Lost files and capacity on SD Card??

[vhoong]

Much to my delight, I recently got a 1GB SD card from Santa. It was on my xmas list as I wanted to copy some of my CDs to a portable format so I could listen to my music on the move. After happily ripping about 400MBs of tracks using Windows Media Player on my PC I copied them over to my PPC device through Windows Explorer by drilling through to the Mobile Device and then the Storage Card folder - which I always believed went via ActiveSync anyway. However, when I went to add the files to a playlist on my iPAQ I couldn't find them. They don't show up in the Explore of ActiveSync or in the PC version of Windows Media Player (looking at Mobile Devices) either. Even worse, I was horrified to find that when I checked the Memory of the Storage Card it identified approx 400MB of 970MB used up and only about 500MB free!! Unfortunately, I don't have an SD Card Viewer for accessing the files directly from my PC but I don't know if this would help anyway.

I have an Compaq iPAQ 3870.. has anyone else experienced anything similar and know if there is an easy to fix this? Or is this a case of sending the parcel back to Lapland??! :cry:

Thanks!

[Darius Wey]

Hi vhoong, welcome to Pocket PC Thoughts. Try this: while your iPAQ is on, take the card out and insert it back in. Also, try a soft-reset. Then open up File Explorer - are they there?

[Cybrid]

Ummm...Did you put em in a folder called my documents? Media player cannot natively see items outside the my docs folder.

[vhoong]

Thanks for the suggestions but no joy.. I tried removing and inserting the SD card while my iPAQ was on. Although File Explorer correctly refreshed and the Storage Card folder dissapeared and re-appeared, there's still nothing in it. Tried the soft reset already. Anyone reckon this is definitely a problem with the SD Card? or the iPAQ?

I didn't put the files into the My Docs folder but I'm also looking thru File Explorer so that shouldn't matter right?

Bit disappointed that such an easy operation has caused such an severe error.... please could anyone tell me if there are any (free) tools that will allow me to take a closer look at the actual "segments" of the SD Card memory??

[ctmagnus]

Ummm...Did you put em in a folder called my documents? Media player cannot natively see items outside the my docs folder.

Actually, that doesn't matter. ;)

My storage card is structured thusly:

Artist 1
- Album 1 tracks
- Album 2 tracks
Artist 2
- Album 1 tracks
- Album 2 tracks
Artist 3
- Album 1 tracks
...
My Documents
- Artist 1\Album 1 playlist
- Artist 1\Album 2 playlist
- ...

And I can access all tracks and playlists from WMP.

It's possible that playlists need to be in the My Documents folder, but I haven't fiddled that far with things yet.

Back on-topic: This will be extremely painful for you, but the only option that doesn't cost $ may be to format the card (via a third party utility) and copy all the tracks over again. What I highly recommend, though, is buying a card reader, formatting the card on your desktop and transferring all the tracks to the card that way.

[Menneisyys]

Before formatting, give a try to Pocket Mechanic 1.49 ( http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=12178 ) to repair the card. This tool is far inferior to chkdsk on the desktop, but you don't have anything to lose if it meshes up the file system. You have the chance that it will work OK. (For me, it worked about 20% of cases. Again, chkdsk with a dedicated SD card reader is recommended.)

There is another "chkdsk-replacement" for PPC, Storage Tools ( http://www.softwinter.com/storagetools.html ), but I had even worse results with that. Actually, it NEVER worked right with me.

[vhoong]

Thanks for the tips all... I tried out the pocket mechanic (thanks Menneisyys). It couldn't repair the card but it did find that there were logical errors on the card. The physical check didn't reveal anything wrong with the actual blocks on the card.

Anyway, I used the app to format the card and then copied over my WMAs via Windows Media Player (which is normally how I do it anyway) and all seems well. Will look into an SD card reader to see if I can copy quicker as I want to get a decent music collection onto SDs - incidentally there are 1GB SD Cards for only £45-50 on ebuyer (which is a right bargain if you're from the UK).

Also, that Pocket Mechanic could be a pretty useful app actually I think I will register!

Cheers.

[hey-zeus]

Just a bit of a warning vhoong but I had a similar problem with my 256 Mb SD card (i also have a 4150) and I think it is related to certain brands of card. I had a 128 card made by kodak and never had problems. I recently got the 256 (at a good price) and have been having a heap of problems.

I formatted card at least 3 times to get rid of the corruptions but they would come back if I tried to copy and paste files from PC straight onto the storage card while my ppc was synced. I don't think this should have been a problem as I did it with my old card and had no problems. The stuff I was copying was mp3's and ebooks. Just as long as I did not do file operations then I would not get any corruptions.

If you do a check on google (I cannot remember my search terms), then there are quite a few people who have had a problem. I even came across a site which posted good/problem cards.

http://sdprob.aximsite.com/theproblemlist.htm

I have since gone back to the 128 and have had no problems (and made sure no file operatiosn from pc to ppc).

Hope this helps,

JBB