32mb CF problem?

[EnglishDude]

Hello all

I brought my MC218 quite a while ago, and got a 32mb Crucial CF card in March. A couple of months ago, I got "Corrupt!" in the main screen when accessing the card, and something like "Error cannot write - corrupt" whenever I try to read/write something from the card. It couldn't format the card either. Had to send the card to a friend with a CF card reader and format it for me. And it just said "Corrupt!" again today - this is starting to annoy me - is this a common problem with the Psion with large CF cards or can my card be faulty?

If its a large card problem, should I get a smaller card for my important files? If so, how big the card should be?

Thanks very much for your help in advance

Piers

[brianh]

I have a 32 MB and a 16 MB SanDisk CF card. I haven't experienced problems with reading or writing to either of the cards. The only problem that I have experienced is that sometimes when I take the card out to use with a CF reader on my Mac, the D drive has to be reformatted before it will read the card - a small bug in the OS but worth it due to the benefits of onboard storage.

Also, I have read in the Epoc Digest of people safely using 256MB SanDisk CF cards and larger. Several people have reported problems with using other CF brands than SanDisk - apparently Psion and EPOC likes them.

Hope this helps.

[netBookBabe]

To be honest, I don't consider a 32Mb CF to be a "large card" - many people are using 64, 128, and higher, without problems. I use a 64 in my MC218 and a 128 in my netBook, so I think you should discount that particular theory, and also I would expect a Crucial branded card to be of good quality.

Obviously if you could try the card in another machine, or a different card in your own machine, you might be able to get some clues as to whether the card itself could be faulty, or the connection between the card and the MC218.

I've seen these "corrupt" messages occasionally, in my case usually when switching from one card to another - it's generally been solved by a soft reset. In your position I would certainly try resetting the MC218, soft reset first, if you haven't already done so, and if that doesn't help, then maybe a hard reset. You say you've had the machine for "quite a while", so it wouldn't hurt to have a spring clean, in any case.

I'm assuming you have access to a PC to make a backup before doing a hard reset - most especially since you have an unreliable CF! Post again if you need any guidance.

Anyone else have ideas on this one?

Julie

[spegru]

I had a corrupt card problem at one time - caused by removing the card while it was being written to (doh!).

To fix it, I tried - and failed to reformat on the Psion and the PC.
In the end I successfully reformatted it on my digital camera, and it's now fine.

It seems that there are different levels of formatting


rgds

spegru

[MikeMcC]

And it just said "Corrupt!" again today - this is starting to annoy me One of the most common causes of CF card corruption is trying to write to them when you have insufficient battery power. Be very careful that your batteries aren't too low if you are saving files to CF.

[EnglishDude]

Wow thanks very much for all of your prompt replies!

Netbookbabe - forgive my ingorance, but how to do a soft reset? For the life of me, I can't remember. Luckily I backed up my Psion a few days ago ;) And yes I agree a 32meg card isn't "large" - I spotted a 1 gig CF card last night. Smallish :P

MikeMcC - batteries aren't low - batcheck says they are 2.57v, and I usually use the AC adaptor anyway.

Everyone - When I sent my card to my friend last time, she could access and copy/write files from/to it via her card reader no problems, so she copied off the important files off it, reformatted it and sent it back. When it arrived back a couple months ago, I had to reinstall everything from scratch as my PC died at the same time and the newly installed Psiwin didn't like me copying the backup files directly in the backup directory. So it was a fresh install not a "had it for a while" install ;)

So I'm considering a CF card reader, so if I get a corrput message, I could put it in the PC, copy all files off, format it, put it in the Psion, format it, and then put it back in the reader, copy all files back on and sorted? Be quicker that way as I've around 30meg of files and they take forever to be copied off the PC via serial ;) After all I've found a PCMCIA CF card reader for £12 inc vat.

Cheers for your help again!

Piers

[Tony Amos]

I've had exactly the same problem with my own 32mb Crucial CF.
I sent the first one back, but this was before I had a card reader. If you're using CF, get e USB reader, it is so much faster than the 5's serial link. (yes, I have backed up 20mb from CF via the PC link. Takes forever. )

One option is to remove it from the drive for a minute then replace it.

Otherwise, make sure you have a card reader to recover data, then reformat.

I find it happens when trying to delete files rather than writing, but I tend not to watch the battery levels until the warning comes up so I don't know if its anything to do with that.

I know this may not help much, but you are not alone with this problem. It may be that Crucial cards aren't that great with the handhelds.
Pity, as they are so cheap online.

Tony

[EnglishDude]

Yeah - looks like I'm going to buy a card reader - faster to backup anyway.

Crucial memories are supposed to be v. good though - I normally make it an issue to buy from them only.

Cheers - Piers

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by EnglishDude
Netbookbabe - forgive my ingorance, but how to do a soft reset?
Hi Piers

To perform a soft reset, the traditional method is to insert a pointy item (skewer, cocktail pick, unfurled paper clip) into the reset hole - this is located inside the back up battery compartment on S5/S7 machines. This should not normally result in any loss of data, providing you can manage to close down any open apps before resetting.

My preference, though, is to use a utility such as ResetPlus (freeware):

http://mypsion.ru/resetplus.php

Once installed, this resides in Control Panel and your machine can be reset by a few keystrokes or screen taps. Seems somehow kinder to the Psion! :D

Julie

[brianh]

You can bypass the insert hole and the additional program by just pressing SHIFT+CTRL+FN+K while in the system screen is showing.

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by brianh
You can bypass the insert hole and the additional program by just pressing SHIFT+CTRL+FN+K while in the system screen is showing.
This is a good tip to solve problems with individual apps - it's worth a try with any app that freezes or fails to respond (including System). It doesn't however perform a full soft reset on the whole machine, and I doubt it would solve a "disk corrupt" problem.

Julie

[MikeMcC]

Originally posted by brianh
You can bypass the insert hole and the additional program by just pressing SHIFT+CTRL+FN+K while in the system screen is showing. This keypress is an emergency option to "kill" whichever function is in the foreground. In the System screen it kills the shell but, as Julie correctly says, it isn't actually rebooting the machine which may be necessary to sort out a confused operating system. It is ideal for closing hung apps but I cannot see any merit in using it with the System screen in the foreground.

[EnglishDude]

Nope no sugar. Looks like its that CF card reader for me.

Thanks anyway for all your help :)

Piers

[brianh]

Thanks to Mike and NetBookBabe for clearing up the SH+CTRL+FN+K keypress combo.

I appreciate knowing.