I noticed my JVC head unit does not sort the folders of a USB drive alphabetically; instead, it's just in the order the folders were created on the drive. So (for example) if I added an "All That Remains" folder, it would be the last folder in order, instead of one of the first. After hearing somebody else had the same issue with a fancy Pioneer AVH-4200NEX, I figured this must be a widespread issue, so I made a program to fix it and thought I'd share it here in case anybody else needed it.
https://github.com/MWisBest/StereoUSBSorter/releases
It's really simple to use:
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It doesn't need to be run as an administrator or anything, and the code is all there for anybody to inspect or improve or whatever. I've done the best I can to make it safe, i.e. one small issue won't completely destroy your drive like some of the alternative programs I discovered, but I still suggest you make a backup or your files before using this!
How it works is pretty simple. In layman's terms, a flash drive has a table listing all the folders on it, and when you add a new folder, it just gets tacked on to the end of the table. Simple embedded devices like a head unit read this table as-is, and don't sort it afterwards like your PC does. So to fix it, I go through all the folders in alphabetical order, I move them to a temporary folder, and then move them back. Effectively what this does to the table is move that folder to the end of the table. Do this in order to every folder, and it's sorted. This doesn't rewrite/stress the drive or anything, it only takes a few seconds to complete.
https://github.com/MWisBest/StereoUSBSorter/releases
It's really simple to use:
It doesn't need to be run as an administrator or anything, and the code is all there for anybody to inspect or improve or whatever. I've done the best I can to make it safe, i.e. one small issue won't completely destroy your drive like some of the alternative programs I discovered, but I still suggest you make a backup or your files before using this!
How it works is pretty simple. In layman's terms, a flash drive has a table listing all the folders on it, and when you add a new folder, it just gets tacked on to the end of the table. Simple embedded devices like a head unit read this table as-is, and don't sort it afterwards like your PC does. So to fix it, I go through all the folders in alphabetical order, I move them to a temporary folder, and then move them back. Effectively what this does to the table is move that folder to the end of the table. Do this in order to every folder, and it's sorted. This doesn't rewrite/stress the drive or anything, it only takes a few seconds to complete.
