A techy query - Deleted files on XDA IIi - MDA II, XDA II, 2060 General

All,
Hoping to call on your expertise...
My XDA IIi recently crashed and stayed that way probably about an hour before I spotted it, soft reset didn't work so I removed the battery. Bad idea.
From what I can gather numerous programs still running in background had actually worn down the battery. Not knowing this I removed the battery to reset the device. Un be known to me at the time, the backup battery was faulty and not holding a charge and the unit affectively did a hard reset.
so now I've lost all my data on the device. I note from reading other posts this generally means your screwed and the data is gone with the underlying message to backup device regularly.
However speaking to UK firms like ontrack data recovery for a fee they claim to be able to recovery data from your device and I don't mean the areas referred to as 'storage' and 'storage card'.
How come they can do it, yet no tools exist for the consumer? It sounded from other posts that it was technically impossible, yet for £300 they seem pretty confident.
Am I missing something?
Any help appreciated... lost some pictures and video of my baby boy, born just a few days ago...
Thanks,
PPCDude

as far as i know you cant recover the data any more then you can recover the stuff in your ram on your pc if you close it without saving
sdram will loose the data if it loose power
unlike flash and hd's where even if you delete data it's still there
untill the sectors the data was on is later overwritten with new data

Related

what absolute crap

i have had a few gadgets, mobiles and electronic stuff in my time, but to this day have not heard such a stupid thing as if i leave my phone untill the battery goes flat, I LOSE ALL MY DATA??!! this has alreeady happened to me after 1 nite i forgot to put the damn thing on charge, somebody should tell the makers of O2 XDA that some people have a life that does not revolve around constantly checking if your damn phone is about to wipe out all your data everyday!...also I cant seem to switch the damn thing off, by that i mean, there are times when you dont want people to call you, so you switch off your phone the normal way, by pressing the off button, was this too hard to incorporate????!!!!
...phew, feel a little better now, thanx guys.
i was worried about the Switching it off thing aswell at first.
Awnser is "Turn Wireless off" tap on the signal meter and the option is there.
also about saveing battery life, remember to allways press the power button on top when your not useing it
and to stop all sound, mute it
thing to remember is..
its a PDA with a phone built in.
not
a Phone with a PDA built in.
there is a diffrence as i say to ppl who tell me "man why d'you want a phone like a brick"
p.s. back up all data to your pc now n then
battery life never been a problem to me so far
and i can leave it days without a recharge.
anyway, it switches itself off as a failsafe if power gets too low.
obviously you need to go back to an organizer on paper. :lol:
The XDA /MDA is more a computer that a phone.. :shock:
Over 23 years of computing an ppl still think backup up is not needed.... :roll:
Hey dont knock rai. Its peeps like him that keep us IT'ers in a job :lol:
stryker said:
Hey dont knock rai. Its peeps like him that keep us IT'ers in a job :lol:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL!! :lol:
granted that the XDA is more a computer than a phone, but i dont lose all my software and my documents if my laptops battery goes flat.
im not aking to have the wheel re-invented (honest), just expect a simple "OFF" switch to "switch off" the device and to have my data and contacts still there, should i sacrilegiously forget to charge it.
rai, there is an option to write your contacts and other data to ROM, thus preventing loss of contact and appointments or all data if you have enough space.
rai said:
granted that the XDA is more a computer than a phone, but i dont lose all my software and my documents if my laptops battery goes flat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ypu would if you had i lightweight laptop w/o harddive and everything stored in memory. :roll: And that's what the PPC is...
Ok, granted, you have got a SD card, so you can store data on 'disk' if wanted. I have everything synced, on SD backup, or on the SD card.
Worstcase scenario is i may have to wait until i get home to resore all data...
Practical: Just plug it to power in your car and and home at night, and you'll probably even forget it works on a battery that could go flat :lol:
Perhaps the only solution fro PDA is this :
"Toshiba announced that it created a hard drive the size of a coin targetted for the mobile phone sector. The drive can hold as much as 3GB of information and will start shipping in 2005.
Related Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20031215/ap_on_hi_te/toshiba_tiny_disk"
but unfortunately we have to wait till 2005 :lol:
hi Johan, how does it work in a SE p800, does that have a HD?
It's one of the fundamental differences between Symbian and pocketPC - Symbian specifies that the devices main memory should not loose its contents when powered down fully. WinCE takes the other approach.
A few years ago, WinCE was probably the best way to do things, as non volatile RAM (or rather RAM that needed /very/ little power to maintain state) was slow and expensive - it was one of the bug bears of the 9210 that it had too little RAM, and the whole system was heavily underclocked - down to 56MHz if my memory serves me right.
Nowadays, this type of memory is a bit cheaper, and certainly more performant (remember this is not your regular flash memory we're talking about - that would be just too slow and incapable of the write cycle demands). This means that Symbian devices now have comparable performance to the WinCE, yet WinCe is still burndened with the loss of memory on power out.
One thing I'd like to see is an automatic "hibernate" feature added to the core OS. When power drops below say 1%, all open programs are closed, the remaining critical RAM contents copied off to flash storage, and the device won't wake up again until it's charged. It'd mean that device manufacturers would have to provide enough built in spare space on the flash ROM for this, but the current situation of manually backing up the critical data with the *flashman utilities is a poor substitute.
I know several people who refuse use PPC/WinCE because of the total data loss on power out, but as with so may WinCE problems, it could be fixed quite easily with a bit of thought on Microsoft's part.
Thinking about this for a moment, it would probably be relatively easy to create a third party app to do something along these lines - we can get the battery power level, we can 'unprotect' the spare ROM space, compress and dump the critical files to it along with a 'reawaken mode' flag, and we could have a little app that runs on startup and does the reverse if the flag is present, followed by an automatic soft-reset so that all drivers etc can reload cleanly. The only tricky part is making sure that there's anough space available for the main data for contacts/diary/registry/etc plus any additionally installed programs - these could be prioritised by the user if there's some that are more critical than others.
All that sounds a little complicated for rai.
He could simply copy his contacts and save it onto the extended_ROM using a basic txt document, or save it on his SIM, which is what we all should do anyway. :lol:
Or...
he could go the long way and copy the actual file for contacts and the calendar, then paste it into a secure folder in the extended_ROM, and if ever the problem does occur again, copy and paste it again.
Either way, let this be a lesson to you all: WinCE gives you all the programs Symbian users can only dream about, but there are drawbacks - you've got to be just a little bit more responsible with their devices. Like one chap here said: It's NOT a phone.
I'm sure I've seen a prog that does automated backups to the SD card. So there is an ideal, non user intervention solution.
Also when the backpack comes out you could get a nice CF Flash micro disk. That brings all the joys of your laptop with mechanical hard drive..... hhhhm mechanicaaaallll.
oh here it is, the answer to your problems. Automated backup and low battery backup
http://www.spritesoftware.com/ppc/products.html
rai the reason your laptop's batt is soo big is related to the fact that it use a harddisk because harddisks are full of moving parts which spin at a pretty fast pase
this cost batt juice
so if the xda or p800/900 had a harddisk you would not have much time to put in your data before the batt was flat
Pocket Backup Plus from Sprite Software, like stricker said , is the solution to all these problems ... use it and ....keep cool ! :wink:
Thanks for the link, didn't know about this program (as I always back up to PC anyway). OEMs should buy it and stick it preconfigured into their roms.
I've seen that backup prog recommended by others and in interest of doing as I preach I installed it. However I found an issue.... may just be affecting me tho. See the other thread I started, "spritesoftware backup package".
XDA2 backup and restore
I use sprite's backup program and backup every day to my PC. I copy this backup and of course the program to an sd card, and my webserver. That way I can be reasonably safe. Mine went flat today, but used one of those emergency chargers(takes AA batts), and was back in business in a few mins.

HELP PLEASE - Need to retrieve data from non-booting M3100

Hi,
I've spent 5 hours reading this site and others and can't find an answer...
I'm in real trouble... My completely unmodified M3100 went odd last night - wouldn't load contacts, calendar or go into the phone application, then after a couple of reboots, it won't even boot up now. It gets as far as the Orange splash screen, displays some version numbers, those disappear, then it sits there on the Orange screen for ever.
I've tried leaving the battery out over night, I've tried leaving it on the Orange screen for ages - no joy.
The only thing I haven't tried is a hard reset, because I need to get the data off there if at all possible, since it hasn't been sync'd for about 4 months. Silly I know and I was thinking I should do it the other day, but never got round to it.
The only thing which seems to function ok is the bootloader. Is there any way at all of either retrieving calendar and contacts data (at a minimum) or re-flashing just the OS portion of the ROM, leaving the user data intact?
Any help would be much appreciated - I'm having kittens here!!
Cheers,
Richard Wright
not to sure but..
have you connected it via usb when you're stuck on the loading screen and in bootloader mode to see if you can retrieve data?
i doubt you will be able to but its worth a try...
if not then i doubt there would be a way to be honest
Yeah, got it plugged in now. I can talk to the device using MTTY etc. when in bootloader mode. I just wondered if there was any way to dump the data.
I looked at the PB+KITL method but unfortunately my device doesn't seem to support KITL so that's a non-starter
when you conected the device to the computer didn'y you sync contacts and all the other info via activesync?if there is no other way of geting it to boot into software try upgrading software that doesn't make a hard reset...that way all data will remain on the device...hope this helps
No, the last time I actually connected to it and sync'd was back in December
What upgrading software do you suggest which doesn't make a hard reset? I was wondering whether the OS has just got corrupted and re-flashing that part would fix it.
that's exactly what i'm saying...make a software upgrade...that will make your device boot into the operating sistem...but without formating the device...ask the "high ranked" people on this site to give you a ftp link where you can dawnload a software upgrade without formating the device...remember....think twice and analize 1000 time what you are doing and go through the steps they indicate exactly otherwise you can lose not only the data on the device but the device itself...anyway don't weep...there are solutions
Any high ranking members out there able to help?!? Please!!
WrightClick,
I'm not sure what xardas is suggesting but if it is to reinstall the OS rom then, as far as I am aware, you will definitely lose your data because installing the new OS rom is in effect a hard reset.
Someone with a bit more knowledge will come along in a minute and offer advice on how to get your data off. You may need to resign yourself to the fact that it may be lost though. Hard lesson to learn.
WB
I am 99% sure there is no simple way of retrieving your DATA. You could try PMing Olipro/Cmonex for a final definitive answer as they knows more about the inward working than most.

MMS not sent, then SD card vanishes, NOW it doesn't take my password!

Last night i took a photo then attempted to send it to a friend (MMS) - surprise surprise the phone made no effort to send it and it sat in the Outbox. I deleted the message and re-created it then attempted to re-send... again... didn't even try to send it.
So i created the message again... but this time, it couldn't find any of my photos... which I thought was odd... so i try to load Resco File Explorer - and it complains that it can't find the program (installed to SD card).
So it seems that magically I have no SD card any more (fwiw: i'm using a 16GB Sandisk one).
So, thinking the phone is just spazzing out, i reboot it.... and now it won't even f***ing recognise my password!
I'm being pretty patient with this phone as i've loved it up until recently... but if i'm honest - i'm starting to grow weary of it now!
If anyone has any thoughts on what might have caused the above - i'd appreciate it!
Thanks
Don't know what has caused it but, if you have your data backed up, I would go for a hard reset and take it from there.
Incidentally what version ROM are you running?
WB
I'm using the stock UK T-Mobile 1.43 ROM
UPDATE: I've left the battery out for an hour or so and also performed several soft resets........ and now, the "unlock" button does nothing! No confirmation of a wrong password... just........ nothing!
So ****ing pissed off!
Pooper,
You say you have done several soft resets. Have you tried the hard reset I suggested earlier (different procedure to soft reset)?
If you try that and it doesn't work then take the easy way out and return/exchange the device as faulty.
Alternatively, if you get it up and running and are not precious about the T-Mobile rom, then flash to another rom (the stock 1.48 is a good start) and take it from there.
Just in case you do have a dodgy device I would start by returning it if the hard reset does not work.
Keep us posted on how you get on.
Cheers
WB
On this forum, 1 in 2 posts ends with "Hard reset it"...
...1 in 4 posts says "You must have a faulty device, send it back"
I pity the poor guy in the returns department of HTC. The quality control guys on the other hand, they really like to party don't they?
Towserspvm2000 said:
On this forum, 1 in 2 posts ends with "Hard reset it"...
...1 in 4 posts says "You must have a faulty device, send it back"
I pity the poor guy in the returns department of HTC. The quality control guys on the other hand, they really like to party don't they?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes hard resets do resolve strange issues. Soft reseting is a way of life in the winmobile world.
The dilemma people have at the moment is that because there are so many reports of issues and variable manufacturing quality in these devices and they are all under warranty, it makes sense to play safe and send the device back if all sensible and warranty friendly measures to resolve problems have failed.
Must admit I would be really cheesed off if I happened to have a faulty device on my hands, due to manufacturing errors, which the manufacturer would not accept back because I had tried solutions to resolve problems that they considered not to be warranty friendly. Definitely would not be happy after having spent £500 on a device.
Regrettably, therefore, this is why the most common recommendation at the moment is to send a device back. Not good but sensible and pragmatic.
WB
Towserspvm2000 said:
On this forum, 1 in 2 posts ends with "Hard reset it"...
...1 in 4 posts says "You must have a faulty device, send it back"
I pity the poor guy in the returns department of HTC. The quality control guys on the other hand, they really like to party don't they?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a hard reset is kind of the mobile equivalent to restarting your pc, and we all know that is the first thing any tech support guy says. as for the quality control, don't forget that for everyone with a problem there are a few dozen people with no problems at all, they just don't start threads saying "no problem with camera, help not needed"
samsamuel said:
a hard reset is kind of the mobile equivalent to restarting your pc,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really.... a SOFT reset is like restarting you PC (i.e. your programmes, settings, personal saves etc. are all preserved); a HARD reset is more like reformatting your computer that has an ability to self install Windows when the format is done... (i.e. you lose all personal files etc.).
A hard reset is far more taxing than a soft one. Last option for me everytime!
oliie said:
A hard reset is far more taxing than a soft one. Last option for me everytime!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I very rarely have to do a hard reset with my Diamond (only after upgrading the rom), although I have to do several soft resets a day due to my tinkering!
I hear you Wacky Banana - £500 device that did this and I'd be a bit miffed too!
samsamuel said:
a hard reset is kind of the mobile equivalent to restarting your pc, and we all know that is the first thing any tech support guy says. as for the quality control, don't forget that for everyone with a problem there are a few dozen people with no problems at all, they just don't start threads saying "no problem with camera, help not needed"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi! Indeed, I couldn't agree more with you. I have bought my HD2 two weeks ago (as well as my brother and my dad about a month ago) and none of us has a any problems whatsoever and actually this is my first post after I have bought the device.
I am reading this forum everyday and I contribute wherever I can to help people out (not so much here, so forgive me ).
I have came to the conclusion that either the branded units are of lower quality than the unbranded ones ( a bit unlikely) or the branded ones are full of software bugs by not so good operators tweaking (most likely)...
cheers
Hehe, i knew i'd wake up to howls of anger and derision re: my hard reset comment.
The actualities of the process aside, the comparison I was trying to make was that if you have a problem on your PC, sometimes logging off and back on will fix it, whilst other times a reboot is required. (Yes, I know, a reboot is usualy the first stop because it only takes a minute or so, and there's no resetting to do, but bear with me)
In many circumstances I would equate a soft reset to logging off, in that it doesn't always solve a problem. Sure, it solves many small problems, but for larger probs theres nothing like a hard reset and start over. Planned ahead, and assuming you have all the apps you regularly use in a handy spot, and your data backed up, a hard reset need only take 10-20 minutes, if that.
Suppose it serves me right for trying to mix up similies at 3am.
Your problem sending MMS's is probably to do with winmo getting the settings for T-Mobile slightly wrong.
Go to start->settings->menu->all settings->connections->connections->manage existing connections
edit the active connection and untick the box where it uses a proxy.
This is common to all winmo devices that automatically setup connections for T-Mobile.

Lost data due to hard reset

Hi,
I am a total novice when it comes to the technical side of a mobile, but today I need serious help.
Today (30.03.10) I lost three years' worth of data (text messages, calendar entries, call log, and tasks) due to an accidental factory reset.
I am sure you can understand how I upset I am to have lost so much data.
I am trawling the internet for help in retrieving this lost data.
I hope there is someone out there who can help.
Right now I cannot bear looking at my phone, and am thinking of selling it now, as it upsets me to be reminded how much I have lost.
The reason I had not backed-up my data is because I have been looking to upgrade to a new phone for over a year now, and have not found anything to replace my current SPV M3100 with.
This is mistake I will not be making again, but in the meantime...
I cannot understand, how a failsafe (at network provider or manufacturer level) is not being considered.
Please, anyone, I really, really need your help.
I have exhausted the usual routes - network provider (orange), manufacturer (nokia and htc)
Thanks
Angelina235 said:
Hi,
I am a total novice when it comes to the technical side of a mobile, but today I need serious help.
Today (30.03.10) I lost three years' worth of data (text messages, calendar entries, call log, and tasks) due to an accidental factory reset.
I am sure you can understand how I upset I am to have lost so much data.
I am trawling the internet for help in retrieving this lost data.
I hope there is someone out there who can help.
Right now I cannot bear looking at my phone, and am thinking of selling it now, as it upsets me to be reminded how much I have lost.
The reason I had not backed-up my data is because I have been looking to upgrade to a new phone for over a year now, and have not found anything to replace my current SPV M3100 with.
This is mistake I will not be making again, but in the meantime...
I cannot understand, how a failsafe (at network provider or manufacturer level) is not being considered.
Please, anyone, I really, really need your help.
I have exhausted the usual routes - network provider (orange), manufacturer (nokia and htc)
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Normally doing a factory reset is not easily done by accident (it's a trcky simultaneous combination of button presses and the stylus in the reset hole). However, you may have tapped on "Clear Storage" on one of the phone menus which has a similar effect. Even then the phone issues a warning.
If the phone is truly hard reset, and you did not store your data on a storage card then I'm afraid it is lost. It is the same as re-installing the operating system on a PC where the data is stored on the same partition as the data files. The dat files are lost.
Of course there are FULL backup programs around that restore EVERYTHING (eg.SPB Backup or Resco). And they only take a few minutes to backup and restore - unlike PCs.
I am not aware of anything you can do following a Hard Reset to get your data back. I assume you were not sybnchronising your phone with a PC?
Mike

Focus resets itself on powerup

I travel quite often so I have to power my phone off and on frequently. Today when I landed in the Philippines and powered my phone on the phone reset itself with what appears to be a hard reset. Everything is new. I have to reconfigure my email and such. All of my photos are gone etc. When I re synched over the air with Windows live, My contacts returned as expected, but then I had to turn off my phone for the next flight and the phone reset itself the next time it was powered on. I seems that every time I power the phone back on it is hard resetting? Any ideas? This is a huge pain obviously and I am really mad about losing my text messages and saved photos, not to mention the pain of re applying apps and such.
FYI, I have no MicroSD in the drive.
i got the same with my samsung focus idk whats with that. but you applied that you dont have a sd card an i have a 8gb sd in mines and they said thats probably why mines reset but i believe the update that came out yesterday should help with the stabiliby of the software.
Official Update left microsoft: March 24, 2011
(NO OFFICIAL DATE YET ON WHEN INDIVUAL PHONE COMPANIES WILL SEND THEM OUT)
What I had originally thought was a problem only on powerup now seems to be a general memory problem. The phone now no longer maintains call logs and will not completely sync claiming it does not have enough memory. Error Code: 80070070. It wants me to free up memory by deleting items which it deleted itself on powerup.
I also cannot sync to Zune anymore to reload any apps or such. Very strange. Unfortunately I think that this will end up being exchanged at att wireless which will probably result in my being given a refurb. I LOVE my Focus. It has been hard to watch it die over the last week.
Paolo01 said:
What I had originally thought was a problem only on powerup now seems to be a general memory problem. The phone now no longer maintains call logs and will not completely sync claiming it does not have enough memory. Error Code: 80070070. It wants me to free up memory by deleting items which it deleted itself on powerup.
I also cannot sync to Zune anymore to reload any apps or such. Very strange. Unfortunately I think that this will end up being exchanged at att wireless which will probably result in my being given a refurb. I LOVE my Focus. It has been hard to watch it die over the last week.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try do a hard reset and see what happens. What's your total stoage available?
foxbat121 said:
Try do a hard reset and see what happens. What's your total stoage available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have hard reset. Despite that there is only 0.60 MB available. Again, there is no MicroSD inserted, nor has there been.
Seems the user storange space is gone?
Paolo01 said:
I have hard reset. Despite that there is only 0.60 MB available. Again, there is no MicroSD inserted, nor has there been.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are 3 different ways to hard reset/format the phone. Try all of them until you see the all 8GB back. I know I have to format 2 or 3 times when mine suffered the exact same problem (I blame the microSD card). Since you don't have any SD card, it seems this is an Focus issue regardless microSD or not.
I had an HTC HD 7 that did the same thing. It would reboot and it would be back to factory settings. I was lucky enough that a ROM was available so I re-flashed the phone and everything worked perfect. I think you will be hard pressed to find an available ROM for the Focus, so best to exchange it for a new one.
I called att tech support and they did the standard walk me through troubleshooting. I did a software hard reset and a hardware hard reset (Camera button, volume down and power) In the end after resetting the phone froze on the Samsung boot screen. They sent me to an att wireless store to try a new battery. In the end att warranty services declared that the phone was dead and is mailing me a new (refurb) phone. Bummer. I loved my phone, but something killed it that I cannot identify. That calls for a little concern, but I'll chalk this up as a one time if the new phone has no issues.
Hate to break it to you but me (along with many others) have had this problem with the Focus where it just gets stuck on the Samsung boot screen.
Unfortunately, the cause is still unknown so it can affect basically anyone. And there is no fix for it yet (besides an exchange) so people outside the US who own the Focus are simply out of luck.
UzEE said:
so people outside the US who own the Focus are simply out of luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd strongly recommend against ppl purchase Samsung phones that they can't get warranty service locally. Samsung Phone's build quality is lousy. Your chances of need the warranty service is very high. I owned 5 Samsung phones, half of them had problems. Some I just live with them (like the broken GPS on my Captivate). Some I have to swap it out with AT&T warranty services (one with known antenna separation issue and one with a broken chagre port after a few months, also a known issue for that phone).

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