Defragment of card fixed my Android installation! - HD2 Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting and Genera

Just a tip I thought I'd share...
My Android installation had grown very unstable (running Desire build v5 http://gamesquare.co.uk/desire.html ).
After just a minute or so it would just freeze. Also the the menu button (windows button) had stopped working in a program I'm using a lot. I tried to restart several times but the problems were still the same.
So I put my MicroSD card in my USB card reader and did a defrag on it and after that the problems were gone!!
So if your Android installation is getting unstable you might want to try to do a defrag on it. It would probably work with the built-in defrag program in Windows but I used http://www.mydefrag.com (freeware) since it has a special profile for flash disks that uses as few erase-write cycles as possible.
Does anyone know of any freeware defrag programs for Windows Mobile so that it can be fixed without using a PC?
Brgds... /Tubgirl

Great tip! I'm going to try this!
Cheers,
Shufflez

Is there any defrag program around for windows mobile maybe? That would be more comfortable and we would not need to take out the card.
Maybe someone already has seen such a tool?
By the way thanks for this useful tip.

shufflez said:
Great tip! I'm going to try this!
Cheers,
Shufflez
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool... let us know the result of your tests, please.
Brgds... /Tubgirl

defrag on sd cards on phones are not a good idea.
___Fragmentation is only a problem on moving hard drives - it slows down access to a file if it's spread all over the drive in small fragments. This doesn't matter with the solid state internal memeory of a phone - no moving parts = no delay retrieving different parts of the file.___
So on a hdd the storage closest to the center og the spinning disc inside will be the fastest part aka the operating system.
But in an sd (solid state storage) all files are spread over a little area witch will cause no lag or delay.
Defragmenting will maby help, but do it only once, not many times, that will kill the thing.
I had my ssd since january this year, and was on 58% fragmented in july, i degragmentet it and has been on 1-3% since, same with my sd card on my phone.

Related

MemMaid ate my MiniSD! How do I revive it?

"Just remove the smartskey renegade error message with a run of MemMaid", the post said. Sure, why not. I'm already planning a hard reset, so what harm could ever come out of it?
So I MemMaid-ed.
Didn't do very much for the error message. But it killed my MiniSd!!!
It's gone. Non-existant. Invisible. Kaputt.
I already hard-resetted, but it won't come back. I took it out and used compressed air to clean up the slot. No way. I clicked the card out and in a few times, just to see if it did anything (no, it did not).
So what am I to do now? How do I bring my MiniSD back to life?
I suppose it will involve putting it in a flashcard reader and toy with it... but is there any other (sensible) attempt to try?
[And I'm beginning to believe that this whole WM5 is in fact just another name for the Ancient Windows 3.1 Curse, when it was normal to see your Pc (and your work) crash at least a few times a day for no reason at all...]
Please, please, please help meeeeeeeee!
Just a couple of questions I wanted to ask that may help you and others trying to help you.
1. Have you tried your miniSD card on your computer? Is the information stored on there still there? Will the computer read that miniSD card?
2. Have you tried another miniSD card in your phone?
bubism said:
"Just remove the smartskey renegade error message with a run of MemMaid", the post said. Sure, why not. I'm already planning a hard reset, so what harm could ever come out of it?
So I MemMaid-ed.
Didn't do very much for the error message. But it killed my MiniSd!!!
It's gone. Non-existant. Invisible. Kaputt.
I already hard-resetted, but it won't come back. I took it out and used compressed air to clean up the slot. No way. I clicked the card out and in a few times, just to see if it did anything (no, it did not).
So what am I to do now? How do I bring my MiniSD back to life?
I suppose it will involve putting it in a flashcard reader and toy with it... but is there any other (sensible) attempt to try?
[And I'm beginning to believe that this whole WM5 is in fact just another name for the Ancient Windows 3.1 Curse, when it was normal to see your Pc (and your work) crash at least a few times a day for no reason at all...]
Please, please, please help meeeeeeeee!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are not the first to fall victim of the memaid! I wish it was not quoted so easily like these programs are not without their problems. I use sktools btw and find this better but i still have a healthy respect for the program and the potential damage it can do.
First i suggest if you have a card reader to use that to see if your pc recognizes your card and to backup otherwise you could loose any important data on your card.
Next i would try formating the card to fat on the device using demo version of storage tools http://www.softwinter.com/storagetools.html or sktools http://s-k-tools.com/ as this often brings the card back into view or if not recognized by your device format it on your pc.
I use MemMaid very often and never had any problems with it.
Can you tell me what you did that killed your SD Card?
I normally only use things like the Duplicates Finder for the notification queue and the Clean Function.
Hello, and thank you all for your responses!
I won't have access to a card reader until tomorrow, and I was already planning to reformat the card that way. I'll be trying the device-based solution first, though, and I'll make sure to keep you updated.
(by the way, I simply ran a standard scan & repair... can't fathom how that can be so disruptive - and without a warning!)
very innflamatory unfounded statement
Hey Your headline was completely irresponsible and unsubtantiated. Ive had quite a few devices over the years and now have two devices rubnning wm 5 and they all have copies of memaid and i have never had an issue with memaid . I do however share your sd card issue but this only happened after i updated my device to the ad2k rom upgarde two days ago. The issue isith the sd not one particaar program . whos to say that you didnt demagnetize the card or some other issue. Please before you post any thing that your so sure of but have no proof ensure that you get all the facts. If i was the maker of any software company you defamed i would surely result to legal action. Please use this forum to inquire about issues rather than being so accustory .have a great day!
It sounds like you work for DinarSoft.
I have lost part of my 1 GIG SD two times in the last weeks, but since I uninstalled Memaid, I have not seeing any more problems with my SD card.
Not really sure 100% memaid caused it, but I find it really suspicious.
I too was using Memaid just to clean duplicate notifications, but now I simply use the always trusty and free Check Notifications program from ScaryBear Software.
Best regards,
Rayan
Kinmont: I'm very glad you never had any problem with that app, but as you can read it does seem that Memmaid (and probably other, similar programs) is in fact killing cards up and down.
I'd much rather post "irresponsible" and scary threads and warn people of the risks they are taking, than skirt around the issues. I for one would have been oh so much more better off if anybody had warned me beforehand...
Oh, and by the way... quit your bullshitting litigious attitude now, dweeb. Luckily for us, outside USA people are still allowed to expose dangerous products without fear of intimidatory corporate tactics. Nyah nyah nyah.
(And if you have a problem with that, jump on a plane and come over to discuss things like a man. This girl and her Fashion Purse of Clobbering are waiting for you)
I installed Opera on my 8125 and that day my mini SD card died. Does that mean that Opera killed it or should I blame it on Memaid which I had had for months with no problems? Or is it just possible that a large percentage of these cards are defective? Kingston replaced my card for free - and paid for 2 day FedEx shipping too.

2gb SD card becoming corrupt

I used my Qtek 9100 with a PQI 512mb miniSD for a good few weeks and it worked flawlessly. I had another unbranded 2gb miniSD card and decided to copy everything on to that and use it so I'd have more space for music. To cut a long story short, this worked fine for a few days then I started noticing WMPlayer acting up. I checked the card and loads of files seemed to be corrupt. After playing around with it for a while I eventually gave up and decided it must be a duff card.
So, I bought a 2gb PQI miniSD which I had read good reviews off. However, I'm having the same issue. I've tried everything I can think of 1) hard resets, 2) soft resets 3) re-installing apps 4) formatting in a couple of different PCs with a couple of different card readers 5) formatting from the StorageTools on the phone 6) formatting using WM5torage.
I can install apps and they seem to be okay, but then when I try and run them I get errors and when I look at the card its because of corrupt files.
I have no idea what is going on and I'm at the end of my tether.
I'm using the latest Qtek 9100 ROM from their website. Is this perhaps a bug in the ROM? Would I be better with another ROM? Which one? Will this still leave my 'phone SIM unlocked if I use a non-standard ROM?
HELP? Please?
Hey,
I do hope this is within this topic!
I've got aLmost the same problem, except I have some files just disapear on my 2GB mini, and some stay!
Lost a GIG of music, and most of my WORD docs, [60MB] and it left me 2MBs after removing Skype!
Real WEIRD!
Ive got a 8125 and stuff on the SD card just disappears after I remove an app!
Since this has happed more than 3 times and the 2GB mini tested OK, whats up with the device!
Is it the connections in the device to the SD card, or what?
Thanks for XDA-developers!
I have a 2gb card in my Qtek 9100. I've had it for about 2 weeks, and I got the card the day after I got the 9100. Sofar I haven't noticed any missing files. It's a 2gb Sandisk
I just thought to add this. Do you have the enhanced performance option in RegistryWizard enabled, or have you made the registry change to enable caching of the file system?
I was noticing that my recent programs on the start menu were being lost on occasion during a soft reset. I disabled that "enhanced performance" (caching) and that problem has disappeared. It makes sense that it would cause data loss or corruption, since data is being cached, if the cache doesn't write out before you reset, you loose everything in cache. I didn't notice any real world performance increase, so I will just leave that disabled.
If you have that setting enabled, and soft reset often, then that might explain the data loss/corruption
Success!
Well, I got hold of CnetX Flash Format program and this seems to have done the trick. I installed it and tried formatting the 2gb card as FAT32 - this gave the same problems I had before.
Formatted it as Fat 16 with 32k Cluster and lo and behold its working like a dream. Copied all my stuff from 512Mb card to it and now I'm syncing all my music over.
Fingers crossed it stays this way!
Scrub that......
.....just failed syncing my music over. Managed to get 950Mb of stuff on the card and then it started doing exactly what it was doing before. Hmmm....i'm really stuck now.
Howdy,
Well now today all my stuff on the care is gone POOF excect one little word file and a few omaclock things and a few folders!
All music is gone but the music folder is there WOW!
I already reformatted a few weeks ago to Fat 32 form the other one!
Hey d0ug,
I just thought to add this. Do you have the enhanced performance option in RegistryWizard enabled, or have you made the registry change to enable caching of the file system?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dumber the a bucket of rocks, so where is th RegistryWisard enabled or disabled at if your talking to me?
Thanks and sorry for the dumby thing?
madefree said:
Howdy,
Well now today all my stuff on the care is gone POOF excect one little word file and a few omaclock things and a few folders!
All music is gone but the music folder is there WOW!
I already reformatted a few weeks ago to Fat 32 form the other one!
Hey d0ug,
I dumber the a bucket of rocks, so where is th RegistryWisard enabled or disabled at if your talking to me?
Thanks and sorry for the dumby thing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get RegistryWizard here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=255225
Hey d0ug,
Thanks for the link, and dnloaded it but I really know why, or want for?
Ok whats this for, the storage card or what?
Thanks for your valuable time, and really sorry for the extra stupid questions, as this device in not my first device but I didn't have any problems with the X50 so I didn't have to learn to work on it!
Hey scotjames
you said
.....just failed syncing my music over. Managed to get 950Mb of stuff on the card and then it started doing exactly what it was doing before. Hmmm....i'm really stuck now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I moved 1 + GBs music into a "music" folder again!
Installed a app from xda, here called omanclockscaller.exe or something like that and set the overclock (speed of the processor) to 240 and the underclock to 150 (which was stated to work on another 8125)
and my device FROZE to the max couldn't soft reset or nothing so I had to do the HARD reset!
Looked in the SD card saw the folder "music" and NOTHING in it, just blank!
All subfiles were gone, POOF!
When to the main area of the SD card and ticked on a Mp3 file that was sitting there and it said player said "file stopped." 70%
Went to another MP3 file, tapped, and it said blah, blah "end of file" and would not play!
SO everything on the SD card, cept dah empty folders are either
1. corrupted
OR
2. GONE bye bye!
So NOW since the 8125 might not be the "slowest" brick on the block, and wont run, Skype unless its "overclocked," and I can't go thru another 50 some pages on xda to find the "fix" for dah SD wiping weirdness, and the overclocking tricks of the techs, I guess I get to go to Cingular, exchange dah phone (as it ain't no good as a PDA, but a great heavy phone) and than sell the NEW one on ebay for 350 with the New 2200MHz extended battery, and someone who is more techey than I can enjoy tweaking the thing!
Ive done 5 full Hard resets and have had to redo most everything, 5 times, settings etc, and its getting real time consuming, to state the least!
So since I got this pos on ebey and it has a 2yr. warrantee I guess its getting ready to get gone!
Hope someone like d0ug can help you out, really!
Later!
What brands are the Memory Cards? Where did you buy them from? Is it just in the Wizard that the card is being corrupt or does it work flawlessly in a memory card reader? Cause from what I've read it sounds like PEBKAC.
Card brand
My first card was unbranded so not overly surprised I had problems. This one is PQI but I think perhaps its because PQI cards are MLC (multi layer construction). Apparently Sandisk are SLC (single layer construction) and they should work okay.
I might just have to fork out more money and see.
The card works perfectly in my PC with card reader.
Excuse the ignorance but what is PEBKAC (or should I not ask!)?
scotjames said:
My first card was unbranded so not overly surprised I had problems. This one is PQI but I think perhaps its because PQI cards are MLC (multi layer construction). Apparently Sandisk are SLC (single layer construction) and they should work okay.
I might just have to fork out more money and see.
The card works perfectly in my PC with card reader.
Excuse the ignorance but what is PEBKAC (or should I not ask!)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah the reference to PEBKAC was more about the other guy. I think you've just got unlucky with the memory cards.
Card brand
Does the MLC/SLC thing sound viable? Has anybody got experience of using Sandisk 2Gb cards with the Wizard?
Hey scottjames,
I don't know if this helps as I was using Winamp files and wasn't using Win Media on my PC so that may be why the files got corrupt or just disapeared when I went in again and tried to play them!
So I diched Winamp and am using the gates special and so far so good!
I don't know if that may help but hope so!
Cingular is going to exchange my phone for too many other reasons!
Have a good one, and thanks everyone here!
scotjames said:
Does the MLC/SLC thing sound viable? Has anybody got experience of using Sandisk 2Gb cards with the Wizard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My 2gb card is a Sandisk. No problems sofar. The card is only about half full right now. Ill fill the card up and play with it awhile and see what happens
scotjames said:
Does the MLC/SLC thing sound viable? Has anybody got experience of using Sandisk 2Gb cards with the Wizard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been using a SanDisk 2GB card to capacity sine April of this year, I change the contents of the card pretty often as I use it as my mp3/video player, using both the WM5Storage program and a memory card reader in my PC. Has been flawless.
madefree said:
Hey scottjames,
I don't know if this helps as I was using Winamp files and wasn't using Win Media on my PC so that may be why the files got corrupt or just disapeared when I went in again and tried to play them!
So I diched Winamp and am using the gates special and so far so good!
I don't know if that may help but hope so!
Cingular is going to exchange my phone for too many other reasons!
Have a good one, and thanks everyone here!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well now the "THING" is doing the strange things again. . .
settings > memory > SD card says FREE 1903.97 out of 1904.13
NO 5ooMBs of music or word docs
But
when I go file explore > Device > SD Card I see all the music file and even play them OK
WOW thats real weird!
Cant see files in one place but plays the music in another????
So whats UP with this?
Anyone?
d0ug said:
My 2gb card is a Sandisk. No problems sofar. The card is only about half full right now. Ill fill the card up and play with it awhile and see what happens
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I filled my card lastnight, and have used the pda as normal thoughout the day today. accessed files, copied files, created files, deleted files. I'm not having any issues with my sandisk 2gb.
Thanks
Thanks everyone. I'll maybe just get myself a Sandisk card and let you know how I get on.
I have a Sandisk 2GB and whilst not experiencing the issues above I do have other problems.
When accessing eBooks via Microsoft Reader or playing video files via TCPMP the device will occasionally freeze and the apps cant even be killed by the taskmanager. I have a standard TMobile install and these are the only two additional apps that have been installed.
Ejecting the card usually frees it up.
To be fair I haven't yet tried the card in another device to establish if the card itself is faulty.

Micro Drive LOCKED!! No Access! Help request!

Hi all.
Got a problem I hope you all get help me with. It's not directly my problem as my device is OK. My cousin's Ameo has a fault/problem with his Micro Drive.
I have hard reset his WM5 based Ameo but cannot format the hard drive (MD). I've even flashed the WM6 T-Mob005 ROM to it (doesn't need unlocking before flashing). That all went to plan, but still cannot format the MD. The types of error messages I get are:
1) Unable to access Micro drive...there has been a sharing violation
2) Ensure the Micro drive is not in use...
And many other messages relating to the same thing...the MD is somehow locked and will not allow anything to be deleted from it or written to it. It's similar I suppose to a SD card being manually locked by the little slide button on it.
Anyway I've tried Flash Format, Ontrack Easy Recovery and several other 3rd party apps including SKTools and Pocket Mechanic Pro...all have the same problem but display different messages which mean the same thing...cannot access the MD..or exclusive access denied..please ensure the drive is not in use etc etc...I've tried through various apps to shut down any running processes that relate to any activity on the MD, but as the device was hard reset and flashed with a new ROM, there can be no apps running from the MD as none have been installed to it.
Finally of some importance I believe; It takes along time to delete even the smallest file from the Micro Drive even though a message pops up that access is denied..it deletes it nonetheless. However on resetting the device..all is back on the MD as if nothing had ever been deleted!
Also tried Recover MD and Format MD from the built-in app and tried formatting using the Resco Explorer version. Oh yeah tried various PC tools to format the MD via WM5torage, but to no avail.
I think the MD is screwed (physically), God knows this device of my cousins has been dropped numerous times. LoL, but seriously, if it's not due to misuse, then it can potentially happen to any one of us who have the spinning mechanical MD, hence my determination to resolve it before it happens to me or anyone else.
Anybody here knowledgeable in the area of Micro Drives or even hard drives to shed some light on this problem?
Thanks for any feedback.
More developments!
Another interesting point is that the Micro Drive folder is dated 1/1/98.....under Resco Explorer. Go figure!??!
Still at a loss. Meanwhile Olipro's Athena Unlocker worked a treat from beginning to end and it now has the Dopod U1000 WM6 ROM...so it's fully unlocked...yet the MD issue remains..hmmmmm.
if the microdrive is anything like a hard drive, with spining platters, it wouldnt last very long for day to day use, ive heard of hard drives getting goosed very easily, with a slight knock. I know the ameo is ment to have a fail safe if you drop it. but if yove tried everything you say I would have to guess it was f*ck*d.
I read your post again, I assume the on board software is the same as doing a hard reset with formating the drive!
when you run wm5torage I assume you can see the drive, if youve tried to delete files I assume you can access the drive. Just cant format.
I had the opposite 2 nights ago copying 2 films 1 copyed the other one went through the motion but never got copyed.
a program for the pc that helped me a couple of times was called Swisknife, its like partition magic only free.
I cant think of anything else, ive been out of computers to long now.
Can you copy files from the drive!
Oh well...the journey continues..
johnwalk said:
if the microdrive is anything like a hard drive, with spinning platters, it wouldn't last very long for day to day use, I've heard of hard drives getting goosed very easily, with a slight knock. I know the ameo is meant to have a fail safe if you drop it. but if you've tried everything you say I would have to guess it was f*ck*d.
I read your post again, I assume the on board software is the same as doing a hard reset with formating the drive!
when you run wm5torage I assume you can see the drive, if you've tried to delete files I assume you can access the drive. Just cant format.
I had the opposite 2 nights ago copying 2 films 1 copied the other one went through the motion but never got copied.
a program for the pc that helped me a couple of times was called Swissknife, its like partition magic only free.
I cant think of anything else, ive been out of computers to long now.
Can you copy files from the drive!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi johnwalk & thanks for your reply.
All of your assumptions were correct. I can even copy from the MD but not copy to it and it's very slow indeed.
I tried the swissknife app but none of the versions would start up on my PC..hmmm somethings a miss with my PC me thinks.
I managed to delete 'ALL' the files of the MD through WM5torage, but a soft reset of the device puts it all back again. Here I've included a screen-shot of some the crap I saw for the first time today (look at the dates of the files!??! Weird ah?), but it's all gone again now and returned to the normal looking files that I'm trying to get rid of.
Don't worry, I have no expectations, but do appreciate the help you've given me.
Cheers
if you can see the microdrive in windows try and run a program called killdisk on it if you dont care about the data that is on there and after that try and format it. killdisk will write all zero's to the drive killing any data on it. You could also try running scandisk and making it check every sector and try to repair bad sectors if it finds any.
c0mput0r said:
if you can see the microdrive in windows try and run a program called killdisk on it if you dont care about the data that is on there and after that try and format it. killdisk will write all zero's to the drive killing any data on it. You could also try running scandisk and making it check every sector and try to repair bad sectors if it finds any.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that won't work. and can't.
what I suggest doing is holding the volume slider down and pushing in the reset hole, first perform the device reset, then the microdrive reset.
if that does nothing, go into bootloader and use mtty to issue the following commands;
task 28 55aa
task 28 55aa abcd
task 28 abcd
task 8
see if that gets you anywhere
c0mput0r said:
if you can see the microdrive in windows try and run a program called killdisk on it if you dont care about the data that is on there and after that try and format it. killdisk will write all zero's to the drive killing any data on it. You could also try running scandisk and making it check every sector and try to repair bad sectors if it finds any.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the help mate, but no software can write to the darn MD.
Olipro said:
that won't work. and can't.
what I suggest doing is holding the volume slider down and pushing in the reset hole, first perform the device reset, then the microdrive reset.
if that does nothing, go into bootloader and use mtty to issue the following commands;
task 28 55aa
task 28 55aa abcd
task 28 abcd
task 8
see if that gets you anywhere
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Much appreciate the help Olipro...didn't wanna bother you for a few.....
Nonetheless, it didn't work in formatting the hard drive, only the device.
I swear the things possessed.
The message I get all to frequently after trying to format it is: The Microdrive cannot be formatted, there has been a sharing violation. The Microdrive may be in use.
The picture of your screen shot is what I've had several times on mini sd cards. I can't remember how it happened. im sure it was copying files. of course I could just take out the card. which is of no help here. the first time it happened I was convinced it was the magnet.
mackaby007,
Looking at you screenshot, i can say that ive seen this on my own advantage. I wasn't trying to add/remove any files, just browse the drive. I remember it was bloody slow, too. It wad taking a good minute to show the folder tree every time I browsed to a new folder. Im not sure what caused it, but thankfully, a soft-reset solved the problem.
I know that's not much help to you, but thought it may be a story worth sharing. Hope you get it sorted
Thanks for all your feedback guys, I appreciate it.
Unfortunately, nothing I have tried so far has even come close to working. Well I've got until Saturday to fix it, then my cousin will take it back fixed or otherwise.
Suppose he'll have to invest in a 4GB miniSDHC card until this MD issue can be resolved. Still got to call Hitachi as they have some tools on their website that might help restore the MD.
I'll keep you informed of any developments. Hopefully this is not a common occurrence on Athenas.
Does anyone know if the 8GB miniSDHC cards are available yet? I can only find the 4gig ones.
Same Issue, Same device
Yeh, I've had the same error message but I fortunately had a program on the device that will format the MD. The error message occured when attempting this so I reset the device and went back to the same program and selected the "Restore MicroDrive" function which rebooted the PDA then asked if I want to format the storage card. Tapped "Yes" and all was well.
I have had quite a few problems with this device as I know of at least 20 people who use it and have had either the same problem or similar. For example sometimes, for no reason, all the critical data on the MD becomes corrupt and shows just the "Voices" folder from TomTom6 with "collected.ini" and an obviously corrupted file with a weird filename. Sometimes a few soft resets and fully turning off and on will bring it to a point where simply creating a new folder will bring back all lost folders.
Go figure...hope this post helps.
MasterASSET

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?

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.

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