Database Users

Defrag Storage Card, Don't Do It.

This is just a quick heads up. It was new to me and I had never came across the issue before on here, so I am posting my results.
I was doing some routine maintenance on my PC and I had accidentally left one of my external USB Stick drives in the machine. I noticed that in the Defrag options, it now gave me an option to Defrag the external drive. I thought to myself, thats kinda cool, I bet my 6gb Micro SD card on my phone could benift from a good defrag. I quickly popped my Micro SD card from my phone, plunked it into a USB Key Reader and told Diskeeper to Defrag the Micro Card. I was thinking, this should be great, I have thousands of files on my Micro Card, a good Defrag should be a cool thing. A few mins later it said it was done so I pulled it out and put it in back in my phone.
The next day I went to launch TomTom and it took 5 mins just to launch the app. I thought it had froze or something. I was fighting with it, driving me nuts. I re-installed TomTom, still taking 5-8mins now to load the app. When I tried to get directions it would take up to a min just to plot a route. (should only take a few seconds) I re-flashed the phone with a new ROM, then reinstalled TomTom and it did not help at all. Everything on the storage card was taking forever to load. Even the music apps were bogging down really badly.
Today, I yanked the Micro Card out of the phone, placed it in a USB key and copied the contents to a temp Dir on my desktop, formated the card, then wrote some data to the card and formated again.
Finally I put all my data from the temp Dir back onto the card and put the card back in my phone. Launched TomTom and took about 5 seconds rather than 5 mins to load. Everything is back to perfect.
I was hoping to Increase speeds with the Defrag of the Micro SD card and in fact it killed it horribly.

Lol, good to know. I would have thought the same thing!

a little common sense would have told you that would be a bad idea.
defragging is designed to 'defragment' files and put the most used files all together at the start of the drive. meaning a hdd head doesn't have to do a lot of skipping about for one file. then yet more skipping to find the next file, and a whole load more skipping to find different pieces of that file, etc etc.
the fact that solid state media doesn't have a drive head renders defragmenting unnecessary, plus as SSDs also have a limited number of write cycles the excessive writing required to move files around the card reduces its lifespan.
hope this helps

It depends
After owning several Pocket PCs with various expansion types, defragging has it's benefits and it's pitfalls.
(The following comments are based on percieved experience. I've not done any benchmarking.)
I've found using cheap card readers can definitely cause problems with cards, particularly when defragging. It can result in various errors in the files and sometimes even render the card unreadable/unwritable. Even reformatting has no effect. To solve the problem I've often had to use a digital camera to reformat the card before it can be read/written by a PC via card reader.
Multi-media files seem to be the type of file that benefits most from a contiguous file that needs to be read/written by the Windows Mobile device. Particularly video. Why this is so, I do not know. But when watching video or listening to audio skipping and stuttering seem to be much less aparent when the file is contiguous. Also, I've been able to resurrect some .jpg files unreadableby my WM device by doing a defrag. Again, no idea why.
Almost any file that needs to be constantly read seems to benefit from a contiguous file, e.g. GPS maps.
Safest way to make files contiguous is to copy the contents of the card to a hard disk, reformat the card, then rewrite to the card.
Just my 2 cents.
Would be interested in anyone else's observations, particularly with media files.

Defragging files on flashcards is pointless - skipping from sector to sector in a row takes as much time as to skip into random sectors...
Frequent writes on cards descrease their lifetime... So that - defragging anything else than hard disks is harmful for media.

maybe unrelated, but is the option "encrypt files in the storage" (or something sounds like that) from within the windows mobile's settings pose any danger? i.e. conflicting with PIM backup files etc.
thanks

Please read
Just found this article

dave852 said:
a little common sense would have told you that would be a bad idea.
defragging is designed to 'defragment' files and put the most used files all together at the start of the drive. meaning a hdd head doesn't have to do a lot of skipping about for one file. then yet more skipping to find the next file, and a whole load more skipping to find different pieces of that file, etc etc.
the fact that solid state media doesn't have a drive head renders defragmenting unnecessary, plus as SSDs also have a limited number of write cycles the excessive writing required to move files around the card reduces its lifespan.
hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said, SD cards and USB drives are flash drives and as so they don't need defragmentation and also as it was mentioned in the quote, it reduces it's lifespan.
Cheers

With Sandisk offering a 5-year limited warranty for their ordinary microSDHC and a 10-year limited warranty on their Ultra microSDHC cards and an expected minimum life of 15 years and maximum of 75 years (according to a Sandisk forum moderator) does it really matter what you do?
With storage memory sizes and formats moving so fast, who expects to keep using these things bought today on a daily basis on 5 or even 10 years' time?

[Q] Lack of recognition memory card after installing wp7

hi!
I've installed on hd2 wp7 everything works fine, but not the zune program and photo and music clips and software, and ... Throw in the phone memory and does not know you please help me. Thanks!

I've installed on hd2 wp7 everything works fine, but the zune program will not install anything on the phone and my memory does not help please help me. Thanks!

please!
please! please! please!

Can you please explain your problem more clear?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

HoomanHana said:
please! please! please!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed WP7 on my HTC HD2 and I have only 158 MB of the memory. The SD is inserted. How I can make my WP7 recognize my SD card?

alex_sa said:
I installed WP7 on my HTC HD2 and I have only 158 MB of the memory. The SD is inserted. How I can make my WP7 recognize my SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In simple terms you can't.
One of the reasons most WinPhone 7 manufactures hid there SD cards deep inside the units was because MS have some very specific requirements for the performance and specification of SD(HC) cards that the OS will use to combine with the on device NAND storage.
This mostly comes down to the speed of 4k block read/writes (so it seems) but also seems to require some card features that not all cards have (so there is some definite 'blacklisting/testing' going on during that 1st boot it would seem).
In simple terms, if after installing your SD card and doing a reset of the phone (via settings, about, reset or holding VolUp and VolDown during and after the 1234 GO GO... from Magldr) you don't see the SD card as usable space it is safe to say that it does not meet the requirements laid down in the WinPhone 7 SD driver and is not going to work, go and try another card .
If your card IS recognised but the device seems exceptionally 'laggy' (hanging on the installing apps screen for a long time after the 1st reset is a big clue) then the chances are your card is no where near quick enough in the 4k read/writes to be used correctly by the OS (even though it detects it), again, time to try another card.
There is anecdotal suggestions that removing all existing partitions and on the card before you install it in a WinPhone 7 device helps with it being detected but then even if that is the case those same cards seem to then exhibit the very poor performance as above and that tends to imply they got blacklisted for a good reason .

djwillis said:
In simple terms you can't.
One of the reasons most WinPhone 7 manufactures hid there SD cards deep inside the units was because MS have some very specific requirements for the performance and specification of SD(HC) cards that the OS will use to combine with the on device NAND storage.
This mostly comes down to the speed of 4k block read/writes (so it seems) but also seems to require some card features that not all cards have (so there is some definite 'blacklisting/testing' going on during that 1st boot it would seem).
In simple terms, if after installing your SD card and doing a reset of the phone (via settings, about, reset or holding VolUp and VolDown during and after the 1234 GO GO... from Magldr) you don't see the SD card as usable space it is safe to say that it does not meet the requirements laid down in the WinPhone 7 SD driver and is not going to work, go and try another card .
If your card IS recognised but the device seems exceptionally 'laggy' (hanging on the installing apps screen for a long time after the 1st reset is a big clue) then the chances are your card is no where near quick enough in the 4k read/writes to be used correctly by the OS (even though it detects it), again, time to try another card.
There is anecdotal suggestions that removing all existing partitions and on the card before you install it in a WinPhone 7 device helps with it being detected but then even if that is the case those same cards seem to then exhibit the very poor performance as above and that tends to imply they got blacklisted for a good reason .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good job and very well put!

djwillis said:
In simple terms you can't.
This mostly comes down to the speed of 4k block read/writes (so it seems) but also seems to require some card features that not all cards have (so there is some definite 'blacklisting/testing' going on during that 1st boot it would seem).
<SKIPPED>
There is anecdotal suggestions that removing all existing partitions and on the card before you install it in a WinPhone 7 device helps with it being detected but then even if that is the case those same cards seem to then exhibit the very poor performance as above and that tends to imply they got blacklisted for a good reason .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where can I get this SD card blacklist for HD2 WP7?

simploid said:
Where can I get this SD card blacklist for HD2 WP7?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There isnt a blacklist as such
if any portion of your card doesnt match the required random access speeds then you can expect several outcomes
firstly it doesnt work
or you might get it working but with Wifi issues, lagging issues, unresponsive screen, random resets.
or you might find that only a portion of the card doesnt work, forinstance, mine was fine, then i slapped some music on it and it started this reset business, so i slapped some more music on it and it went away, take the second bunch of music off and it starts again, all portions of the card are in good working order but for whatever reason it didnt like using a small portion of the card for system uses.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it also sounds like he is installing WP7 and then inserting the SD card afterwards.
The SD card should be inserted before installing WP7, so it can partition the SD card correctly and see it as "Total Storage" because WP7 doesn't support removable storage to begin with.

XPiemaster said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but it also sounds like he is installing WP7 and then inserting the SD card afterwards.
The SD card should be inserted before installing WP7, so it can partition the SD card correctly and see it as "Total Storage" because WP7 doesn't support removable storage to begin with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whoops! oversight
Support fail, oh well theres some good info here on SD issues if anybody actually uses the search

Using larger than 8GB SD

I'm sorry to be bothering ya'll again but, I have a question in regards to usable SD card sizes to install CM7 on. Here is the issue I'm trying to work with. I'm going to be taking rather long bus ride fairly soon (southern Missouri to Copeland, Idaho) and I'm wanting to install a couple of compressed movies on my Nook to watch while traveling. I know I can just remove the CM7 SD card and install a card with movies on it and use the original Nook software, but I have problems ( big fat fingers ) removing and installing the cards in the Nook and I'm always nervous about breaking the Nook or a card. Are there any SD cards 16GB or larger that work reliably with CM7 and can the partition sections be made larger to hold a couple of movies? I would set this card up with CM7, make the partition for the movies larger and then install the movies I want to view. Is this even possible? I've been scanning the forum and don't seem to be seeing anything like I want to do.

GrampaBear said:
I'm sorry to be bothering ya'll again but, I have a question in regards to usable SD card sizes to install CM7 on. Here is the issue I'm trying to work with. I'm going to be taking rather long bus ride fairly soon (southern Missouri to Copeland, Idaho) and I'm wanting to install a couple of compressed movies on my Nook to watch while traveling. I know I can just remove the CM7 SD card and install a card with movies on it and use the original Nook software, but I have problems ( big fat fingers ) removing and installing the cards in the Nook and I'm always nervous about breaking the Nook or a card. Are there any SD cards 16GB or larger that work reliably with CM7 and can the partition sections be made larger to hold a couple of movies? I would set this card up with CM7, make the partition for the movies larger and then install the movies I want to view. Is this even possible? I've been scanning the forum and don't seem to be seeing anything like I want to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you already have your CM7 set up on the 8GB card and you just want to run it on a bigger card so you can watch movies, I have an item on my tips thread linked in my signature on how to do just that. Look at item B9 in the second post of that thread. You can also use partitioning software to "clone" the 8GB card to a bigger card.

The cloning would be nice, that way could keep my calendar, e-mail, programs, and chess game as they are. The one thing is that are the 16 GB class 4 Sandisk SD cards reliable for the CM7 as the smaller recommended 4 and 8 GB cards? I tried with a install on a 16 GB Kingston class 4 SD card and had an issue with freezing and forced close, though it is a card my granddaughter had used in her phone and gave to me when she got a larger one. It could have issues I guess, though it was working OK in her phone.

GrampaBear said:
The cloning would be nice, that way could keep my calendar, e-mail, programs, and chess game as they are. The one thing is that are the 16 GB class 4 Sandisk SD cards reliable for the CM7 as the smaller recommended 4 and 8 GB cards? I tried with a install on a 16 GB Kingston class 4 SD card and had an issue with freezing and forced close, though it is a card my granddaughter had used in her phone and gave to me when she got a larger one. It could have issues I guess, though it was working OK in her phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Kingston class 4 should have been ok, but the Sandisk 16 class 4 are great. No issues at all.

I have 2 class 4 Sandisk 32GB cards. I use these with no issues. I had no end of issues with non-Sandisk cards.

Back to pester again.
leapinlar said:
If you already have your CM7 set up on the 8GB card and you just want to run it on a bigger card so you can watch movies, I have an item on my tips thread linked in my signature on how to do just that. Look at item B9 in the second post of that thread. You can also use partitioning software to "clone" the 8GB card to a bigger card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried to copy the image from my working SD card to put it on a larger card before my trip but wasn't successful. I have been trying to finish the project since I returned with no success. I am using the Win32diskimager program but I am having a bit of a hitch. When I start up the program it will open up but all of the options ( cancel - read - write ) are grayed out and I cannot seem to make an image. I have redownloaded copies fresh and installed them into different folders, but I get the same result. Can anyone give me an idea of what I am doing wrong? I am doing all of this on a new desktop computer (well, new to me anyway) computer with Windows 7 and I'm using a USB card reader/writer as suggested. I thought maybe it was a problem with the card reader but I've tried 4 different brands, all with the same result. I've looked for more information but seem to be finding more porn sites than information. Sorry to be a pain in the backside

I am using a Sandisk 32 Gb Class 4 SD Card - I wrote Leapinlar's modification of the Verygreen Installer ("larger Version 4) using win32 disk imager, installed the Kanged CM7 build, and finally also installed the modded CWM recovery (the special one for SD Cards). I also made a nandroid backup to the card and CM7 on the SD card works flawlessly.
BTW, Amazon has a very good price on this 32 Gb card - got mine for $17.

GrampaBear said:
I tried to copy the image from my working SD card to put it on a larger card before my trip but wasn't successful. I have been trying to finish the project since I returned with no success. I am using the Win32diskimager program but I am having a bit of a hitch. When I start up the program it will open up but all of the options ( cancel - read - write ) are grayed out and I cannot seem to make an image. I have redownloaded copies fresh and installed them into different folders, but I get the same result. Can anyone give me an idea of what I am doing wrong? I am doing all of this on a new desktop computer (well, new to me anyway) computer with Windows 7 and I'm using a USB card reader/writer as suggested. I thought maybe it was a problem with the card reader but I've tried 4 different brands, all with the same result. I've looked for more information but seem to be finding more porn sites than information. Sorry to be a pain in the backside
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GB. I think the problem with win32diskimager for you is you have not selected the card reader drive with the upper right hand box. Those lower boxes will stay greyed out until you have a drive selected in that box.

leapinlar said:
GB. I think the problem with win32diskimager for you is you have not selected the card reader drive with the upper right hand box. Those lower boxes will stay greyed out until you have a drive selected in that box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You also have to give it a file name prior to reading or writing... you'd think you could read the SD then give it a file name... but it doesn't work that way with Win32DiskImager

It appears that the USB on my "new" desktop was bad and causing the problem. Found this out after a smart young fella I let hunt squirrel on my property took a look at what I was trying to do.Took it back to the store where I purchased it and they replaced the motherboard under warranty. They weren't very happy about it as the only board they had for the processor was a bit on the expensive side and I had to persuade them that it would be better to make me happy, then themselves. I picked it up yesterday afternoon and worked with it last night. After a couple of tries I made an image and after a couple more had the image on my new 16 GB SD card. This morning after chores I installed a free partition manger and expanded the SD partition to take up the rest of the space, put it in the Nook and it booted right up. I'm so happy, I fired up the wood burning oven in the yard and I'm going to have me some roast chicken and roasted fresh vegetables for dinner tonight with a big bottle of cold, home brewed mead. Thanks to everyone for your help. Gonna try to put a movie on the card later and see if it will work later, unless I have more than one bottle of mead that is. This Nook stuff aint always easy but its getting to be a bit fun.

Ya gotta give it up, the man knows how to party.

ext. sd card mounting/unmounting issue

Hi Guys,
I have an (3) 32 g sandisk external SD cards that keeps mounting/unmounting and then getting message that it is blank....Have reformatted it several times put it in my computer and tried to change the read status on it....Everything I can think of....The problem is that it keeps the info on there and there doesn't seem to be any issue with the card itself just seems to be an incompatible issue with my Galaxy note. I am experiencing this actually on my note and my wife's note and my Flatmate's note also...
Yet these cards worked fine for a long time and even now for no apparent reason my flatmates card is working again...
I have seen this issue come up with a lot of peeps online but haven't seen any answers....
Cheers, jeff

Same issue here
I have a Galaxy S2 from tmo (hercules) and have been having this same issue.
I didn't have any issues with it until I tried loading large HD videos onto it (over 2GB) and then it started to poop all over itself.
I realized later that the card was fat32, even though I thought I had reformatted it to ext2 for link2sd to work...turns out that was just the small partition I created through CWMR, and even ext2 won't handle large files either, only ext4 or NTSC (as I understand it).
I would love to be able to reformat the entire card to ext4 so I can load HD movies onto it but I don't think that's an option and I may have damaged the card by messing with it so much. From what I've been able to dig up, even if I do manage to reformat the entire card to ext4, windows won't recognize that particular file system so I wouldn't be able to move anything onto the card from the computer via usb anyways.
I don't think I've answered you question, but maybe we can work together and get some devs on this for some definitive help and explanations. :laugh:

Full Size SD Card (Non-MicroSD) Information

In case anyone runs into issues like I did, please read the following...
I have a T-Mobile Note 4, running Official CM12.1 Nightlies (had same issues on TouchWiz junk), and a MicroSD to SD converter ribbon running the PNY 256gb card. In case anyone asks, I have the Hyperion 8000mAH extended battery which is where I acquired the room for the full size SD and cable (after trimming the left side of the board where the SD card reader is mounted). I attached a picture for anyone who wants to try it. Also, I provided a link below to the adapter.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sintech-SDH...pter-FPC-cable-for-mobile-phone-/221149974785
I had issues where the phone would recognize the card and partially mount it. Meaning, listening to music, browsing the file contents, etc, was very laggy and caused things to freeze. Also, transferring things via USB from Windows would usually halt and fail half way through. I probably formatted 30 different times, in both FAT32 and exFAT.
I solved the issue completely by formatting the card in TWRP to EXT4. I had downloaded a 3rd party Linux system explorer for Windows expecting it not to see the EXT4 file system, however, it shows in Windows explorer perfectly fine and all functions are present NATIVELY. Thanks MTP.
Probably won't apply to most as I've only seen two other posts in the past 2 years with anyone running a similar setup, however figured I'd post it in case someone else decides to try it and has issues. :good:
Thumbs up to the guy that finds this by searching a year from now!

love this hardware mod