Why can I not read high capacity thumb drives on my Athena?

[robjhellis]

Hi Guys,

I'm posting in the general forum to get a wider audience. I have a x_7510 (Athena 400). I am running xTep's 1.01 ROM.

I have 4GB, 8GB & 16 GB Scandisk Cruser USB Thumb drives. The 4GB is read just fine either via the docking station or the 4 in 1 cable, showing up under File Explorer as "Hard Disk", however, the 8 & 16 GB do not. My notebook reports that the Thumb Drives are formatted FAT32.

On 8/01/08 LTxda reported being able to read a Corsair Voyager Brand 16 GB using the 4-in-1 cable on his 7500 no problem - see post #23 at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=357502&highlight=External+Drive&page=3.

Anyone have any ideas on why I'm not able to read the larger capacity drives?

[jimmunsw]

Hi there !
Some brands of thumb drive are not readable no matter what format it is in . You have to buy another brand and make sure you bring along your x7510 fully charged and also the 4 in 1 cable to test before you buy . the same goes to buying keyboard , wired or wireless or bluetooth mouse , trackballs mouse , external hdd and etc... any external / usb device you may think of , bring out x7510 & cable , test first before you buy - it's definitely safer bro . Or maybe fully reformat again your thumb drive once or twice and see what happens , but please copy all your data to your laptop first - ok ? Also plug in the cable and thumb drive and soft reset your x7510 and see what happens . Best of luck to you - jimmunsw :)

[hishamh]

Tested 16GB Kingston Datatraveller and 8GB Sandisk Cruzer with 4in1 cable on a Dopod U1000 (x7501) - both work fine.

I would seriously not consider "formating" your thumb drive unless you really know what you are doing. Unlike flash cards, flash drives can't be formated with the usual software tools e.g. those available through XP or Vista. I learned that the hard way.

As to your problem, I have no idea what is going on - Windows Mobile should not have a problem reading FAT32 volumes. I do recall however that Sandisk Cruzers come with U3, is that enabled or disabled on yours?

[robjhellis]

Thanks for the input. I have disabled the U3 application, and I have reformatted the 8 & 16 GB drives, but with no success (although the both seem fine after the formatting). I'm wondering if there is something in the Athena 400 set-up that is different from the Athena 100 o/s that could be contributing to this?

[jimmunsw]

Tested 16GB Kingston Datatraveller and 8GB Sandisk Cruzer with 4in1 cable on a Dopod U1000 (x7501) - both work fine.

I would seriously not consider "formating" your thumb drive unless you really know what you are doing. Unlike flash cards, flash drives can't be formated with the usual software tools e.g. those available through XP or Vista. I learned that the hard way.

As to your problem, I have no idea what is going on - Windows Mobile should not have a problem reading FAT32 volumes. I do recall however that Sandisk Cruzers come with U3, is that enabled or disabled on yours?

Dear hishamh ,

Have u tried 32gb or 64gb thumbdrive with 4 in 1 cable ?
If yes , what brand please ?
How is the transfer speed ?
Any comment on these big storage thumbdrives ?
Thanks & regards - jimmunsw :)

[hishamh]

I'll let you know - my wife has a 32GB drive, but I'm not in a position to test it right now.

[hishamh]

Kingston Datatraveller 150: 32GB

Works fine. I didn't test transfer speeds, but in general you shouldn't expect more than USB1.1 at best. I did play a 700kBps Divx movie off of it - benchmarks with CorePlayer say about 80%+, which is more or less what I expected.

[jimmunsw]

Dear Hishamh ,
Thanks for your kind reply , it is good news to hear that 32gb thumbdrive can be used for our 4in 1 cable , do u have any idea our device can use a microsd with minisd adapter for 32 gb microsd card ? I have checked at low yat , it is still not out yet but in 2 to 3 months time , it maybe out for sale then , and another question is that the 16gb microsd card can be used right ? - Will the usages sapps the battery power - i wonder ? Please enlighten us - thanks for sharing and best regards to u bro ... jimmunsw :)

[arstical]

Maybe you can try format the TF card with Fat,not Fat32:)

[xdawis]

I don´t understand that the´re people not using ,as I discribed a few times, a HDD 1,8 inch f.e. I´m using a trekstor HDD 120GB. With that combination 4in1 cable I am able to read files with about 15000 KB/s.
Writing is slow 300 KB/s.
It works perfect since a few months.