Database Users

Do you trust the Athena's MicroDrive?

I just want to see how many actually trust the MicroDrive on the Athena. I also look forward to hearing how long you've had the device and if you've had any issues with losing data under WM5 and also under WM6.

i have backups of all my data always anyways
but i just dont trust microdrives...
although i have had a 1gb microdrive for my dslr and its about 5 years old... still running strong... (rough use)

boinger66 said:
i have backups of all my data always anyways
but i just dont trust microdrives...
although i have had a 1gb microdrive for my dslr and its about 5 years old... still running strong... (rough use)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a problem under WM5 where my drive lost ALL data. Have you had any problems with this? Also, do you use the drive heavily or just now and then?

i didn lose any data till date
but i also dont use it thattt much...
just watch a movie and listen to music every now and then ...

No, I don't
I am old enought to remeberber first ZIP devices... Microdrives IMHO are more or less the same, good for DIVX movies, downloaded MP3, to transport data from Home to Office and vice-versa. ANY byte I copy in the microdrive is safely stored in some other place!

I do trust it, but anything important is automatically backed up, ive learned my leason over the years of not backing up data.
Im not really using the microdrive to its fullest potential yet, as im still unhappy with the video playback, and do think my mda sounded better for music.

MD's are sometimish at best...
No issues or lost data to date via MD or SD. Having said that, I decided before I got the Athena that I would only use the MD for backup files, Music and Video - no system or any other applications....just can't trust theses MD's plus they suck too much power for my liking.
Shame really, coz these Hitachi MD's run bloody fast..5x faster than device and then some compared to SD cards.
Safe practise for me now is:
1) Regular backup to SD card (at least 2x a week if not more)
2) fortnightly SD & MD backup to PC
No probs to date.

Never had any problem, and i trust it...
If not, why i bought it??

the only problem I have had was a defect SD card approx. 4 years ago. from present to now the card was defect, nothing could read the card (or could format). anyway,
I really trust no more memory cards for lifetime, but I trust it if it was new and not so old...
And I also trust the Microdrive, because my old Hitachi Microdrive is running for more than 2 years (first in my old PDA, than in my notebook).

I do trust it but I am keeping in eye on it because of all the complaints I have seen. I had my X7500 a little over a month and I had one issue where the drive did not show up after installing a software that was problematic. I uninstall the software, then perform a soft reboot. The Micro Drive was back and has not disappear since then.
Due to power consumption I only keep pictures, videos, music, and a few application that I use occasionally.

Micro Drive...inaccessible.....
Well I've finally encountered a problem with the Micro Drive that I have been unable to resolve.
Read here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1419142#post1419142
I should also mention that he used the MD solely and never invested in a mini-SD card as I had advised him. Even though I haven't this problem myself, I'm really interested in resolving this. Not for his sake alone, but all of our sakes if we have the mechanical MD, because it could happen to us.

After hearing about all the microdrive nightmares, I guess I won't be switching to an Athena anytime soon, unless 1+ yr old Uni decides to give up its ghost. Viva le universal.

Microdrives are generally very reliable. I have a Fuji M603 digital camera and I have a 2GB microdrive in it. For the last 3 years I've used it as a tiny digital video recorder (damn good one at that!) and it has never faulted. Hitachi are world renowned for the reliability of their MD devices.
The only problems you are likely to get are:
a. Faulty MD (this can happen to any piece of electrical equipment after all)
b. Rough handling causing data loss (this has to be quite rough)
c. Drive bearings 'wear out' this wont happen for a very long time
d. Magnetism 'wiping' the drive (in the Athena its well shielded anyway)
So all in all it's fine. I have a 4GB SDHC and the 8GB MD, plus I back up to my network drive just in case once a week - it's a computer after all - and it's run by a Microshaft OS!!

I have not had problems with the microdrive, although I use it sparringly because I am concerned with battery life. I use the 4GB SDHC mini for most data and file storage and I have found a problem with this that may also relate to the microdrive.
I primarily use Vista on a daily basis which involves the Windows Mobile Device Center. I have had two instances where I had the device connected and the storage card open in a minimized window and undocked my device. Apparently the FAT was wiped out, all of the files appeared to be gone, although the card was still showing the correct number of MB used on it. Files were recoverable but not useable. I keep vigilant backups so I did not lose anything.
I could envision a similar problem with the microdrive, it just happened when I was connected to the SDHC. For now, I close out of the device windows before undocking and have not had a repeat of the problem since.

AHH NO! 2nd memory card gone

Ok, so when i first got the TD2 i bought a 16gb mem with it, but about 2 weeks in, it just wiped my memory card and made it useless, trying it on the computer, on the phone, even in a camera brought nothing up. I was hoping it was the memory card faulty. So i bought a new 16gb and it's gone and done it again. Just randomly, whilst using coreplayer to watch some blue, my phone froze. so i did a soft reset and now my mem card has disappeared. all my apps saved it it have gone, all my pics...just everything
what the hell is going on?
I use spb shell, luckily that was saved to my phone so i stil have it, but half the apps on it don't work now

I installed Advanced Config 3.3 and turned on SD-card powermanagement... shortly after that I lost one 8GB sandisk card ... Diamond2 could not see it anymore. My PC could not see it anymore.... Maybe it was the Advanced Config setting that somehow broke it or maybe it was coincidence?? ****ty thing is I didn't make a backup so lost a lot of nice pictures on it...

If you use activesync, you would need to configure WM device center to NOT replace items on the device. Switch that to replace items on desktop.
If its not that, then maybe shell is the culprit. Or advanced config.

tomtommy306 said:
If you use activesync, you would need to configure WM device center to NOT replace items on the device. Switch that to replace items on desktop.
If its not that, then maybe shell is the culprit. Or advanced config.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, it's not just deleted data. In my case the SD-card is really broken. I cannot open it in any device anymore.

I had this problem with my Xperia twice, and I'm far from convinced that the TD2 is any more stable.
I haven't tracked down what is causing it, but I have never had any problems with SD cards in all my years with PalmOS or Symbian devices. I think it is just a 'feature' of Windows Mobile because the system is unstable and prone to crashes which corrupt the cards.

Mr Anderson said:
I had this problem with my Xperia twice, and I'm far from convinced that the TD2 is any more stable.
I haven't tracked down what is causing it, but I have never had any problems with SD cards in all my years with PalmOS or Symbian devices. I think it is just a 'feature' of Windows Mobile because the system is unstable and prone to crashes which corrupt the cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well corruption can usually be repared by a format or something like that but in my case the card isn't even recognized by the system anymore, it just won't show up.'

this has happened to me too. twice!

OffTopic
Mr Anderson said:
I think it is just a 'feature' of Windows Mobile because the system is unstable and prone to crashes which corrupt the cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? Talk about 'give a dog a bad name'. If you knew a little more you'd soon realise it has zip zero and sweet buggerall to do with WM, which is stable, flexible and reliable, though the UI is admittedly rather dated, and everything to do with HTC's implementation.
/OffTopic

Blizze said:
Nope, it's not just deleted data. In my case the SD-card is really broken. I cannot open it in any device anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep twice with me as well
once with normal TF3D and once with SPB shell
Just totally broken my card...tried using 2 usb readers and 2 computers with it...nothing
tried putting it into an sd card converter and putting into 2 cameras...nothing
Be warned people!
Back up your stuff! TD2 looks like it enjoys corrupting micro sd cards and making you pay for more
perhaps HTC has a contract with Sandisk or something
Keeps sandisk bringing in profits in this troubled time of recession

AFW said:
If you knew a little more you'd soon realise it has zip zero and sweet buggerall to do with WM, which is stable, flexible and reliable, though the UI is admittedly rather dated, and everything to do with HTC's implementation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Our opinions differ it seems, but unless someone finds the actual cause we will never know the truth.
My apologies for not knowing much - I am trying to learn WM after many years on other platforms. All I have to go on is my personal experiences with 4 WM devices (all originating from HTC), and those experiences are not great. WM has a bad name in my eyes, from direct personal experience. Maybe I am maligning it falsely if the true cause of the problems I experience lies elsewhere...I am willing to have an open mind.
I am several £££ out of pocket, having lost 2 16GB cards to these devices - a problem I have only ever suffered with HTC/WM. Given that HTC is the leading manufacturer of WM devices it does not reflect well on either them or the OS platform they are working with that they cannot create stable bug-free systems.

Are these genuine memory sticks?
I work in repairs and I have had a number of HTC devices along with others too that have had this issue.
It turned out that on average, 7/10 devices had fake memory sticks from reputable vendors who were duped.
1/10 were corrupt memory cards just from use/standard wear and tear or just corrupt out of factory.
and the last 1/10 was a faulty memory card reader on the device -

I had an original SANDISK 8GB micro-SD card in it. I now have a 6GB in it which still is OK for now... But backups will be made. I am going to get me another 8GB card and possible trade in the broken one (warranty)... these things should not brake this soon.. the card was 3 weeks old!! If the second one also breaks than maybe it's a D2 problem??
edit: I have to notice that it broke down I did turn on the SD-card powermanagement save option from Advanced Config.... maybe that's the cause??

I've had my 16gb card in the phone since April 15th when I got my unit...not one issue touch wood so touch its the phone ... if anything, it might be your specific unit but I would still bet on the card itself
As an example, I got a 32GB USB stick from Kingston - so not exactly a small make
Within a week, I lost 31.8GB and was left with 2mb.
Data has gone and is not retrievable. Kingston have now tested and diagnoised the memory is corrupt and unfixable so they are replacing it.
So it can happen

An advice: Whenever you do a operation such as backup or something, do not charge your phone!! That really hurt your SD card....

cedarlake888 said:
An advice: Whenever you do a operation such as backup or something, do not charge your phone!! That really hurt your SD card....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what do you mean? Like no charge when on activesync? I can't see
why that would hurt the card.

Did you guys format your mem cards before using them?

I have a stack of SanDisk MicroSD cards (256mb, 1gb, 2gb, 4gb hc, 8gb hc and 16Gb hc). My 16Gb and 4GB cards both had faults (the 16gb one wouldn't format and the 4gb one just didn't work and wasn't even recognised as being in my phone or card reader).
SanDisk have a 5 year warranty, so I registered all of my cards on their website, reported the fault and had them replaced. The whole process took about 4 weeks, but they sent me brand new 16gb and 4gb cards.
Sometimes flash media just fails...

maybe you all should get transcend.. they give you lifetime warranty...

Yep, but I lost my reciept ... and I need that to trade in.. But yesterday a bought a new one... maybe I use the new reciept to trade in the old.. cards are the same size en look the same.. so i'll probably get away with that.

Me too - lost the 8 GB card in my TD2 last week, it's completely unreadable now, can't be formatted, etc. Never happened to me before. Hope this isn't s.th. serious with the TD2...

Defragmentation error - lost clusters

I have Wizcode Defragment and ScanDisk on my HD2, nearly every time that I defrag I get an error message stating 'Errors were found on volume "storage card". The volume cannot be defragmented. Please check the volume for errors first and try defragmenting again'.
I then run ScanDisk which finds a number of invalid/lost clusters, yesterday there were over 200 lost clusters and today 27.
Is this anything to be concerned about? If so, what steps should I take to remedy?
Thank you for your assistance.

u defrag the Storage Card while it's in your HD2?

denizenx said:
u defrag the Storage Card while it's in your HD2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. With Wizcode Defragment Mobile I do not think there is an alternative.

defrag ing your sd card will reduce its life fairly significantly.flash memory has a limited number of write cycles, so defragmenting will use up quite a significant number of these cycles.
but more to the point .... my card always comes up as containing errors whenever I put it in my pc card reader, and asks if I want to fix it. it has been doing this for around 2 years and I've always chosen no, and never had any issues.

samsamuel said:
defrag ing your sd card will reduce its life fairly significantly.flash memory has a limited number of write cycles, so defragmenting will use up quite a significant number of these cycles.
but more to the point .... my card always comes up as containing errors whenever I put it in my pc card reader, and asks if I want to fix it. it has been doing this for around 2 years and I've always chosen no, and never had any issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. I was not aware that defraging a card reduced its life.

no worries.
don't lose any sleep over it,I believe the rewrite cycles are somewhere in the region of 10,000 cycles, so one or two defrags is neither here nor there, but I know how addictive de fragging can be, so doing the whole card even once per week will soon mount up.
personally if I were you and you are worried, I'd use the pc to scan and fix the card.

yeah forget about dragging your card.
get a kettle and a card reader.
copy thee contents of the card to your pc (in a new folder some where)@ put the kettle on while its copying. when is done format your card copy the contents back again to your nice shiney clean card. go make a cup of tea while they are copying back
the card will now be defragged

Apart from being a little harmful, defragmenting flash memory is also useless as there are no moving parts to suffer from fragmentation.

right
I concur. Defragging volumes on solid state media, like anything other than conventional harddisks, is not in any way contributing in any practical performance increase.
There are some benchmark tools for winmo out there. Just wait untill your card is realy fragged, run the benchmark, defrag, and run the test again. You will see no performance increase.
As stated, it's the moving parts that hate fragmented volumes, your HD2 has none, beside the buttons when you press them.
You shouldn't bother.
You should however get a solid state drive (SSD) for your desktop or laptop. It'll make you happy.
Broke, but happy.
(Check tests on internet, there is quite a lot difference between SSD's)
Best to spend that time researching performance of different SD cards. I for instance am very content with my 8 GB Transcend SDHC, some kind of superspeed series. It writes allmost 20MB/s in my desktop cardreader.
Nice.
It realy doesn't care what part of the 8 GB it needs to access to get you your file. I think I saw some article stating the difference is measured in µs. I don't think you can notice µs's, even when they bring their entire family of µs's.
Research tweaking cache sizes and pagepool. Might help with performance, depending on how you use your device.
Hope this helps.

Thank you all for your helpful advice.

HD2 shipping without micro SD card?

My HD2 just arrived courtesy of my insurers (Lloyds TSB - regarding lost Hero replacement) without a micro SD card. They say HTC no longer include them with the HD2 - I didn't believe this so I called HTC and they've confirmed they do still ship with them - email confirmation winging it's way to me.
I guess the phone's storage is still usable to a degree via 200Mb or so onboard - until I get a new card that is? Phone is currently charging so I'm having to wait a couple of hours to find out anyway.
Cheers

Yes mate, it's perfectly usable without an SD card. You will want to get one ASAP though, as the device memory can fill up pretty quick once you start installing apps. I tend to install everything that is not required for the phone to work on the SD card, but there's no reason that you have to do this.
Enjoy your new phone

Nice one, cheers for that.
BTW, what's the best practice for storage, especially for apps/tweaks/updates, etc? Should they go straight on the phone? I used to have a Tytn II but can't remember what I did.

Tweak apps, such as bsb tweak, HD2 tweak etc should be installed don the device, normal apps such as games can be installed on the sd card

Cool - thanks.

Do we forget that the MicroSD card shipped with the device is a class 2? Which means the less read/write operations it has to perform, the better, yes?
So before we start installing apps to the SD card instead of phone memory, shouldn't we get a class 4 SDHC or class 6 card?

mine shipped woth a sd card. class 2. gonna get a class 6 as i write to it lots
i dont think u need to wait for it charging. i had mine on from when i plugged it in first day. battery seems fine from the amount o use it.

Well, it's all charged up and I'm having my first play. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any sound coming out of the speaker - the headphones work but that's it. Can't find any settings that are disabling the speakers. Don't tell me I have a new phone with dodgy h/w! Will have a search on these boards ...

I installed almost everything (except a few games which I hardly play anyway) on the device memory itself.
My thinking was that as long as the device is not full it is ok, and the less reading and writing you do the the SD card, the better for the battery.

mfrey0118 said:
....shouldn't we get a class 4 SDHC or class 6 card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get a class 6. A transcend 8GB card is about £13 from amazon. If you look at the accessories board there are several places that will do it slightly cheaper (i remember somone even posting a 20% discount code for one site).

Demon_man said:
Tweak apps, such as bsb tweak, HD2 tweak etc should be installed don the device, normal apps such as games can be installed on the sd card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed Bsb Tweaks and JWMD Icon changer on my SDcard and they are working perfectly. It seems logical to install those on the device but unless it's absolutely vital I don't want do that.

Maximum R/W speed supported for microSD?

I need to purchase another microSD and before I spend the extra for a class 10 or 6 unit I thought I should see if anyone knows what the max. r/w bus speed is for the Milestone 2.
FYI Take it easy getting the card out, I removed the battery and as I was sliding it out I put more pressure then required on the vertical axis and the card snapped as it hit the halfway point. Oops, again

Unfortunately, it seems like M2 doesn't handle high classe microsd cards very well. I have a class 10 16gb sdcard and never got it working properly on my mobile. Don't know if it's a hardware or software fault. Others have the same problema, and there is a thread already about this issue.

Someone said that to solve the card you should format the sd card on the phone in the settings, and it makes sense. Make a backup and try it.

dangpzanco said:
Someone said that to solve the card you should format the sd card on the phone in the settings, and it makes sense. Make a backup and try it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Already did that. The phone lags like hell when the 16gb class10 is in it, no matter if I format it on the phone, on the pc, or anywhere. I thought it was an issue like the one on the Evo, where the read and write speeds are limited through a config file. But it didn't work. It seems like the problem is with the media scanner, because when the sdcard isn't filled with music/photos, it runs well. But a 16gb card without music, photo or video is useless =[

AragornPE said:
Already did that. The phone lags like hell when the 16gb class10 is in it, no matter if I format it on the phone, on the pc, or anywhere. I thought it was an issue like the one on the Evo, where the read and write speeds are limited through a config file. But it didn't work. It seems like the problem is with the media scanner, because when the sdcard isn't filled with music/photos, it runs well. But a 16gb card without music, photo or video is useless =[
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tested the phone with a different card/brand? Maybe MS2 is not fully compatible with the card you bought. Also you may test the card on a notebook with card reader to benchmark it. You know, Class doesn't mean much. Brand is much more important than class (be careful about fake sd cards sold on eBay). I assure you that a good brand class 6 sd card can outperform a cheap class 10 card.