My CF card died on me -- why?

[felixdd]

The story goes like this. I was in my chem lecture, typing some notes in pocket word (and embedding some pictures) on my NEC MobilePro770 (WinCE 2.11). After the lecture ended, I pressed ctrl-s to save the document, then shutted it off.

However, I don't know if it finished the save process yet -- since I had pictures embedded into the document, the save time took longer than the usual snap-of-finger.

I walked to my bio lecture, and then fired up my NEC again. It was still on that document, so I pressed "save" one more time (just a habit of mine -- always press ctrl-s before ctrl-w to quit). It then said something akin to, "error: the file xxx.pwd cannot be saved." I tried a few more times, but to no avail. Puzzled, I saved it onto my desktop (on my HPC that is) and then navigated to the file that was supposed to be in the CF card.
I get to the directory -- and then just gawked as it was completely blank. All my files (I had around 7-8 mbs of documents and scans in there) were gone. The other directories weren't affected (Thank God -- I had around a hundred document's and 45 mbs worth of notes).

I then pull out my Jornada, jammed the CF card into THAT, and used StorageTools to run a scandisk on it. It recovers five of my files -- 5 of around 50. I then ran defrag on it, and it does that for 45 minutes, then locks up and forces me to reset my Jornada.

Two hours later, I put the CF card back into the HPC. And it says that there was an invalid folder, and asks if I want to repair it. I say, "yes" and after a few moments, it pops up a message saying that my card is corrupted and that I should run scandisk. So I then put the card into the Jornada to run scandisk on StorageTools again -- but then I noticed that the directory itself was gone (as opposed to before, where it was there but was empty). Fearing the worst -- I scanned it anyways, and the proggie tells me that it found a bunch of "lost" files -- I restored the files and lo and behold -- my files have returned (some were corrupt beyond repair though).

My question: Why did this occur? I have a hunch it's either turning my HPC off during saving, or the way I formatted my CF card. The former seems unlikely since I'm sure I've done that millions of times without issue.

The second one seems more likely. In StorageTools, I took a look at the stats of the CF card and it read, "FAT 32: Cluster size 512 b. Sector size 512 b. Backup FAT: no." I checked that against my other CF card and it read, "FAT 16: Cluster size 4 kb, Sector size 512 b. Backup FAT: no." Could it be the way I formatted my cards? Does 2.11 support FAT32?

[felixdd]

The story goes like this. I was in my chem lecture, typing some notes in pocket word (and embedding some pictures) on my NEC MobilePro770 (WinCE 2.11). After the lecture ended, I pressed ctrl-s to save the document, then shutted it off.

However, I don't know if it finished the save process yet -- since I had pictures embedded into the document, the save time took longer than the usual snap-of-finger.

I walked to my bio lecture, and then fired up my NEC again. It was still on that document, so I pressed "save" one more time (just a habit of mine -- always press ctrl-s before ctrl-w to quit). It then said something akin to, "error: the file xxx.pwd cannot be saved." I tried a few more times, but to no avail. Puzzled, I saved it onto my desktop (on my HPC that is) and then navigated to the file that was supposed to be in the CF card.
I get to the directory -- and then just gawked as it was completely blank. All my files (I had around 7-8 mbs of documents and scans in there) were gone. The other directories weren't affected (Thank God -- I had around a hundred document's and 45 mbs worth of notes).

I then pull out my Jornada, jammed the CF card into THAT, and used StorageTools to run a scandisk on it. It recovers five of my files -- 5 of around 50. I then ran defrag on it, and it does that for 45 minutes, then locks up and forces me to reset my Jornada.

Two hours later, I put the CF card back into the HPC. And it says that there was an invalid folder, and asks if I want to repair it. I say, "yes" and after a few moments, it pops up a message saying that my card is corrupted and that I should run scandisk. So I then put the card into the Jornada to run scandisk on StorageTools again -- but then I noticed that the directory itself was gone (as opposed to before, where it was there but was empty). Fearing the worst -- I scanned it anyways, and the proggie tells me that it found a bunch of "lost" files -- I restored the files and lo and behold -- my files have returned (some were corrupt beyond repair though).

My question: Why did this occur? I have a hunch it's either turning my HPC off during saving, or the way I formatted my CF card. The former seems unlikely since I'm sure I've done that millions of times without issue.

The second one seems more likely. In StorageTools, I took a look at the stats of the CF card and it read, "FAT 32: Cluster size 512 b. Sector size 512 b. Backup FAT: no." I checked that against my other CF card and it read, "FAT 16: Cluster size 4 kb, Sector size 512 b. Backup FAT: no." Could it be the way I formatted my cards? Does 2.11 support FAT32?

[Janak Parekh]

Hmm. Have you tried formatting the CF in a desktop machine? That'll establish where the problem is truly happening.

--janak

[felixdd]

No CF slot on my machine.

[DrtyBlvd]

Originally Posted by felixdd

No CF slot on my machine.

Time to buy a converter :?:

Would have thought it would have been an essential - I guess you must use the cradle to transfer - Might be a speed benefit to be had, all things being equal, from a converter...

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by DrtyBlvd

Time to buy a converter :?:

Would have thought it would have been an essential - I guess you must use the cradle to transfer - Might be a speed benefit to be had, all things beig equal, from a converter...

Indeed, get a USB CF reader on your PC. There is no "maybe" in the speed benefit, the USB CF reader is a bajillion times faster.

They're also pretty cheap nowadays. No guarantees if this will fix your problem, but it's a step.

--janak

[Fzara]

Is it even possible to record a lecture using the microphone? How loud would the professor have to be for it to actually register?

[felixdd]

I tried using NoteM -- quality was horrible (there was this incessant and constant "clicking" noise).

Besides, it sucks batteries like it was nothing, and it provides a poor copy for later reference/study notes for test/exams.

[spursdude]

Originally Posted by felixdd

I tried using NoteM -- quality was horrible (there was this incessant and constant "clicking" noise).

Besides, it sucks batteries like it was nothing, and it provides a poor copy for later reference/study notes for test/exams.

\

Was the clicking noise from your tapping the screen? I've noticed that can happen...

Also, you can turn the screen off while recording in NoteM, which saves battery life.

I do agree with you, though, that the quality isn't that great...

[felixdd]

I placed it on the seat beside me with the cover on (I have a Jornada 568)

The screen was off when I was recording.

Another weird thing is it stopped recording after around 10 minutes -- but my memory was no where from being filled