mini-SDHC Issue......bad news

[wu5262]

Ok, this is quite a bad news, i put my new Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card in my Athena, it shows up in the memory setting. You can put file and read file ok. But here is the problem, when you install the programs on miniSD, it install ok, but after you try to read it from start menu, it says either some file is missing or the program is not digitally signed!

It's not just one program, all my program which install on miniSD doesn't work, if you use file explorer to click the program, it works.....but not through start menu.

Anyone knows what's going on? I am now going to reinstall all these program in Micro Drive, not sure if that's going to cause slow reading speed or more power drain, but it's the only option now for me.

[victoradjei]

Ok, this is quite a bad news, i put my new Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card in my Athena, it shows up in the memory setting. You can put file and read file ok. But here is the problem, when you install the programs on miniSD, it install ok, but after you try to read it from start menu, it says either some file is missing or the program is not digitally signed!

It's not just one program, all my program which install on miniSD doesn't work, if you use file explorer to click the program, it works.....but not through start menu.

Anyone knows what's going on? I am now going to reinstall all these program in Micro Drive, not sure if that's going to cause slow reading speed or more power drain, but it's the only option now for me.

How about making a shortcut of the programs to Windows/Start Menu/Programs ?

[indra9110]

Ok, this is quite a bad news, i put my new Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card in my Athena, it shows up in the memory setting. You can put file and read file ok. But here is the problem, when you install the programs on miniSD, it install ok, but after you try to read it from start menu, it says either some file is missing or the program is not digitally signed!

It's not just one program, all my program which install on miniSD doesn't work, if you use file explorer to click the program, it works.....but not through start menu.

Anyone knows what's going on? I am now going to reinstall all these program in Micro Drive, not sure if that's going to cause slow reading speed or more power drain, but it's the only option now for me.


YES... its same problem here .......

cheers

indra9110

[Arya]

Ok, this is quite a bad news, i put my new Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card in my Athena, it shows up in the memory setting. You can put file and read file ok. But here is the problem, when you install the programs on miniSD, it install ok, but after you try to read it from start menu, it says either some file is missing or the program is not digitally signed!

It's not just one program, all my program which install on miniSD doesn't work, if you use file explorer to click the program, it works.....but not through start menu.

Anyone knows what's going on? I am now going to reinstall all these program in Micro Drive, not sure if that's going to cause slow reading speed or more power drain, but it's the only option now for me.

I hear about Universal that not work good with all memory
maybe it work good with another memory
in the other site i think they sell SanDisk for Athena
i'm not sure
tanX

[wu5262]

How about making a shortcut of the programs to Windows/Start Menu/Programs ?

yes i have try that, it works for the first time, after soft restart, all not working again.......such a waste for this miniSDHC, anyway, i have install all my extra program on micro drive, my first impression is it runs faster than miniSDHC for some reason, will do benchmark on these a bit later

[Arya]

yes i have try that, it works for the first time, after soft restart, all not working again.......such a waste for this miniSDHC, anyway, i have install all my extra program on micro drive, my first impression is it runs faster than miniSDHC for some reason, will do benchmark on these a bit later

if you install in Micro Drive, battery will be empty sooner
why you don't install on device memory?
Do you try another memory on it?

[wu5262]

if you install in Micro Drive, battery will be empty sooner
why you don't install on device memory?
Do you try another memory on it?

i am not sure how bad the battery will be if i use micro drive, but do you really think install on mini-SD is faster than micro drive?

NO!!, micro drive is much much faster, i have run the benchmark on these two, the micro drive is running at least 5 times faster than my high speed miniSD, and the index score of micro drive is way higher than the fastest file index device in the world (dell dx something). The micro drive also use FAT32 format.

So i guess i will keep my program there for now and see how the battery goes

[parkertseng]

i did the installation into storage card(transcend 4G mini SDHC)...
and then run the program from program files...
it works well!

[wu5262]

i did the installation into storage card(transcend 4G mini SDHC)...
and then run the program from program files...
it works well!

!!!!........really......something strange here. where did you buy yours? is it possible mine one is fake? did you do anything special or just install the normal way?

[Arya]

please say here how much battery work?
before and after use micro driver.
I personally think the problem is of your memory and a say test another memory to see do it work good or no?

[wu5262]

please say here how much battery work?
before and after use micro driver.
I personally think the problem is of your memory and a say test another memory to see do it work good or no?

i have found the problem and solve it, it's to do with the name of the sd card, change it to "Stroage Card" and everything works great. So still, i don't know how much battery it drain for running programs on Micro drive, since all my programs are back to mini-SD now, but it does feel faster when you install in Micro drive i think

[Arya]

i have found the problem and solve it, it's to do with the name of the sd card, change it to "Stroage Card" and everything works great. So still, i don't know how much battery it drain for running programs on Micro drive, since all my programs are back to mini-SD now, but it does feel faster when you install in Micro drive i think
Oh, eyval:D
it is a good news
but this is a problem that you solve it with this work.
tanX

[cornelius]

So we can't rename SDcard to install programs on it...

[wu5262]

So we can't rename SDcard to install programs on it...

that's exactly how i solve my problem, just rename the SD Card and everything is fine

[cornelius]

Thanks for all info, i ask for permition to write on athena's wiki all info i get from athena's thread.

[Arya]

Thanks for all info, i ask for permition to write on athena's wiki all info i get from athena's thread.

I think this is a good way and find info is easire
tanX

[simdao]

Ok, this is quite a bad news, i put my new Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card in my Athena, it shows up in the memory setting. You can put file and read file ok. But here is the problem, when you install the programs on miniSD, it install ok, but after you try to read it from start menu, it says either some file is missing or the program is not digitally signed!

It's not just one program, all my program which install on miniSD doesn't work, if you use file explorer to click the program, it works.....but not through start menu.

Anyone knows what's going on? I am now going to reinstall all these program in Micro Drive, not sure if that's going to cause slow reading speed or more power drain, but it's the only option now for me.

I got the same problem on my Dopod U1000 with TOSHIBA 2GB mini-SD, sometime the memory card is readable but the file structure is broken it case some software can not run after reset the device all resume to normal.

I think it is not only the SDHC problem.

[wu5262]

I got the same problem on my Dopod U1000 with TOSHIBA 2GB mini-SD, sometime the memory card is readable but the file structure is broken it case some software can not run after reset the device all resume to normal.

I think it is not only the SDHC problem.

it's not SDHC, it's the name of the SD card, you have to rename it Storage Card, otherwise software won't work

[eaglesteve]

I have always retained the original name for my SD card (Storage Card), but on three occasions so far, the file structure and name were garbed when viewed with file explorer, or were simply missing. In one instance, I was editing an excel spreadsheet and suddenly found that I could not save it. I was forced to first save into the device,reset the device, then transfer the spreadsheet back to the storage card. I read from other forum that I'm not alone in having to reset to regain the Storage Card data.

Perhaps there is a bug in the ROM, Wu?

[Moskus]

I haven't actually installed any programs on my 4 GB mini-SDHC card, but I have no problems running programs on the card. I've created shortcuts to Transport Tycoon, ScummVM and PTGmap and they're all running fine on the card...

[wu5262]

I have always retained the original name for my SD card (Storage Card), but on three occasions so far, the file structure and name were garbed when viewed with file explorer, or were simply missing. In one instance, I was editing an excel spreadsheet and suddenly found that I could not save it. I was forced to first save into the device,reset the device, then transfer the spreadsheet back to the storage card. I read from other forum that I'm not alone in having to reset to regain the Storage Card data.

Perhaps there is a bug in the ROM, Wu?

no, this is a different issue here, i don't see the same problem with DOPOD rom, our problem is because our device are in chinese, the storage card name are in chinese too, therefore that's why we need to rename it to the english name. After i done that, no issue with storage card at all

[ralonsop]

How can I change the name of the sd card ? I got the same problem of you.

[mardibloke]

I get the "signed" message sometimes, and my storage card name is "Storage Card" as standard. Its maybe the drive getting messed up, a soft reset always sorts it out. 4gb mini SDHC.

[mardibloke]

Anyone else seeing odd problems like this, I'm having to soft reset at least once a day as icons are disapearing and applications won't start.

[eaglesteve]

Yes, I also get this problem randomly. I've tried installing it on microdrive, and later a newly bought 4GB miniSDHC card of class 4 speed (I use a Toshiba, made in Japan). In both cases, there were occassions when the system is unable to "see" the storage. The system freezes, unable to start an application, unable to save a document, and so on. Soft reset always solves the problem until it happen again down the road. Initially I thought the freezing was due to compaction thread. Later I thought that it is due to use of inferior mniSD card. I think it is due to I/O problem of unknown nature that caused these problems. Perhaps it is due to bugs in the ROM? I would eagerly wait for WM6 to see if this problem goes away.

[mardibloke]

Hmm, I'm trying to work out if I have duff hardware and to return it, by seeing if other people have same problem.

Would you mind listing what applications you have installed - maybe its a comon application we both have that causes it.

I don't fancy hard reseting and trying it with nothing installed, nor the wait for WM6 to see if its not hardware related.

[eaglesteve]

Hmm, I'm trying to work out if I have duff hardware and to return it, by seeing if other people have same problem.

Would you mind listing what applications you have installed - maybe its a comon application we both have that causes it.

I don't fancy hard reseting and trying it with nothing installed, nor the wait for WM6 to see if its not hardware related.

I don't think you need to worry about not being able install applications in the device. I have everything I want there.

I try to keep a right perspective on this. Although it occasionally fails to recognise the microdrive and storage card, resulting in not being able start an application or running smoothly, the occurrence is not so frequent that it becomes unuseable. Also, you are not going to lose any data as a result of this problem. It is annoying, that's all.

[BigDede]

I confirm Micro Drive is a lot Faster then mini-SDHC and even internal storage of the HTC Athena. I've dome some testing by installing the programs on every memory and compare. I've alos used the benchmark utility from SKTools Microdrive is at least 5 times faster then ROM and SD.

The reason of my testing were irregular Freezes, sometimes playing Backgammon and other times opening Resoc Explorer or other programs.
and even sometimes after device wake up ...

Im also facing strange behavior where sometimes I need to soft reset 4 or 5 times in a row to be able to start the device normally. It freeze on the Windows Mobile welcome screen, so I need to reset many times before it works. Im running WM6 on HTC X7500

have anyone had this behavior??

[Madhadder]

I have TomTom6 installed to Main Memory. When the maps are stored on the MiniSD card, everything runs great, no map jumping etc. When the maps are on the Microdrive, the program is slugish and the maps skip and jump.

So for realtime apps, it looks like MiniSD is faster or better than the Microdrive.

[BigDede]

I have TomTom6 installed to Main Memory. When the maps are stored on the MiniSD card, everything runs great, no map jumping etc. When the maps are on the Microdrive, the program is slugish and the maps skip and jump.

So for realtime apps, it looks like MiniSD is faster or better than the Microdrive.


Thats strange, Microdrive read/write access is 5 times faster then any current SD on the market.

I have TomTom installed to main memory and map on Mircrodrive.
It runs without any jump/skip ...

[Madhadder]

You also have to remember that the Microdrive powers up/down to save power. This can happen many times when using a program like Tomtom.
With MiniSD, the ship has no moving parts that need to spin-up before data is read.

[eaglesteve]

I'm on WM6 now (Dopod's July 27 ROM on Dopod U1000), and so far, my most problematic application (the one that feezes most often) is internet explorer, where I had relocated the cookies/history/temporary files to the SD cards. My miniSDHC card is a class 4 Toshiba 4GB card which is supposed to be made in Japan.

After lots of thinking on this problem, I though that my SD card might be the culprit.

When I do benchmark the Storage card using SKTools, device memory, and microdrive, I get the following typical results:
------------------ Write (KB/S)----------- Read (KB/S)
Main storage ------1935.12 -------------- 3306.78
Storage card ----- 27.2 !! --------------- 3903.43
Microdrive----------6393.34---------------3797.28

Look at the write value for SD card. It's only 27.2KB/s!! No wonder whenever I exceed word and excel, the system freezes in trying to write out the files. Also, no wonder my IE is so incredibly slow. When I scan the SD cad using pocket mechnaics professional, it shows some lost clusters and lost chains. Then I ran PMP to try to recover it, but apparently pocket mechanics is unable to do so. So I reformated my SD card, and tried using it again. The result is the same (no improvement). A couple of days later, I had lost cluster and lost chains again.

Then I transferred them to the main storage. Everything changes. Internet explorer because blazing fast. Word and excel the same thing - blazing fast.

The strange thing is, when I place them in the microdrive, it goes slower again. Almost as slow as in SD card. ?????? I don't understand this as it does not make sense. The benchmark for microdrive is so excellent, yet the performance is not that different from the SD card. Both of them are bad and causes the device to freeze randomly.

I tried benchmarking using pocket mechanics professional, and strangely it gives a very rosy picture of the card's performance. I got a feeling that SKtool's rating is closer to reality.

How does your SD card rate using SKtools? Am I having a faulty unit or a faulty SD card reader/write? Is my SD card a fake? I really would like to see everyone's benchmark for comparison and identify the good card from the bad. Could you post your rating please? Thanks.

[BigDede]

These are my results using SKTools benchamark (I don't have SD card)

------------------ Write (KB/S)----------- Read (KB/S)
Main storage -------3635.50-------------- 5834.76
Microdrive----------14189.38---------------15170.37

[Madhadder]

The microdrive is faster than main memory!!! (In writes)
I highly doubt it.. It would seem that theese testing tools are incorrect
and haven't be properly ported to WM6

[eaglesteve]

These are my results using SKTools benchamark (I don't have SD card)

------------------ Write (KB/S)----------- Read (KB/S)
Main storage -------3635.50-------------- 5834.76
Microdrive----------14189.38---------------15170.37


Thanks for responding.

Your benchmark is way way better than mine. I wonder if different version of SKTool may give different result. I'm using version 3.1.5.0. What about you?

Also, did you have to tweak the system in anyway ? Also, mine is already tweak for performance using SKtools. My File system cache size is 2048.

[eaglesteve]

Do we have any benchmark on SD cards?

[BigDede]

I use SKTools 3.1.7.2
My file system cache is Zero, I didn't do any special tweaking, Im just running Pocket Hack Master @ 663Mhz
Most of my applications and games are installed on MicroDrive.
TomTom maps as well are on MicroDrive, everything is running ok ...
I've tried the benchamark several times, and Im still getting nearly same result ...

[Iftin]

working miniSDHC Apacer 4GB class 2 wizard 9100 G3 WM2006 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1963379&postcount=2