M130 Losing Data

[jfbri]

I bought my son and daughter a Palm M130 for Christmas and both have experienced the equivalent of a hard reset on their machines.

They keep their batteries charged, so it's not due to the battery running down.

The machines go blank with no backlight and you have to perform a soft reset. It comes back with the full battery charge and no data. Applications and data are gone. It's like a hard reset.

Has anyone else experienced this? They have their machines synchronized, so they can get everything back, but that's not the point-they don't work right.

Hope someone knows what's going on. Thanks,

jfbri

[m130]

I haven't had this problem, but it could be some software that they have installed on the palm. If it persist, maybe they should try a few apps at a time to eliminate the one that is causing the problem.

[tuffguy]

I too have not heard of this problem. I find it hard to believe that you got two faulty units with this same issue. m130 is right, try deleting recently loaded applications. Also, you might want to look into getting a virus scan for your Palms. I haven't seen too much discussion about pda viruses, but I do know they exist.

[jfbri]

Let me think about the software incompatibility. I have beamed programs from a Visor Platinum and a Visor Prism. Everything works okay on those PDA's.

Does anyone know of any incompatabilities between the Handspring machines and the M130?

In the meantime, I will advise both of them to perform a hard reset and load any non-system programs on one-at-a-time and watch the results.

I'll keep you posted.

jfbri

[CarpeDiem]

I have had this problem. I have had my palm for a little under a month and twice, I have had it do a hard reset. Once, I just turned it on and everything was gone. The second was just a day or two ago, it got locked and wouldn't let me do anything so I did a hard reset and all my 3rd party apps were gone. Luckily, I had done a hotsync just a little while before that. I haven't had it happen where the backlight doesn't come on. Once, the first week I had my m130, I couldn't do a hotsync at all. I had to reinstall the software for the palm desktop and hotsync.

[JohnKes]

Most programs that run on Handsprings (OS3.5)will run on an m130 (OS4.1)

Sounds more like a static electricity problem to me. [I presume you live in an area with cold, dry air and wear static generating clothes to keep warm.] I don't know of a practical way to keep from zapping the connector at the bottom. Electrical tape would work until they had to HotSync and/or charge the battery. They don't put in enough protection against static.

[palms/o]

Wow... I would never have considered ESD a problem before, but it does make sense.... just not sure that is whats going on here. I am leaning more toward a third party software incompatability issue just because I have experienced that before...just not with those exact symptoms. Jfbri be sure to let us know what your solution was.

[jfbri]

Static electricity is plausible, but because it doesn't happen to my Prism, my wife's Platinum, my friend's Clie, etc. I wonder if the M130 has some more sensitive components or made of a different material?

At least I know there are others out there who have experienced the same thing.

I know someone who lost all his data (around Christmas) and I believed he just let his battery run down-now I'm not so sure.

Are there others who experience this reset phenomenon? Perhaps it's not limited to the M130, but it's the only one I've heard about.

[JohnKes]

The worst software problem I ever had in a Handspring was RaceFever and/or SpaceTrader getting corrupted by PiDirect and/or PiVFS. The Deluxe would just blink the PalmOS logo continuously, and not even Soft Reset properly.

A Warm Reset got it back, but my IR drivers were not loaded, among other problems. After I finally figured out to delete RF and ST, I was able to Soft Reset - and everything went back to normal.

I guessed ESD because it happens suddenly, yet causes no permanent destruction. Also it happened to two different units, so probably not a random manufacturing defect. I was also guessing that jfbri was a normal person, who would not put funky software on his kids' Palms (here is where I may be wrong). [I try not to be abby-normal most of the time ;)]

[palms/o]

I should have been more clear.... Ive not had that exact problem, but I have had my M130 reset a couple of times. It was a software problem though... a program I installed caused a fatal error and another one eventually caused a reset. BUT... Ive not had one that was not an obvious software gliche.

[CarpeDiem]

I live in Nebraska and there is a lot ESD at the moment so it does make sense. I had an M100 and it really didn't have this problem but this year, the ESD has been at a fever pitch, so much that we have to spray liquid fabric software in our offices. I never thought about that. I know a friend of mine has an M515 and he has the same software installed as my M130 and he doesn't have this exact same problem (he has a different problem related to the M515). So I wouldn't think it would be a software related problem. Any other suggestions if it is caused by ESD?

[ILovePalm]

I had the same problem. I purchased a brand new m130, and it required a hard reset, then it kept coming up with a fatal error. I returned it to the store I purchased it from and they exchanged it for free. It seemed like the original one may not have been so original. The box was all sealed up and had shrink wrap, but inside the box there were no sealed items. There were slight scratches on the back and the screen had smodged finger prints all over it. It just didnt look new. But Im happy with the exchanged one, it was perfectly sealed and have had absolutely no problems.