iPAQ h3900 series SD Card updates

[BrianT]

Hi folks,



I just stumbled over the following:



http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/3939.html



"... the upgrades resolve performance issues experienced with SD memory cards, as well as problems related to undetected cards and lockups caused by certain types of cards."



Could be of interest, eh!

[BrianT]

Brilliant! - why don't I ever learn? Why don't I leave well alone unless I'm sure it's actually broken?!



When I first got my 3970 about a year ago there was a problem with the Compaq 256MB SD card in that after I'd copied, say, 100MB of stuff onto it I'd get a message that the card was full. I complained to Compaq and EVENTUALLY (despite the fact I'd paid for two years of 'CarePaq' and I had to listen to a fair number of conflicting opinions from their technical staff) and RELUCTANTLY they exchanged the card for another and the problem went away. All the same I was still left with a niggling, bad first impression so I thought I needed this sort of update to banish all lingering doubts even though all the soft resets since then may have been for any number of reasons.



So, I applied the update according to their instructions and now, whenever I do a soft reset, I get two disconcerting error messages saying first that:



"Cannot find 'cflashman' (or one of it components). Make sure path/filename are corrent and all the required libraries are available" and then a similar message for 'aflashman'



Despite all this everything seems to be working but my confidence in it/them etc just plumeted again.



Just so you're all aware of what can happen....

[DavidW]

The problem here is nothing to do with the SD upgrade. It is near certain that you've upgrade from the 2.00 to 2.10 ROM and failed to follow those instructions correctly.





When upgrading from the 2.00 ROM to a later version you must hard reset at the indicated point in the procedure and you must reinstall all your programs and data, not restore from a backup. The problem is that various information in the registry relating to drivers is now incorrect.



aflashman / cflashman relate to the old, non-SDIO SD driver in the 2.00 ROM. 2.10 ROM introduced a new SD driver that supports SDIO and didn't perform very well. The latest update replaces the DLLs that didn't perform well in the ROM, curing the performance problem.





You will probably find that your SD card slot doesn't work until you hard reset.





If you've somehow manage to apply this latest SD update on the 2.00 ROM, download the 2.10 ROM update and apply it (complete with the hard reset), then apply the SD update. I'd be surprised if you could apply this latest update on a 2.00 ROM machine, though.





If you already had a properly working setup with 2.10 ROM (or 1.11 ROM on 3950/3955), this latest update does not require a hard reset and the instructions do not ask you to carry out that procedure.



If you follow the instructions of this latest update correctly, it works perfectly.







David

[BrianT]

Hi David,



Many thanks for your comprehensive reply.



My problem was not caused by the circumstances you describe but I much appreciate the information.



Regards, Brian.

[DavidW]

Sure - I hope you get things working again soon.



I'm curious as to how you found yourself in this position; the only scenario I'm aware of that can cause this is somehow having a ROM 2.00 file system and registry on a ROM 2.10 machine (either by failing to hard reset, or restoring a backup).



If your SD slot is working, you could try a registry editor to see if you can remove the erroneous keys. If it's not working, I think your only option is likely to be a hard reset and reinstall.







David

[BrianT]

Again, thanks for your reply.



The SD slot is working and always has. Everything is working. I actually said that in my message. "Despite all this everything seems to be working..." and therefore I am not going to change anything on the machine, do any hard resets or whatever until I hear that SmartST works with the new OS (2003). The only difference between before and after the upgrade I made is the two messages I documented above. After I click on OK they go away and everything continues to work just fine.



I much appreciate your suggestions etc.



Regards, Brian.

[DavidW]

Just - strange!



As you say, if things are working, OK the errors and carry on. Like you, I've got a couple of things a little fouled up in my Pocket PC 2002 setup - but I'm holding off on doing anything about them whilst I contemplate a Pocket PC 2003 setup (which will obviously require a hard reset).







David

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