Thread: Garmin Map Pilot for Mercedes-Benz cars

Originally Posted by lolypop000

I talk about garmin nuvi and on nuvi you can take different SD card and map work.
Example: if you have nuvi 3490 and 8Gb SD, you just copy/paste from 8Gb SD on 16Gb SD and add it in the same unit and map work.
On mercedez, some of data is writen also in main unit not only on SD, unl and gma after first run go in main unit ( internal hdd ) but don't know how to access internal hdd of this mercedez unit.

Well, not really it depends. I was talking about pre-loaded SD cards.
If you copy the content of those to another card they don't work as the unlock is linked to the specific CID of that card.

I think you are referring to a map that is generated using the unit ID of the nüvi device. They of course work on any SD card but only in the same nüvi device.
While the pre-loaded maps on work on all units but only from that SD.

So in principle it's the same protection.

Originally Posted by lolypop000

Kenwood devica have on back mini usb port where you can connect notebook and explore internal storage but don't know if mercedez unit have also on back, mini usb port.

Do you try copy/paste ( in regular way ) your SD conntent and add it on different SD and try if your unit see it?

There is no HDD on the MB unit and copying the content from my own working SD to another does not work either.

I think this marriage thing has to do with the further update process that is planned for map updates.

As you stated during the marriage the UNL and GMA files are deleted I think this is purely as MB/Garmin wanted to make sure people to give the card to other owners.
I am pretty certain that if you make dump (copy whatever semantics you want to use) of an original SD card, then do the initial 'marriage' on CAR A take out the card but the virgin files back on it the card will work in CAR B.
In fact I am not even sure anything is save within the MB unit.
It might be as simple as, if GMA/UNL is present start initiation (marriage) process.

As we already found out after that process the garmindevice.xml is generated during that process containing the VID (Vehicle Identification Number) ifix etc.
Also unl/gma are deleted (I assume only to make it impossible/hard) to use the card in another car.

If you want to update the card (there recently was an update for the EU version to 2.4) you need to login before you can use the Garmin® MAP PILOT download manager.
This download manager checks the card and refuses to work if you modify VID or whatever on the SD.

This is another protection where they could make sure that VID and CID are only used once.

So if you will, there are two protections at the moment.

#1 prevents the use of pre-used or non-original SD cards
#2 makes sure that updates only work if the card and user has been validated.