I have mp3 files on a 4GB Verbatim CF card. Each time I start the car it takes probably 1-2 minutes for the content of the card to be read. I only have 545 files in 85 folders. The folder structure is [Artist]/[Album]. Is it normal that it takes this long or did I chose a wrong folder structure or something else? Maybe the CF card is just slow despite being a good name brand?

Note that before it would be almost instantly. However, my CF card broke and so I had to replace it with this new 4GB Verbatim card. I had fewer albums on the old card but I can't remember how many. Maybe a dozen instead of about 40 now. So if it did take maybe 2s before then I would have expected it to take 6s or so now and not 1-2 minutes.

I wonder if maybe the character set also has an influence. There are a bunch of folders and filenames that are supposed to be Asian (mostly Korean, some Thai) characters but they end up being some strange "western" characters. Could this be the problem for the long loading times?

It turns out that was the problem. After deleting those folders and copying some other music on it, it now reads the CF card within a few seconds.