove it from the vehicle every time? Owners manual does recommend to not leave it in the vehicle and it recommends using a usb cable if you're using a flash drive.
I found out about magnets not affecting USB drives right after I posted this, but I didn't know about the phone charger, so thank you. I had not seen where it said to use a cable. What makes a flash drive different from any other USB drive? Mine is a flash drive and I got a pack of them because they are so small and inconspicuous, so from that standpoint, a cable is less appealing, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I wonder why using a cable would make any difference. I knew to take the drive out to avoid extreme heat or cold, though I admit I don't always do this, so that's another thing for me to try. Taking it out every time is kind of a pain. I think it remembers where I was in the play list though.
flash drives and USB drives are pretty much one in the same. Flash memory (thus "flash" drive) is just a way data is stored (i.e. SD cards, SSDs to an extent, USB/Jump/Thumb drives) whereas a USB drive is a specific kind of flash drive that uses a USB interface is all.
I will say, I was 100% guilty of leaving flash drives and my old 160GB iPod in my 2002 civic, even in the extreme Vegas heat that we get. Even on my 2018, I was guilty of leaving the iPod plugged in because it had my bank of some 16000 songs or whatever on it. I eventually started almost exclusively using bluetooth from my phone for Pandora, then I retrofitted an OEM 2020 Civic head unit into my 2018 to get Android Auto capability. I now exclusively use Android Auto for music when my daughter's not riding with me, then she bluetooths her phone to hog the aux.
Anyways, back to your issue at hand. Might be worth a shot to see if using a male to female USB cable helps at all. They're not terribly expensive, so even if it doesn't work, should be a cheap experiment. I'm with you though. I have no idea why a cable would make a difference, other than the fact that the drive wouldn't me "hard mounted" to the car at that point. There's always some susceptibility to constant vibrations like that of a running vehicle.
Thank you for supplying the owner's manual page! I may try a cable, but then the drive will sit on the phone charger (which is right below the port) or hang down toward, or on the passenger floor. It seems like all options still would get vibration while driving unless I dedicate some kind of cushion for it and I can't see myself going that far. The drives are never actually damaged when corrupted. I reformat them and copy the music files back over and they're good for another few weeks. I've done this four times on two different drives. It's just inconvenient.
Yes, two were. Five 64GB for $20, but another was a name brand 32GB and they all did the same thing. I added a six-inch cable so it now sits on the phone charging plate, which will still vibrate it. I'm looking around the house for something soft and fluffy to put under it that won't look awful.
