Downloading fears! Naive users seek reassuring words. . .

pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

Hi all. As a new member I would be grateful for some help!

We’re shortly to take a motoring holiday across France and northern Spain. We’ll be using our TomTom ONE LX as the satnav. It’s two years old though according to TomTom HOME (version 2.6.3.1609, recently downloaded) is running the latest TomTom application.

But the maps are out of date (Western Europe, version 675.1409, size: 926Mb). And we only have “Zip Codes” for Great Britain.

Our ONE XL did not come with an external card. The device has 958Mb capacity and HOME says there is just 0.4Mb free space left.

Our son has bought us a 2Gb Kingston standard SD card because he thinks we may now wish to put more onto the device because of our upcoming trip.

We are proposing to subscribe to PocketGPS World so as to download its safety camera information – ideally we need the UK and mainland Europe, or, well, France and Spain at least!

TomTom is “recommending” us online to pay £19.95p for a 1 year subscription to Safety Cameras Europe or £34.95p for a 1 year subscription to Traffic & Safety Cameras Europe (reduced from £49.90.) And we’ve had 2 emails from TomTom, one to say new maps are ready for our device, the other to say here’s an £8 voucher.

So that's the background. Now the questions. . .

As a technologically innocent family, we have lurked on this forum and been TERRIFIED by some of the stories about TomTom HOME, and also problems arising from map downloads or updates. But we also know people here are great at helping others, so here goes:

1. Our new 2Gb SD card. Should we install it or is that going to risk wrecking everything???

2. If it's safe to install, should we first use TomTom Home's "Copy to Computer" to back-up the data from the device to our PC, then transfer that to the SD card. . . and then DELETE the data in the device's memory itself??? Or can the same data be simultaneously on the device and on the card?

3. Which leads me to: TomTom Western Europe map, latest version and, again, the sequence people would recommend here re installing. Should we download this now to our device (so that it replaces the existing map), and also download PocketGPS World’s camera data to our device now. . . or:

Should we first install / initialise the SD card, then back-up the device to the computer (complete with new map, new camera data) and only after doing all that, then write everything to the card???

I’m really sorry for asking what may seem to be silly questions but I have read so many posts on here about unexpected problems occurring with TomTom software / device downloads / map installations that I felt I must ask the experts here (you all are!) what they would advise.

Thanks – Kay.

Oh, PS: Just a FINAL bafflement I have:

TomTom HOME “System information” says “Connected Device: TomTom LIMERICK”.

Does this mean our ONE XL is, er, Irish and / or will it tell funny stories??????

253 · Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 8:40 pm Post subject:

Welcome aboard.

Not going to be able to answer any of your questions I'm afraid 'cos i don't know. Very Happy

I think I've read in other posts that the 2Gb card will be OK, I think 2Gb is the max.

being a bank holiday many of the regulars may not be around so much, so don't despair if replies are a little slow.
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pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

Thanks 253, yes, hubby did look into the card capacity issue some time back when a work colleague said he had Clint Eastwood (or similar) on his Tom Tom but that hubby would need more than just the basic memory for extra voices. So no Clint Eastwood (so far!) Tthanks for the Bank Holiday tip, I should have realised, so am happy to wait!

Andy_P · Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:35 pm Post subject:

Right, lets take this step by step Smile

First, the 2GB card should be fine - you can actually use up to 4GB cards in that model, but they have to be ordinary SD cards NOT the newer SDHC cards (which almost all 4GB cards are).

On your model you cannot use BOTH the internal memory AND the card memory at the same time - it's one or the other. This means that if you want to use a card, you need to copy EVERYTHING from the internal memory onto the card.
How you do that is up to you. I'm sure you could do it using Home, but it is quicker and easier to just do it with normal 'copy and paste' routines in Windows Explorer.

When you have the One connected to the PC it should see the internal memory as one "disk drive" and the SD card as another one. So it's just a case of going to the internal memory, selecting and copying ALL the folders and files and then going to the SD card and pasting everything onto it.

Once you've done that, disconnect the TomTom from the PC (Always use the "safely remove hardware" icon next to the PC clock, before unplugging), and whenever the card is in the slot, the TomTom should boot up from the card instead of the internal memory. At the moment it should work exactly the same as before because you copied everything.

From now on, whenever you start "Home" the very first thing it will ask you is which storage place you want it to use. Always select "SD card" and any new map you buy should be downloaded to there. You will probably still need to delete your existing map from the card to make room.

The advantage of all this is that you can check everything works properly off the card BEFORE you spend any money on a new map, and then having started running everything off the card, if you ever want to go back to how things were before, you can just remove the card and the TT will boot up from the internal memory just like it used to.

When you want to add the PGPSW camera data, all the files just go into the map folder you are currently using, so don't forget you need to put them in the version ON THE CARD! Very Happy

Incidentally, there ARE only zipcodes/postcodes for the UK and for the Netherlands. Other countries do not use FULL postcodes in the same way. Their codes cover a much larger area.

Hope all that is clear enough. Any more questions, fire away!

tanda · Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject:

Hi, first of all, (BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE), copy everything from the TomTom, onto your Computer, then, if you muck anything up, you can just use the copy you made, to put everything back again, and Dont use TomTom HOME for this, use the copy/Paste method. Go here and have a good read, (Question 1), and if you get stuck, come back here and ask again.

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=50045

When you have had a read,
1, Back up TomTom on Computer, NOT WITH TOMTOM HOME
2, Download new map to SD Card and the TomTom Software
3, Download speed cameras and Voice warnings, if you want them, to SD card

Haven't been on here for ages, and when I do, Andy beats me to it, his answer is better than mine anyway.
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pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

To Andy and Tanda, thank you so much for your posts! (And for starting off the day so early to help someone!)

The advice from you both is very reassuring because if we can manage to minimise our involvement with TomTom HOME, that would be great.

Whilst lurking we have already amassed a collection of links in various help articles and tutorials, rather than coming on here without doing some research first, so we're going to use all those, including Tanda's link, to help us through.

Andy's step by step sequence is really good as is Tanda's so there's no excuse for us to muck it up. (And the forum help and tutorial links are worth their weight in gold.)

to Andy, thank you for the info about postcodes, we hadn't realised this was operable in two countries only.

We have friends visiting today so will sit down on Monday and work through all the steps and processes and see where we finish up.

So sincere thanks again and I'll report back after we've finished!

Smile

pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

Apologies to all if I'm making mountains out of mole hills. . . but I'm treading so very, very carefully (to the point of paranoia!)

Right. I've followed the excellent advice to copy everything on the device itself to a folder (TomTom Device) on my PC. (Took an age. . .) Then, I've copied the same folder and all its files to a 10Gg USB memory stick (external drive.)

I used Windows Explorer. Not TomTom HOME.

I have checked on-screen and the folder/files on the device are identical to those on the hard drive back-up and in the USB external drive back-up.
So I have two "perfect" mirror image backups, internal and external.

Next. I've popped the new Kingston 2Gg memory card into the ONE XL slot and connected to the PC.

Windows immediately recognised the card as "Drive E". Windows did not recognise anything else (i.e., the device itself isn't showing.)

I haven't needed to format the card. It seems to be working perfectly. (Apparently it cost just £4.99 including P&P from an online company called My Memory. Perhaps others here know of better value memory deals, but I just thought I'd mention this anyway.)

Next. Using the link in the email we've received from TomTom, I've purchased the new Western Europe map. It cost £59.95 less the £8 voucher TomTom sent us. Payment has gone through.

I'm now awaiting an email from TomTom with download instructions. HOWEVER. . .

The information on my on-screen TomTom payment confirmation screen says:

"Please await an email with download instructions. You will need to have your device connected and download the new map using HOME. You will also have to have the latest version of HOME to ensure the download goes smoothly." (Or words to that effect.)

Question:

Do I HAVE to download the map using TomTom HOME? Or can I simply download to my PC's back-up folder?

My intention was to avoid HOME if at all possible, DL the new map to the PC back-up folder, then DELETE the existing Western Europe map from the USB drive and copy its replacement in from the PC.

That way, my external back-up would have just one map: the latest version.

(By way of explanation: what I'm trying to do is to keep everything I already have as safe and as intact as possible.

(So what I was hoping to do was to DL the new map, and then GPSPocketWorld UK & Europe speed camera info, first to my PC back-up folder, and then to the USB external drive.

(Only at that stage, when everything was on the backup drive, would I then create a new folder on the PC labelled 'TomTom CARD', and copy everything from the USB drive into that -- and then copy from that folder to the card. In other words: nothing would go onto the card until all operations are completed; the original hard-rive back-up would never be affected by an operation.)

Does that make sense? Too fiddly? Unnecessarily bonkers? Smile

Oh: assuming that after I've re-installed the SD card in the TomTom, and my PC shows that "Drive E" has all the folders and files it should have, should I then disconnect the device (using 'remove hardware'), remove the card, reconnect, and then DELETE everything from the device's own memory?????

Gosh. Sorry about a lo-onn-g post over something that's probably so very trivial! Embarassed

mikealder · Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 3:11 pm Post subject:

You do seem to be making hard work for yourself when I read through your last post:
The back ups that you have shouldn't be touched at all, please don't consider adding files/ changing files in your back up as you have no way of knowing whether you are breaking whats in the back up rendering it useless - leave the back ups alone.

With the device running with the SD card inserted connect it to TomTom Home, you can update your map using the Home software. As I said above do not try to use Home to download/ install and activate a map to a folder on your PC, if you do this I am 99,9% sure it will fail.

Then add the POI files that you want and configure all the warnings, now make a new backup in the same way as your first backup, this newer back up will contain everything to the latest standard. Consider burning the back ups to a DVD to keep safe.
I generally keep back ups of all of my devices and maps but this takes up a considerable ammount of storage space, currently my TomTom folder on the PC is over 135GB but this is covering multiple devices - Mike

pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

Mike: sincere thanks for that -- I'll go ahead now and use HOME to download to the device itself, not to the PC.

Just a quick query: as it looks like my "routine" is overly complicated, how does this quicker version seem?

1. Copy everything from the back-up to the SD card.

2. Do not delete the existing Western Europe from the card.

3. Install the card in the device, connect device to PC.

4. Do not delete anything from the device memory.

5. Start the HOME application for the new map download.

6. Make sure the card memory is the one to which the download is directed, not the device memory (it's full anyway!)

Incidentally: my existing 'Western Europe' folder appears to contain TomTom safety camera information as well. Presumably, the new map won't be accompanied by TT camera info?

As I'm going to subscribe today / purchase GPSPocket world traffic camera info (and download to the card, not the device) I'm assuming there won't be any conflict with the existing TT camera info????

Thank you so much again for your help -- Kay.

mikealder · Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 3:57 pm Post subject:

Your last post contains a much better sequence of what you need to do, but you missed out step 7 which is to use Windows Explorer to back up the device once the new map is installed Wink

- Mike

pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

Aaaargh! No 1st Class Hons here then. . .

Crying or Very sad

pasho9 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 19

position now:

1) SD card now contains all the data originally on the device.

2) The original data remains on the device.

3) When I connected up the device, now with its SD card installed, and opened TT HOME, it didn't bring up any options about whether to choose device memory or card memory. I thought it might do, in view of Andy's info, but not in my case.

4) So I used HOME's 'show device contents' tab and it reported:

Total capacity: 1875.7MB
Free space: 904.3 MB

5) It seemed, therefore, HOME was reading from the card, not the device memory, without any selection by myself.

6) I DL'd the new map (took 2 hours) and it was installed OK (according to HOME.) Looking at "show device contents" now reveals:

total capacity: 1875.7MB
Free space: 20.3 MB

7) This is bvecause the card now has two Western Europe maps, the "old" map -- version 675.1409, size: 926MB -- and the new map: version 830.2306, size 877 MB.

8) This map is said to "modified to fit devices with 1GB memory", even though the card nominally has 2GB.

Can I now assume it's safe to delete the earlier map from the SD card? Seems no point in having bought 2Gg of memory and almost half of it's being used by a map I've just replaced.

Thanks again to everyone for the help!

dhn · Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:37 pm Post subject:

You may delete the old map, yes, but if you had any custom ov2 files in it, make sure they are copied to the new map folder first.

For the heck of it, perhaps move the old map to the pc for now, just in case........
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David

mikealder · Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:38 pm Post subject:

With the XL it will only show one of the two memory locations when a card is inserted as the device isn't capable of sharing the storage space in the way the Go-x20/ x30 devices do. When a card is inserted it will use that rather than the internal Flash memory which explains why you only see one storage location available in Home.

Switch the device on and tap the sat strength meter (lower right corner) followed by the version box, the resultant screen will detail lots of information about the Navcore (software) version and map name/ version. Do this check on the device not via the TomTom Home emulator as that is known to miss report version numbers. If this doesn't appear to be the correct map, go to Change Preferences/ Manage Maps/ Switch Map and select the other map from the list, then repeat the above to check its the latest map.

Its up to you whether you want to delete the old map, if the new one and the old one are both located on the same card and you still have spare memory space available I would leave it alone TBH as its doing no harm just sitting there - Mike

DennisN · Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:43 pm Post subject:

Backup the card then delete whatever the heck you like! (Yes, you can delete the old map).

You should by now have at least TWO backups - one of the original contents and one of the new contents...

e.g TT Device Original and TT Device 2009-05-25. I use dates, but a lot of clever people actually use more descriptive names so that they can see at a glance any particular version they might wish to get at.

If you do much additional customisation of the device (add favourites or your own POIs of places to visit on your forthcoming trip) backup again.

Finally, if you are inclined to belt and braces, consider buying another SD card and copying the "latest" card contents onto it to carry as a spare in the vehicle - if something dies, a simple replacement on the road is a very quick method of rising from the ashes.
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