[GT-F30]

Hello. I recently used the Manol A/C cleaning foam to dissinfect my A/C , i have done this job multiple times in the past , but this time i have decided to go one step further , and i sprayed some amount of it in the blower motor , after removing the cabin filter which i would swap out anyway, so that it goes to the whole system and dissinfect it better. Little have I known that the Head Unit in my F30 is not isolated very good or at all , most probably because there is not supposed to be humidity where it is placed? But in any case, it appears that the Head Unit was filled with foam and gone bad. The first symptoms where the following. The Ring that controls temperature on the drivers side (left side) was not working properly , that was later fixed on its own , when the whole thing was dried out. The shorcut keys from the dashboard from 1 to 9 where being pressend randomly every 2-3 seconds without me touching anything (this was also fixed later on its own after it dried out) . And then the bigger problems , that did not get fixed after waiting for the whole thing to dry out where : the navigation system would be stuck in the loading proccess , i could not play music from Bluetooth conected phone, even though i COULD do phone calls and hear them from the car, the music playback from the phone was grayed out , also the usb that was as allways in the armrest would seem to be unrecognized by the head unit at all. It was also grayed out. After searching on forums for similar cases i only found one more who had the exact same problem. He had shown photos of his headunit and the interior of it had this greenish glitch on it , from the foam perhaps that has gone to it. Therefore he explained that his HDD was coroded and it was broken as a result. But he never wrote if he swaped the whole unit to fix it or what else he did , or if he fixed it at all for that metter. ALso i would like to note that the A/C works properly.

Now after asking the stealership about how we can fix this , just out of interest since i knew they would be x2 or x3 more expensive that INDY's , they quoted me 1.600 euro here in Germany ( i am not German though hence i do not use sources and forums from here to search about my problem) in order to swap my head unit to a new one , orderd by BMW centrals in Munich , then they would code the rest of the things , since the VIN would be inserted already from the factory. An INDY shop that codes BMW's has quoted me 600 euros , to put a used head unit that he already has in stock , and then change the VIN , remove the FSC's from the donor part and put in mine original FSC , he also said that he would install the newest maps for free , which is something that i have already done with the help of a member in here , shawn , who seems to be really good with this kind of stuff.

The question now is this. I do not feel like giving the 600 euros. ( i did search on other shops as well , and it was 900 , 800 or more , so this was the cheapest i found) . What i want to know is : is it dangerous to driver the car with the head unit as it is? I know it is just a multimedia player with the navi and bluetooth on it etc , but the broken HDD is loading without end , and the unit gets somewhat hot (I currently had the whole dashboard open and i check it for the lowest side of where the mic is located) , it is dangerous in terms of being able to catch fire for example?
Also , if the navi is not loading , i am assuming it is because it can not load the maps from the HDD , i do not know about the usb and bluetooth music not working though. maybe it can not load the players from the HDD? The CD is also not working , but the radio is normal and the AUX also works. So , what if i would try to change just the HDD , as i mentioned above , the process of chaning the whole unit is somewhat of complex. and i do not feel like trying to DIY it . Also the cheapest working head unit i can find online is 400 euros , so the 600 price of the INDY means i would need to give 200 more for his coding.
But the though of just swaping the HDD and making it work again just seemed cheaper to me. Now here is where your knowledge and expertisse comes in hand

Is it possible? And when i swap the HDD how to i load the data that is missing? Does it also require coding? I could do some basic things with esys i guess ( i am have coded with bimmercode quite a few things on my car , and i do have knowledge of pc's to some deegre, just not feel into diving to esys stuff) . Also about the old head unit. anone knows if it is normal to get somewhat hot even when it works properly and has no defects like mine?

In general the whole point of this post , is to seek an alternative that i have not though of , in order to restore the NAVI function and the music playback from Bluetooth and usb. Just in a chaper way than swaping headunits.

Also is there any chance that all this is caused by a blown fuse? after the short circuit that was probably caused?

Thank you in advance and i am sorry for the long post. Hope someone can help me out.

[atzebmw]

It is possible to change only the HDD.
But there are only a handful of people who can do this.
The problem is the special file system of the HDD.
And then when you have changed the HDD you can‘t be sure if it will work because maybe the foam has destroyed some other components.
That's why I would recommend to buy a used headunit and to find someone who can code it for you.
I know some people in germany who can do this or here in this forum for example steve@codemybimmer.
But it‘s also possible to code it by remote.

Edit:
If you dare, you can first remove the headunit and dry it or look into it if you see any problems.
I don't think it's just a fuse.
Maybe someone can first read out the error memory?
Otherwise I think the 600 € is a fair price.

[Billfitz]

You may have a bad head unit, but it may just be a problem in the operating unit, where the foam is causing short circuits. I'd take it out and spray the inside with electronic switch cleaner, like this: https://www.crcindustries.com/produc...-oz-05103.html

[GT-F30]

Originally Posted by atzebmw

It is possible to change only the HDD.
But there are only a handful of people who can do this.
The problem is the special file system of the HDD.
And then when you have changed the HDD you can‘t be sure if it will work because maybe the foam has destroyed some other components.
That's why I would recommend to buy a used headunit and to find someone who can code it for you.
I know some people in germany who can do this or here in this forum for example steve@codemybimmer.
But it‘s also possible to code it by remote.

Edit:
If you dare, you can first remove the headunit and dry it or look into it if you see any problems.
I don't think it's just a fuse.
Maybe someone can first read out the error memory?
Otherwise I think the 600 € is a fair price.

i have found a person from ebay , ebay-kleinanzeigen.de to be exact. who said he can do the foloowing. i send him the head unit , he switched to a new HDD , and then flushes the NBT , and places the needed files on the disk , so that it can now be readed from the head unit and work properly. the offer is 180 euros , which seems like a nice deal. but recently i have found out that i can do the HDD format disk partition and folder creating on my own , as can everyone else. there is a whole post about it on bimmerfest. the process is nothing close to easy DIY , i was normaly network technichian at school , but never worked at it. still i have decent knowledge on pcs and internet stuff etc. but even i find it challenging , to create a new HDD that is a replicate of the original. you need quite a lot of different programms to achieve it , and many , many commands to enter on them.

thankfully there are very nice users who have shared a detailed guide on how to do it , which HDD's are compatible , and so on.

But to be honest , the send head-unit , take it back , and plug in for 180 also seems like a good solution.

the reason i know that my headunit is fine , is that after i realized that there are the problems mentioned above , i went on and completely removed the HDD , and it was the same. either it was on there or not , the same symptoms were there.

also i did a check on errors with bimmerlink (i know not the best diagnostic tool) , but it clearly said in between other errors : HDD load error , or smthing similar. thats why i went on and removed it completely in the first place.

so for anyone else who ever has a broken HDD , i can give deatils on how to contanct the person who repairs it for 180 . or link to try and make the new HDD alone.

hope anyone else who reads this , will make use of this info to get rid of the problem.

also thank you ver much for the time you took to reply

[GT-F30]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

You may have a bad head unit, but it may just be a problem in the operating unit, where the foam is causing short circuits. I'd take it out and spray the inside with electronic switch cleaner, like this: https://www.crcindustries.com/produc...-oz-05103.html

thank you bill. fortunately the head unit works properly. also the buttons that went crazy returned to their normal "self" . it seems that only the HDD is causing problems since everything that is not working is HDD related.

[Billfitz]

There's a huge market for a method of replacing the HDD with a SSD. I can clone an HDD to an SSD for superior performance and durability for my PC in less than an hour with a simple cable and freeware. Once again BMW doesn't make life easy.

[Pierrezzz7]

Hey i just made this Account if you could please give me details here i have currently the same issue the hdd is fried. Thanks

Originally Posted by GT-F30

i have found a person from ebay , ebay-kleinanzeigen.de to be exact. who said he can do the foloowing. i send him the head unit , he switched to a new HDD , and then flushes the NBT , and places the needed files on the disk , so that it can now be readed from the head unit and work properly. the offer is 180 euros , which seems like a nice deal. but recently i have found out that i can do the HDD format disk partition and folder creating on my own , as can everyone else. there is a whole post about it on bimmerfest. the process is nothing close to easy DIY , i was normaly network technichian at school , but never worked at it. still i have decent knowledge on pcs and internet stuff etc. but even i find it challenging , to create a new HDD that is a replicate of the original. you need quite a lot of different programms to achieve it , and many , many commands to enter on them.

thankfully there are very nice users who have shared a detailed guide on how to do it , which HDD's are compatible , and so on.

But to be honest , the send head-unit , take it back , and plug in for 180 also seems like a good solution.

the reason i know that my headunit is fine , is that after i realized that there are the problems mentioned above , i went on and completely removed the HDD , and it was the same. either it was on there or not , the same symptoms were there.

also i did a check on errors with bimmerlink (i know not the best diagnostic tool) , but it clearly said in between other errors : HDD load error , or smthing similar. thats why i went on and removed it completely in the first place.

so for anyone else who ever has a broken HDD , i can give deatils on how to contanct the person who repairs it for 180 . or link to try and make the new HDD alone.

hope anyone else who reads this , will make use of this info to get rid of the problem.

also thank you ver much for the time you took to reply

[fpvsportsguy]

Posting here for posterity - as I also spilled AC vent cleaner and killed my HDD. I highly recommend Steve Ma from codemybimmer, he formatted a new SSD in no time and showed me how to reinstall map files. Reach out to him if you're in the same boat.