bugo

I have found a way to make the GM stereo with a flash drive plugged into it play songs in order. It took a lot of trial and error and a lot of time, but I think I figured it out. The process is very tedious but if you do it correctly, your music should be easier to access.

First, download Drivesort at Anerty's Lair - DriveSort and download Mp3tag at Mp3tag - Download and install the Mp3tag program. The Drivesort program is downloaded as a zip file. You'll want to extract all files. The Drivesort program is an executable file and doesn't need to be installed.

Create artist folders in the root directory. Then create folders with the album name in the second folder. This second folder is where you want to put your MP3s. If the album has multiple discs and you want them to be separated, create another subdirectory for the discs and put the MP3 files in it. Make sure your MP3s have good ID3v1 tags with at least the artist, album, and track number (the track number is very important.) Once all of your files are sorted on the USB drive, open Mp3tag and under the Directory on the right, enter the drive letter and a colon and backslash (mine is E:\) Give it a while to read all of the files in the folders. It can take a while. It takes about 30-45 minutes on my 64GB thumb drive. You don't have to stay with the computer while it loads the files, so it's a good time to do something productive.

Selecting the root drive will force Mp3tag to read all of the files on the entire thumb drive, even the files within subfolders. Once it loads all the files, select all (control-A) and hit alt-T. A window will pop up with a square on the right that says Cover on the bottom. Hit the X next to the square then click on OK. The word "Cover" should disappear. This is done to delete the album art within the MP3 files which can interfere with sorting and is unnecessary since the GM stereo doesn't show album art. Once this is done (it will take a long time) select all again and click on Convert in the menu at the upper left side of the screen. Select Tag - Filename and inside the format string box type (or copy and paste) "$num(%track%,2) %title%" without the quotes. Then click on OK. This will rename the files to "(track number) (song title)". Example: "02 Scentless Apprentice.mp3". This won't take nearly as long as loading the files into MP3tag or removing the cover art. This will cause the songs to be sorted by track number without having to manually make a playlist.

Go into Windows Explorer and click on Tools and then Folder Options and click on the View tab. Under Hidden files and folders, the radio button should be set for Show hidden files, folders, and drives and there should not be a checkmark next to Hide protected operating system files. When you are through with setting up the flash drive, you will want to go back and set the radio button to Don't show hidden files, folders, or drives and make sure there is a checkmark next to Hide protected operating system files. Next, go through each folder and subfolder and delete any files that aren't music files (images (mostly .jpg files), .ini files, playlists, .txt files, .cue files, .m3u files, .url files and basically anything that isn't an .mp3 file (or wh At this point your music should be in the correct folder but the artists might be out of order and the tracks on each album might be out of order as well. It is tedious, but so is this entire process.

Now open Drivesort. Click the first button from the left and select your thumb drive and click OK. Select the drive with the letter, and not the Disk# line. Then click on the arrow on the third button from the left and long name sort. Then click on the arrow again and select order and either ascending or descending, whatever your preference is. Then click the arrow again and select Directories and select your preference. Now click on the arrow on the 4th button from the left and select subdirectories. Now Drivesort is set up and the settings are saved. The next time you open Drivesort you won't have to set the options up again.

Now select the root directory of the flash drive and click on Folder - Sort to sort your directories in alphabetical order. Next you'll want to click on the arrow on the 5th icon from the right and make sure that there's a checkmark next to Playlist Mode. Now click on the individual artists' folders and rearrange the folders in whatever order you want them to come up in, or click Folder - Sort to automatically sort them in alphabetical order. I sort my folders in chronological order by the year of release.

Now click on Folder and Save. This is very important. Now you're going to want to click on each artist and drag the folders in the order you wish and click Folder - Save and go on to the next artist. Repeat and rinse. This is very tedious and time consuming. When you're done click on the arrow on the 5th icon and make sure there is no checkmark next to Playlist Mode. Click Folder and Save and you're done!

Be sure to set the radio button under Tools - Folder Options in Windows Explorer to Don't show hidden files, folders, or drives and make sure there is a checkmark next to Hide protected operating system files.

Make sure you set aside enough time to do this because if you have a lot of music, it will take several hours.

If you do this correctly, you should be able to plug your USB drive in and the artists should be in alphabetical order, the albums should be in chronological order, and the songs should be in order.
Here's more information on drivesort:

How to Sort Music on Your Flash Drive for Your Car Stereo

I hope this helps. I hope I explained it eloquently and that the instructions are easy to understand. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

If you find these instructions to be helpful, feel free to post them to anywhere on the Internet, namely message boards for different GM cars. I don't mind if you modify the post to make it make more sense.

whopper

Well done!!! Big thanks for taking the time to write that up. :)