Database Users

Microdrive wiped clean for no aparent reason

Yesterday I was play around with the VGA 144 resolution program and I noticed that on this resolution the contents of my microdrive were showing up really slowly in file explorer.
I uninstalled the program and things were back top normal.
Later I installed a newer version of the CAB for VGA 144 and this time the contents on the microdrive did not show up at all, as if it was empty, which in fact it was!
I do not know what caused this (I don't think it was the change of resolution) but was wondering if anybody else has had this happen?
The threads I have seen so far are that the microdrive is no longer visible as a drive or error messages when trying to access it....

edeplano said:
Yesterday I was play around with the VGA 144 resolution program and I noticed that on this resolution the contents of my microdrive were showing up really slowly in file explorer.
I uninstalled the program and things were back top normal.
Later I installed a newer version of the CAB for VGA 144 and this time the contents on the microdrive did not show up at all, as if it was empty, which in fact it was!
I do not know what caused this (I don't think it was the change of resolution) but was wondering if anybody else has had this happen?
The threads I have seen so far are that the microdrive is no longer visible as a drive or error messages when trying to access it....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something similar happened to me and that's why I don't trust the drive. It wasn't with a VGA program, just happened.

I have never lost the microdrive, but something similar happened to me on an SDHC 4GB card. I had been using it only to store CAB files for installed programs but one day it was just 'empty'.
I pulled out the card and hooked it up to my computer, ran scandisk on it and all of the files were there, just seemed to have lost the FAT table as they were all lost files to be recovered. I reformatted the card since I had the files backed up.
I was running VISTA at the time time of the incident and I found that I had been moving files to the card using WM Device Center and I had the SD directory open on my desktop when I undocked my phone. Seems as if it had the FAT table open and and did not like being disconnected with the directory open.
There may be something analogous to this with ActiveSync, but I have never had this happen with another device, just with my U1000. I have been closing WMDC since then and have NO PROBLEMS.

so far this has not happened to me with the microdrive, but it has happened a few times with the sd card, which left me f**ked last week as i had tomtom on it, luckily I downloaded google maps to get me home. but there has to be an answer to why this is happening.

raskell said:
I have never lost the microdrive, but something similar happened to me on an SDHC 4GB card. I had been using it only to store CAB files for installed programs but one day it was just 'empty'.
I pulled out the card and hooked it up to my computer, ran scandisk on it and all of the files were there, just seemed to have lost the FAT table as they were all lost files to be recovered. I reformatted the card since I had the files backed up.
I was running VISTA at the time time of the incident and I found that I had been moving files to the card using WM Device Center and I had the SD directory open on my desktop when I undocked my phone. Seems as if it had the FAT table open and and did not like being disconnected with the directory open.
There may be something analogous to this with ActiveSync, but I have never had this happen with another device, just with my U1000. I have been closing WMDC since then and have NO PROBLEMS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
one of the times it happened to me was when copying files, 1 gig card is fine I dont have a 4 gig only two, you may be right about the fat, but I was using windows mobile device centre at the time.

Even though this happened to me personally...YET, I'm expecting it sooner or later. Never did get my cousins MD fixed!!
I hate this MD and not being able to trust it really defeats the object of buying this device in the first place. Looking forward to when we can eventually replace it with something else.
Surley the MD is not bigger than say the technology needed for a Full sized SD card and connections, is it? That would allow us to relatively easily upgrade our storage capacity in the future too.
Anyway, enough dreaming.

My MicroDrive wiped out too...
I was just using RescoExplorer and my x7500 stucked, I soft reseted the device and ALL files in all directories were deled, and the empty directories were there.
I used Pocket Mechanic Professional and did a scandisk and wupti all files was there again but there was about 59000 bad clusters...
Now everything is back to normal..

It happened to me twice last month both times using different s/w! (and I just start using my Advantage in July; basically this was the first time I seriously used this PDA)
The idea was nice but data storage on this MD is totally unreliable. I guess I will not be using it anymore. Even for the none vital files (e.g. music) it is not interesting seeing how much time it takes to load the MD and the ease the data disappears from the MD.
1st time I was using TomTom -on the second day of my holiday- which stopt responding. After a HTC reset TT started up and reported it could not find the Western Europe map (which I put on the MD). When I checked this map directory ALL FILES WERE GONE! Other directories appeared ok. Luckily (I thought) just for leaving on my holidays I added also the individual maps on my MD, so I switched using the Austria map, where I landed at that time. At most 2 hours later again TT froze and at inspection ALL files in the Austria directory had vaporised. Later in the evening I tried to relax from the stress driving with an "old fashioned PAPER map" and put on some music. Halfway the first number the music stopped and -you guess it right- ALL 40+ CD's were disappeared. At that time I ran Pocket mechanic 'scan disk' which reported that the FAT tables did not match (and it could not repair). Next I could not find my MD at all anymore, followed the next day by the complete HTC not being able to startup anymore after a reset (the today screen was only showing half and this part was flashing: the HTC also did not respond anymore to the h/w buttons or almost any command via the screen).
When I returned home from this first stage of my holidays (, I hard-reset the HTC after which everything returned to normal including the MD that reappeared.
After 1 week at home I was to leave for the second stage of my holidays and I prepared by putting this time all nescesary TT maps on the SD. I spend quit some hours putting some 40+ CDs again on the MD. ( I can only copy ~3 CD's at a time otherwise it aborts somewhere).
The FIRST TIME I listened to some music I started a Bowie CD and half way the first number suddenly it switched to a Stones number (no, nothing to do with 'dancing in the street'). After inspection of the MD there were already only 2 (screwed up) MP3 files left -in the root- on the complete MD!!
The MD is still in this state -and I just ran scan disk again- and appearently there is again a problem with the FAT only this time with lost clusters.
If it where not for the fact that during this 2nd trip of 4200km/2700mls over curvy B-roads TomTom gave me no troubles at all, the internal GPS worked flawless and the BlueTooth A2DP worked perfectly with my "home-made" BT helmet (for this I bought this HTC) I would have been seriously disappointed in the Advantage. As it is now I am actually quit happy with it, except for the inconvienence of not being able to use the MD.
So yes, it happened to me too: twice.

Petition for recall?
Do you guys think it's time to petition HTC for a recall of the MicroDrive? I have no idea how something like this will work but based on the feedback on the forum...there are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many people having problems with the MicroDrive. Those that use it seriously have problems.
I myself don't have time as most of my time is being spent on the Athena Project ROM but maybe someone else can help in the matter.
What do you guys think? A massive communication effort to HTC to find out what the heck is going on here? We paid wayyyy too much money for them to think we'll be happy with what we have if there is one or two faulty parts. The one part that keeps failing us is the MicroDrive and I think it's time to get a few answers. It's our right as the consumer and get answers and the quality product that we anticipated.

I totally agree and was just trying to report my problems -including the link to this forum/thread- on the HTC site.
HTC however seems a little bit e-mail shy. Last time I checked I could not find any e-mail link at the HTC site, now I could find one but everytime when I submit my message I get a popup 'the system is experiencing some problem, please try again at a later time'.
I try again later.

scruued up
so suddenly yesterday i was just using my athena and i had this Vista Theme on Wisbar Advance running....and the device just got stuck at windows live sign-in window and the phone first just restarted but then again got stuck and the "Windows Mobile" window wich appears at the start and then wen i manually resetted it....EVERYTHING was WIPED OUT!!!...BUT everything on the device remained like the wisbar theme it asked me to install and all but on the MICRODRIVE...everything just....VANISHED!!!

I was on holiday in the u.s.a in July, and had tomtom installed (on the MD, no more room on the card), all of a sudden, it froze while driving, had to pull over and found that my usa maps had been wiped! luckily I also had igo installed with some usa maps and was able to continue my holiday without having my head stuck in a paper map, thanks for the dodgy MD HTC!

Yes, this happened to me - both the sd card and md are equally unreliable. At the moment,I install everything on my md simply because it is way way faster than the sd card. I don't use my sd card at all now,although I have two of them.
When you copy files using wm5torage, avoid starting a new copy before the one before completes. Similarly, do not use the device while copying is going on , although the system does not stop you. What I observe is that there is a higher chance of corruption when I don't observe these practice.
I used to think that md is less reliable than sd. Now I don't think that anymore. I think they are equally unreliable.

musso said:
I was on holiday in the u.s.a in July, and had tomtom installed (on the MD, no more room on the card), all of a sudden, it froze while driving, had to pull over and found that my usa maps had been wiped! luckily I also had igo installed with some usa maps and was able to continue my holiday without having my head stuck in a paper map, thanks for the dodgy MD HTC!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which Tomtom version are you using? do you have WM5 or WM6? What is your Rom version?
Guys, is there a way to easily reproduce the problem in MicroDrive and SD so we can pass it to HTC and hopefully get a solution?

My new Advantage is less than 24 hours old and I too have had the Microdrive come with garbage while trying to move videos files from my PC to the PDA. I have formatted it and reloaded it, so wish me luck!!

Exactly the same story here - 7501 (WM6) less than 24 hours old.
- unable to accessed until formatted
- sometimes not showing directories/files until a soft reset
- returning messages like 'disk full or write protected' when copying from desktop
The worst of it is losing a 126Mb wmv file during one of these false 'disc write protected/full' events.
There has to be a serious issue with the OS that has to be fixed.
How do we build a poll of users with this problem?

Folks,
I have a reply from a message I sent to [email protected] last week:
Hello Bart,
Thank you for taking the time to contact HTC regarding the problems you are having with your HTC Advantage device.
Bart, we regret to see that you are having problems with the micro drive in your HTC Advantage device. If you could forward us several examples of other users having the same issues, we will forward them to our product development team for resolution. Please forward me the following information for each example:
* Serial Number
* IMEI
Identity
* OS Version -
* Radio Version -
On receipt of enough examples for these issues, we will be able to prioritize the resolution of this problem.
How can we collect this information so we can provide a united front to HTC?
Do we need a moderator to post a 'sticky' message at the top of this forum?
Btw to get this info
* Serial Number
- inside the battery compartment door flap
* IMEI
- inside the battery compartment door flap
or
- Start >> Seetings >> System Tab >> Device Infomation icon >> Identity
* OS Version -
- Start >> Seetings >> System Tab >> Device Infomation icon >> Version
* Radio Version -
- Start >> Seetings >> System Tab >> Device Infomation icon >> Version
Thanks
Bart

I'd like to contribute...
Did we get anywhere with this issue with HTC? I think it's a great idea, at least for the principle of the thing, to get them working on this (even if someone else can solve the problem better and faster). We could each submit a tx, but creating the "petition" for help that they seem to want would at least get some results. My reservation would be that we would be suckered into what seems like manipulative behavior on their part. After all, they are not government and we are not lobbyists.
I'm working on fixing it myself, but why are they releasing stuff I have to fix out of the box? If we can't get them to spend thier money & time fixing this stuff, we'll keep getting crap we have to fix, right? So where do we go from here? Anywhere?

I only get flaky when I'm on 128dpi
My MD seems to work acceptibly well on either 192 or 96, it's when I shift to 128 that things start to disapear, etc.
Hmmmm. Would, perhaps, this be a result of lame drivers?

I think I bricked my SX56

I've seen similar posts, but nothing close enough to this issue that any of the suggestions have helped.
I lost power while updating the ROM. My SX56 froze on the screen telling me that the update would take about 5 mins. I attempted to follow some of the troubleshooting tips I found here to flash the ROM using an SD card, but I don't have an actual SD card reader, so I was using a digital camera connected via USB. I seemed to be making progress, but after trying to backup existing ROM from the Bootloader, the SD card was reading as unformatted when I connected back to my PC. I wiped the card and tried to start over, but now I can't even get into the bootloader. I just have a screen filled with black jagged lines and two white boxes (like text fields) toward the top.
Any advice, or did I just turn my phone into a paperweight?

from what i remember of the wallaby, it has been a few years since i have played with one, when you backup the rom to sd card it wont be readable by the pc as it is a raw image. Saying that the screen you describe you are seeing the black jagged lines and 2 white boxes just sounds like a corrupted screen. I'm afraid i cant give you any more info as like i have said it has been a long time since i messed with a wallaby0

SD locked, no matter what

I have a problem with the SD card reader on my I-Mate Pocket PC. It sees every SD card I put in as locked. I have checked this with several cards of various sizes from 8m to 2g. It will read them all just fine, but says the card is locked when I try to save anything on it, or delete anything from it. All the cards work properly in everything else I use them in, so I know the cards are good. I have also tried several ROM versions and every software fix I could find both here and everywhere else, including the one on I-Mate's web site, so I am pretty sure it is not a software Issue either. This leaves us with only a hardware issue as far as I can tell. Does anyone know of any software or registry hacks to prevent the phone from checking if the card is locked? Is there anyway I can do something with the hardware, maybe either jump or split the connectors going to the lock to fool it into always showing unlocked?

Not going to fix your problem but i had a similar issue a while back.
One of my SD cards had a slightly larger than usual write protect tab, it stuck out slightly too far, and every time i inserted it the tab would get pushed to the write protect place. So i thought i would take the smart arse approach and trim a wee bit off the tab, unfortunately i trimmed too much off and now my PDA won't see it as anything other than write protect. My PC card reader is just fine with it.
Makes me think that your issue may be that the wee switch in your Himalaya has got stuck. Wouldn't know where to start looking myself but it may give you a starting place.

Problems with 8525

A few days ago, I bought an 8525 phone off my friend for $25. He told me that he only used the phone for a month, so it was practically brand new. I have been tinkering with it for the past couple days, using Wifi to download games and things, and it has been fine. The phone worked, texting worked, everything was perfect.
About two days ago, I accidentally dropped it about a foot onto wet asphalt. The battery fell out and the touch screen got a few drops on it, but I dried it all off, turned on the phone and tested everything; no problems from dropping it.
At some point later that night, the phone started having problems. It would randomly freeze every few minutes while in use, and I would have to take out the battery to reset it. Some buttons on the touch screen wouldn't respond at times, but then work later (the buttons next to volume, service and wifi or whatever). Then my texting and phone service stopped working. I couldn't get service anywhere that I walked, and the Settings button wouldn't work. I also tried to reconfigure the connection, but that didn't help.
I came home and found the phone I had previously, and I put the SIM card into it to see if that was the problem, which it is not. The old phone works fine with the SIM.
I don't know what the problem is, but there are a few things that may have caused it to happen:
-dropped it in rain
-plugged USB into a laptop that only turns on, but does nothing else
-maybe got virus from browsing internet on Wifi
-overheating (there was a point where the back was really hot after sitting on the USB)
-games/applications installed messing with system
Those are some examples of what I've done with the phone, but that's it.
Here is device info:
-Hermes 8525
-Windows Mobile 6 Pro
-CE OS 5.2.1948 (Build 18548.0.7.0)
-Processor: SC32442-400MHz
-ROM Version: Schap's 4.31
-ROM Date: 10/03/07
Sorry if I haven't provided enough information on the problem, I'm new to all of this stuff, but I hope somebody can help.

Actually, my problem has changed.
I attempted to put a new ROM on, and it seems I did something wrong. When I turn on my phone, it does the boot animation, and then the screen turns white and doesn't do anything else. I attempted to hard-reboot, but nothing happened.
I went into My Computer on my desktop, and the folder 'Mobile Device' showed up. I clicked inside of it, and apparently my entire OS is gone off the phone. How do I install a new OS?

I hope you had Hard SPL V7 installed or you will need to find your shipped stock rom.
If you did, great.
1. Format 2Gb or less sd card FAT32. Copy .nbh file of rom onto it and rename to hermimg.nbh.
2. Insert sd card into Hermes and boot into bootloader.
3. If you did everything right then follow onscreen instructions.
If you didn't & can't find your shipped stock rom, you are now the proud owner of a Hermes paperweight....

Instead of taking the battery out, there is a reset hole on the bottom near the IR port. Push in with your stylus.

I have the "No GSM" text showing up when I turn on the phone, and then it goes to the white screen. I tried to do the mtty.exe thing, but I couldn't figure out how to use the program.
I was going to try the fix that uses Visual Studio and Windows Embedded, but I'm pretty sure my phone doesn't have kitl (which I need to do that).
Most of the fixes suggested require using ActiveSync to connect to the phone, however, my ActiveSync doesn't connect. It knows the phone is there, but it can't connect, which disables me from updating the ROM.
When I attempt to flash a ROM, it says that the current ROM image on the phone is ' ' (just an empty space) and it asks if I want to update to the newer ROM image. It gets to the point where the progress bar appears on my phones screen, but as soon as it hits 1%, the whole thing fails and I get an error on the computer saying it could not connect.
Currently, I am attempting the method to fix the white screen by removing the battery for 20 minutes, and then I'm going to try the method that says to remove the battery and put it back in multiple times to fix the 'No GSM', but I'm pretty sure I messed the radio up.
@ultramag69 - I have an SD card, but I don't have a port or anything small enough on my computer to insert it. What should I do to do what you said?

Buy an adaptor, should only be a few bucks...
SD method is the easiest way to fix the problem BUT as was said earlier , you need Hard SPL V7 on your Hermes 1st.
You could also try putting your Hermes into bootloader, attaching it to the USB and flashing that way. Just make sure that "Allow USB Connections" has been unticked in Activesync on the PC.
At least you might be able to install Hard SPL V7 that way...

[Q] help for a nooby please

hey guys, trying to do my first upgrade to get win 7 on my very slow buggy hd2, i am following the guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=971478
and i am stuck on the first step, i have checked the SPL version, 1.42.00 i think it was, had phone on, connected up the usb, then downloaded and ran HSPL2_Run from my pc, and it fails on the usb connect, stuck on what to do
Edit>
I have now rebooted phone, held down the volume key and entered the coloured screen, connected usb, says usb at the bottom of the screen, and re ran the program, still no joy
Edit>
I have now tried using a different file on the link HSPL and i get past the USB connect and get a large loading bar but then get another error
Unknown error
Error Code: 0x80003
Always reference this code for eventual requests
Link used and used both downloads at bottom of page>
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=611433
Boot screen shows
PB81100 SS-BC
SPL-1.42.0000 XE
MicroP(LED) 0x05
MicroP(Touch) 0x50
USB

Can't speak for anyone else's guides but this YouTube tutorial with links to the needed files was the one I used and it works perfectly...

hey mate, thanks for the reply, i spent a good hour trying all different things and doing them over and over and all of a sudden it worked, done all the things on the video, and now i have win 7 on my phone, i am sooo pleased with my self lol
only thing is my sd card is 2gig so will need to buy a bigger one when i got some cash, when i get a bigger one can i just use the pc, drag and drop the files on the card to the pc and then back onto the bigger card, or is all the needed files saved on the phone?
cheers

I think I did read something somewhere about someone using a partition tool to do something similar, but for all practical purposes you should assume a hard reset is required to allow WP7 to format and set up the card properly.

Donketdaz said:
hey mate, thanks for the reply, i spent a good hour trying all different things and doing them over and over and all of a sudden it worked, done all the things on the video, and now i have win 7 on my phone, i am sooo pleased with my self lol
only thing is my sd card is 2gig so will need to buy a bigger one when i got some cash, when i get a bigger one can i just use the pc, drag and drop the files on the card to the pc and then back onto the bigger card, or is all the needed files saved on the phone?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ywe drag and drop will work with photos, videos, documents, and etc. Or you can use copy and past too.
As far as you putting the new card in I think all you have to do is put the SD card in your HD2 and then boot it up. I think it will be like the first time you booted because WP7 uses the SD card for it's internal memory so it will have to format your new card with RAID and place what info it has to place on it. Atleast that is what I have read, I do not use WP7.

T-Macgnolia said:
Ywe drag and drop will work with photos, videos, documents, and etc. Or you can use copy and past too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It won't. There is no real file explorer for WP7 and I don't believe the filesystem is readable outside of WP7.
I believe you will also need to reflash WP7 to have the card work effectively in the OS.

Donketdaz said:
only thing is my sd card is 2gig so will need to buy a bigger one when i got some cash, when i get a bigger one can i just use the pc, drag and drop the files on the card to the pc and then back onto the bigger card, or is all the needed files saved on the phone?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check this thread...

Gustopher said:
It won't. There is no real file explorer for WP7 and I don't believe the filesystem is readable outside of WP7.
I believe you will also need to reflash WP7 to have the card work effectively in the OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may be right, but I thought that you could still use drag and drop or copy and paste if you use the little USB mass storage hack for WP7. But I have never used WP7 on my HD2 so what do I know.

T-Macgnolia said:
You may be right, but I thought that you could still use drag and drop or copy and paste if you use the little USB mass storage hack for WP7. But I have never used WP7 on my HD2 so what do I know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can to some degree, but it's not as simple as good old WM and WP7 will most likely rename all of the files to add further complication. For a noob, best advice is to expect a hard reset

Well after a day at work, last night i was loving the win 7 on my phone, now i hate it....
Got so many issues with it,
1. Randomly reboots itself every 10 mins or so everytime, all day long and when it does it goes into a sort of safe mode with none of my settings saved, themes etc, and i have to reboot 2+ times to get my settings back, then it goes again after 10mins
2. when screen is locked for a few mins, when i go to unlock it and activate screen nothing happens, then the phone reboots.
3. During all these problems, every other time all the apps stop working, dont load up, reset fixes, not always.
4. Battery dies within an hour os so from full
Used [LEO_70]BOYPPC-SHIFTPDA-HD2_WP7_V4_(13.Apr) rom
any others anyone can cecommend or maybe even Android?
Also how do i install a new Rom, do i just run in on the 5th option of Magldr or do i need to delete it off first then install the new one? cheers

Donketdaz said:
Well after a day at work, last night i was loving the win 7 on my phone, now i hate it....
Got so many issues with it,
1. Randomly reboots itself every 10 mins or so everytime, all day long and when it does it goes into a sort of safe mode with none of my settings saved, themes etc, and i have to reboot 2+ times to get my settings back, then it goes again after 10mins
2. when screen is locked for a few mins, when i go to unlock it and activate screen nothing happens, then the phone reboots.
3. During all these problems, every other time all the apps stop working, dont load up, reset fixes, not always.
4. Battery dies within an hour os so from full
Used [LEO_70]BOYPPC-SHIFTPDA-HD2_WP7_V4_(13.Apr) rom
any others anyone can cecommend or maybe even Android?
Also how do i install a new Rom, do i just run in on the 5th option of Magldr or do i need to delete it off first then install the new one? cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your issue most likely isn't WP7 - which is normally quite stable - but an incompatible SD card. I'd suggest you bring forward your plans to get a bigger card - have a read around (there are several threads) to see which flavours of card are more likely to work well - and prepare to re-flash.
You should note that the selection of a suitable SD card does not seem to be an exact science - there is evidence to suggest that almost identical cards may have varying levels of success.
So the bad news is you are facing expense; the good news is that your experience of WP7 isn't representative.