DNX6980 Internal SD CARD.. Teardown

[iNc]

Ok first thing to do was open up the unit that was easy, never unclipped any cables
Remove Top Cover: 1 screw on top cover 3 screws on side of the face plate, pop the clips the face plate and fold down.
Remove DVD drive: 4 screws on top, 2 screws on front, lift and flip move to the side.
Remove Heat shield plate: 2 screws.
SD Card holder: slide metal cover clip forward towards front of radio.

Now this is what I did, and tried...
Took out the SanDisk micro sd HC 4GB Class 4
Used Acronis True Image Home Ver. 11
Made an image of the GARMIN SD CARD by sectors, that was the only way it said it could be done.
Then I put a 4GB class 2 in a usb sd card reader and restored the image, worked fine.

Then I notice that Acronis True Image Home, would allow me to mount the images that I previously saved… In write mode! so I mounted the image file… it made to virtual drives that where writable..
So I put the new 2012.30 map, new voices, new 3d, new lane assist the 700mb, new vehicles...
Un mounted the images , and restored to the new 4GB card, everything work fine.
Now time to play…

Messed around for hours… partitions, extended partitions with a new 8GB class 10
IN and OUT of the car started to pss me off.

So I tried a few things:

Q: Will the unit nav boot without the card inside the unit? And in the front!
A: YES... but it seemed slower… I think only when booting

Q: do I have to make the 2 partitions and hide 1 and ext4 file systems?
A: Nope, I took the 8GB card, formatted it FAT32 copied all files to the GARMIN folder
except this file “GRM_Nav.exe” this was in the root and it still works!

Q: Does the Developer info work?
A: Yes but still no read and write also in the developer window it showed the sdcard as 1st drive, as if it was in the unit… sd was grayed out.

Hope this answers anyone’s questions about the internal SD card.

[joe citizen]

If you can copy and edit the original image of the internal microSD card and run the 6980 without it while using the front microSD, Im wondering if other users could simply take an uploaded copy of an internal image, edit it and use the front microSD slot without ever opening up their units. The front microSD slot takes priority over the internal one when dealing with updated maps and it will run the GPS with internal image so maybe users dont need to open their units at all. Just a thought.

[drabdulsathar]

Everybody is talking about copying map file, voices and vehicles.

But iam looking for other opportunities.

I hope its possible to image this card from a later/latest kenwood model and use that card on an older model to get the latest features. hope this will work.

i read in some forums that it is running embedded win CE. is there a way to edit/modify this/ install new nav programs like iGO, tomtom that will run on win CE.

I have also read that there are so many mods/interfaces/GUI/ and some custom application that can be installed on models running win CE.

are these possible on kenwood DNX models.
mine is DNX 6960.


Vista will happily read FAT, exFAT, and NTFS from flash. ReadyBoost will not work with exFAT formatted flash drives in Vista, however. Windows 7 will read all three formats and can ReadyBoost exFat flash drives. Modern versions of OS X after Snow Leopard (10.6.5) added exFat read and write capabilities.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955704

Description of the exFAT file system driver update package. the drivers for xp vista can be downloaded from here. hope it has write capabilities also.

[toy4runner]

I use windows 7, but still needed Acronis trueimage to get to the data on memory card.
I purchased a microsd extension cable
(Universal Micro SD Card Extension Cable Film Free Shipping | eBay)
Now I can use a regular sd card, and it just reaches to my glove box.

The micro sd connector wasn't a nice fit (took some finesse) and I had to remove a metal tab that held the usb wire down.
All in all not bad and it all works.

I have the DNX6180, so it doesn't have an external card reader.

I am using an 8 gig card, fat32.
Running the 2013.2 maps, added junction view hi res, 3D Buildings and ASR.
Sofar I've seen juction view work, I don't think ASR works, 3D Buildings I have no idea.

I've added a lot of voices and vehicles. Sdcard capacity is no problem, and experimenting is very easy with the cable hanging out.
Boot up seems to take a bit longer, I wonder if fat32 is slower then other disc formats.

Now if there only was a way to get rid of the press a button warnings every time the navigation starts up.