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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

You'll Need A Windows PC To Install Pioneer Firmware Updates


If you, like myself, use a Mac then installing firmware updates for your Pioneer head unit may run into a few roadblocks. The most common being an error message that says something to the tune of being unable to update OS because more than one file exists on the drive. Pioneer requires firmware updates to be done by loading one file at a time in the root folder of the USB drive. Here's what happens when you try to do that on a Mac.

When you format the USB drive on a Mac to the MS-DOS (FAT) format there are hidden files that are written to the drive. As a result, when you copy the firmware update files and connect the drive to the head unit it obviously won't proceed with the install because the update file isn't present by itself in the root folder. At the moment, I haven't come across any working solution for this issue. Formatting the drive to the MacOS format doesn't work either because the head unit won't even recognize this file format.

The only known workaround is to format the USB drive on a Windows PC (confirmed to work through Windows 7; Windows 8 should work the same way too) using Disk Management. Then copy the necessary file onto the drive and it should go through. Most firmware updates have to be done in two steps as there are two firmware files which need to be run to complete the update. I'm glad I didn't get rid of my age old Sony Vaio laptop which has bailed me out each time.

If anyone has managed to get this to work on a Mac then please leave a comment below. Pioneer is in the process of rolling out updates to the few remaining head units which were promised in June.

Picture source: Microsoft Windows 7

5 comments :

  1. I had no problem using a mac to update my avh-x7500bt. Not sure exactly what issues you had, but mine worked fine right away.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had this issue too. Had to do the update on my roommate's laptop. The AppRadio 2 kept giving an error saying the firmware file had to be the only file on the flash drive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just install TinkerTool, enable display of hidden files, relaunch Finder, go to USB drive and delete any files that should not be there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. can anyone point me in the dirction to th avh200 firmware update
    I know there should be one mine has not had one

    ReplyDelete

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