I have a Blue Angel with WM5 and I did a Registry Hack to use my SD Card as "My Documents" (not in a subfolder!).
Now, when I open a programm like TomeRaider or Word, in the file list I see every file twice. I think the system looks at"My Documents and Storage Card separately, despite the renaming. Does anybody know how to fix it?
The difficulty in working with files and directories on Pocket PCs has bugged me since their inception. I am hoping that WM6 will improve on that. We'll see.
In the meantime I've found that if I create a My Documents folder on my Storage Card I can get WM5 to at least see inside the storage card, and also one directory under My Documents there. I hope that helps, but it's really not a good answer. It won't get any better until windows mobile and the pocket apps are improved enough to allow them to read the filesystem to a greater depth.
It is really hard to understand how M$ has continued to sell and profit from such a sub-par solution that could likely be so easily fixed. Especially on devices that commonly utilize gigabytes of storage in today's working world.
Okay XDA tenured- please be gentle. I ve searched, but can not find specific answers to my questions. I ordered a 16gb class 6 (currently have class 2), but would appreciate information before making the changes.
1.) Is it possible to leave current apps on the device memory, then set up for apps to SD and then future apps will go to the card?
2) Based on question 1) if it works, when I update future apps on the device, I am guessing they would then uninstall from the device and then install to card?
3) Would it be best for performance to leave all cache on the device memory? Seems like the system would be faster then.
4) What is the meg space difference leaving all cache or moving it?
5) When changing over to apps to SD, is it not kind of like the same constrained system as an iPhone (Plenty of intitial space, but no ability for external storage)? Point being, if all the apps are on the card and you want to listen to or view media on a seperate card, you would not be able to, since the apps are on the "device" card. This is the whole point to my first question. Unless you can copy the app directory path on the card to another card and use as is- just like the card already installed too...
1: Yes, if you follow my tutorial, it has you copy the existing apps to the sd card and if you use my app, the checkbox tells it to do that as well.
2: No apps will be on your device. There's no way to have a hybrid here, it's either all apps on the sd card or none(not actually true but would be a pain in the ass to make symlinks for each app individually and I don't know of anyone who cared enough to actually try it)
3: I have all apps and caches on the sd card and it is running just as smoothly as normal(and with a class 2 sd card!) There might be some slowdown but it's imperceptible to me.
4: With the cache on device it'll vary depending on what apps you have and how often you use them. With everything moved the memory on the device seems to stay permanently at 72-73MB. That said, moving the normal cache(dalvik-cache seems to be ok) is pretty unstable and I wouldn't suggest it unless you really know what you're doing.
5: Yes, unfortunately this whole process relies on the system not knowing the apps are on the sd card so it's pretty strongly tied to one. That said, you could probably get away with different sd cards as long as they also have an ext2 partition with the app, app-private, etc. directories in it. You'd probably have to reboot when switching sd cards but it should be possible(interestingly you could use this to get different settings depending on what sd card you have in)
Thanks!
So basically we have an iPhone in regards to being stuck to device memory and no option for external storage beyond what is on the card.
I guess there are pros and cons to either set-up. App hounds would prefer apps2sd and media hounds may prefer leaving things alone.
If you are an app and media hound, you are kind of stuck juggling media from the card.
Yep. Although as I was talking about, you could theoretically move each app independently and set up symlinks in the /data/app directory for each app, pointing to where it is on the sd card and leave the ones you want on the phone as they are, but that doesn't sound particularly fun.
Guys,
Is there somewhere else who create an application that can make SDHC card as device memory?
Thanx.
irmanpribadi said:
Guys,
Is there somewhere else who create an application that can make SDHC card as device memory?
Thanx.
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Click to collapse
The storage card can only be used as a storage card, not for device memory. nice idea though, it would be nice to have 16gb of ram
Regards
Jay
maybe this is not about ram but about having the sd card as primary partition, which might be possible although it has never been done before. in wm2003 the ramdrive was the primary partition and the "storage" was listed as a storage card. these days the storage is the first (and on most devices and roms only) partition. but when a ramdisk is added, it is listed as a storage card. that means the order of the drives is variable and a storage card could also be the first partition.
but what would you want with a theretical answer like that? an expert rom chef, who started with cooking wm2003 might know the answer or could do that for you.
but for all realistic means, you should simply try and save all documents, pictures, videos and music, install bigger programs, derive the cache for your browser, store email attachments all on the sd card. the only problems with completely leaving out on the internal storage, especially for program installation, is that it is slow.
It should be possible but you will probably need to cook a new ROM to get it working. It's mostly just a matter of telling CE which mounted volume you want to mount as root for the emulated objectstore.
This document on MSDN should give you an idea of what to do:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms885839.aspx
The MPx200's WM5/WM6 ROMs do this already. If you do this, keep in mind you likely won't ever be able to eject the card while the device is booted as the registry will be stored there. Now, maybe you could write some sort of app that would dismount/remount and reinitialize the registry at the press of a button but that doesn't seem too practical unless you have no choice as on the MPx200. Another workaround might be to store the registry hives on an internal flash partition and store the rest of the system folders on the SD card.
As for implementing the RAM/ROM based filesystem like in WM2003, I'm not sure. The Windows CE 5.x kernel used for Windows Mobile 5/6/6.1/6.5 certainly won't prevent you from doing it but I'm unsure the Universal's hardware can persist the ram contents between "soft" resets. If it can, then I imagine it's only a matter of using an NK.exe that doesn't force a clean reboot and using a different filesys.exe than the included ROM only/hive registry configuration it ships with. Heh, if you ever looked at the MS news groups you will see a whole bunch of posts by OEMS getting yelled at for using the ram based configuration in their beta WM5 roms. "Not supported" doesn't mean it can't be done and work, it just means MS doesnt' want you to do it for either marketing or other reasons.
Chef_Tony said:
maybe this is not about ram but about having the sd card as primary partition, which might be possible although it has never been done before. in wm2003 the ramdrive was the primary partition and the "storage" was listed as a storage card. these days the storage is the first (and on most devices and roms only) partition. but when a ramdisk is added, it is listed as a storage card. that means the order of the drives is variable and a storage card could also be the first partition.
but what would you want with a theretical answer like that? an expert rom chef, who started with cooking wm2003 might know the answer or could do that for you.
...
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Click to collapse
The ramdisk you are talking about is very different from the Windows CE object store used in WM2003 and many current non-PPC WinCE devices.
They don't even use the same filesystem! The ramdisk driver commonly circulated on these forums basically just formats/mounts a chunk of RAM as a FAT partition. It can't be resized and appears to the OS as any other flash card. You can even format it with StorageTools or whatever. The dynamic ramdisk or objectstore is built into the WinCE OS. It uses a proprietary filesystem optimized for RAM usage that is closely integrated into the kernel. As I understand it, It's more like a database than a filesystem like FAT. The registry, files and DBs are all stored in the same internal format and then abstracted by the OS and it's APIs. It couldn't even be disabled until more recent WinCE versions. More info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa910544.aspx
What exactly is the problem? Im thinking of getting the focus and I keep hearing these SD card issues but what "exactly" is the problem? I understand that once you put it in, your SD card is done, and that if you want to remove it you have to wipe everything, I understand all that, but what are the problems that arise? I have a 16gb micro sd that I have used on all my devices no problem, do files get corrupted or something? Does it just not read it?
There aren't any problems in that sense. The only real "problem" is that not all MicroSD cards work with WP7. In addition, hot-swapping isn't supported, because in effect, the MicroSD's memory is added to the internal memory, and the system then doesn't differentiate between storing on the sd card and that that's built into the phone, and thus stuff is spread all over all of them.
There aren't any "problems" as such that I know of though.
On an ending note - WP7 is awesome ^__^ Honestly the best user experience I've ever had with a phone (esp. having come from Android >.<) ^__^
loading a microSD card will turn it into a secure card. once this happens no other device will even read it (except a nokia n8) making it extremely difficult to format if it doesn't work nicely with windows phone 7. That is the main issue. rest already mentioned.
GenkaiMade gave his version which is correct but I thought I would explain it my way.
Take your average memory card and device. What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
1) You should be able to get any MicroSD card on the market and be able to put it into your phone with it working.
2) You should be able to remove the memory card from the device and put it in a different device (such as another phone or PC) and have it still work like normally.
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.
1) Many of the higher rated MicroSD card flat-out don't work on WP7. This is because of the method WP7 uses to read/write to memory card. You can find more specific details on why this is but I will just keep it simple. There are many user-created lists which list which MicroSD cards do work with WP7.
2) You can NOT hot-swap your memory card once it is inserted into phone. Why? SD stands for Secure Digital which means there is a security aspect capable on the card. Microsoft takes advantage of this in WP7. Once you put your new card in your phone automatically reformats and locks it down. If you then take out the card and place it in another phone or a PC it will not be recognized, almost as if it is invisible. And the worst part, there is nothing* you can do about it. Once you pair a memory card and WP7 phone they are joined for life.
Why does this suck? If you buy a 8GB card now you simply can't upgrade to a 16/32Gb one down the road without losing all of your data and having a useless MicroSD card. The old card would become a better Frisbee than data storage device. This is why most WP7 phones don't let the users have access to the memory card. Microsoft knew this would happen and thus pushed manufacturers to not have the card easily accessible. There is even much talk that the memory card in the Samsung Focus was meant to be glued to the phone to prevent swapping but somewhere along the line that idea was scrapped.
* Note: Technically there is ONE thing you can do. If you own or have access to a Nokia N8 phone it can read the locked down MicroSD card and reformat to something any device can recognize. Essentially undo the problem. But how many people have easy access to one? The answer, almost nobody.
Quicksilver4648 said:
GenkaiMade gave his version which is correct but I thought I would explain it my way.
Take your average memory card and device. What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
1) You should be able to get any MicroSD card on the market and be able to put it into your phone with it working.
2) You should be able to remove the memory card from the device and put it in a different device (such as another phone or PC) and have it still work like normally.
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.1) Many of the higher rated MicroSD card flat-out don't work on WP7. This is because of the method WP7 uses to read/write to memory card. You can find more specific details on why this is but I will just keep it simple. There are many user-created lists which list which MicroSD cards do work with WP7.
2) You can NOT hot-swap your memory card once it is inserted into phone. Why? SD stands for Secure Digital which means there is a security aspect capable on the card. Microsoft takes advantage of this in WP7. Once you put your new card in your phone automatically reformats and locks it down. If you then take out the card and place it in another phone or a PC it will not be recognized, almost as if it is invisible. And the worst part, there is nothing* you can do about it. Once you pair a memory card and WP7 phone they are joined for life.
Why does this suck? If you buy a 8GB card now you simply can't upgrade to a 16/32Gb one down the road without losing all of your data and having a useless MicroSD card. The old card would become a better Frisbee than data storage device. This is why most WP7 phones don't let the users have access to the memory card. Microsoft knew this would happen and thus pushed manufacturers to not have the card easily accessible. There is even much talk that the memory card in the Samsung Focus was meant to be glued to the phone to prevent swapping but somewhere along the line that idea was scrapped.
* Note: Technically there is ONE thing you can do. If you own or have access to a Nokia N8 phone it can read the locked down MicroSD card and reformat to something any device can recognize. Essentially undo the problem. But how many people have easy access to one? The answer, almost nobody.
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You're wrong. It has nothing to do with what you said. Lol @ breaking rules. They aren't breaking anything...
SD Card DRM is in the spec, it is only given to people who license it. That's what WP7 uses. It's locks down the storage system with a DRM key and that's why other devices (barring Nokias) can't see it - most SD Card clients don't support SD Card DRM.
Nokia (Symbian, and maybe Maemo, but I'm unsure on that) is the only other mobile OS that supports it, and that's why it can reformat the card (but cannot read any data on it, of course, since it doesn't have the decryption key). When you power on the phone, the WP7 pre-boot environment unlocks the card via a key on the device the same way you unlock an encrypted system drive on a PC. If a device cannot supply this key, they cannot mount the card.
If you swap the card, you have to hard reset the device because the storage is spanned and the decryption key on the device no longer corresponds to the SD card in the device (but due to spanned storage the device would malfunction even if it were to boot up). The new card is encrypted and added to the pool on a hard reset, and the [new] key is put on the device so that it can be mounted when the device is powered on.
It's pretty damn simple, and has been written in plain English in many threads; yet people still FAIL to understand it.
Have you ever thought there must be a reason why they call them SECURE Digital Cards? Or did you think Secure = taking it out one device and just plugging it into the other and taking the data off of it?
The Storage in WP7 was never meant to be swappable. Microsoft has always said it would not be. It's your own business if you want to play around swapping cards like Russian Roulette.
As far as which work with WP7. It requires higher Random I/O speeds than most SD Cards provide, and that doesn't correspond to Class Type. Also, a card can work fine for sometimes weeks at a time and then start to fail, so replacing it yourself is at your own risk.
And most manufacturers and carriers will void you warranty if you mess with the SD Card.
In that respect using memory cards is nonsense on WP7.
If you cannot do what you want with this, what was a rule and still is a rule on the market today,
they should just build devices with inbuilt memory like iPhone and don't talk about memory cards anymore. That would be simple.
Current situation is a mess.
So what cards are compatible now? I Googled it and the first response was 'San Disk Pulls WP7 compatible memory cards' and I figured that wasn't a good sign.
williammel said:
So what cards are compatible now? I Googled it and the first response was 'San Disk Pulls WP7 compatible memory cards' and I figured that wasn't a good sign.
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Click to collapse
they only pulled it because MS wants to do official testing and release an official list.
refer to this webpage for more info: http://mobilitydigest.com/the-sd-cards-that-dodont-work-with-windows-phone/
Here it is in KB form from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831
N8ter said:
You're wrong. It has nothing to do with what you said. Lol @ breaking rules. They aren't breaking anything...
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It was a figure of speech. I know Microsoft didn't break any real "rules". This is what I posted:
Quicksilver4648 said:
...
What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
...
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I said "rules" I implied "expectations". Microsoft did nothing wrong, outside of communicating with the end users, with how WP7 manages MicroSD cards.
And I clearly know why certain MicroSD cards will or wont work. I just didn't feel like explaining it because it would take a lot of time.
It's time to start expecting people to use these technologies in a secure manner.
The media industry does not support platforms that leave them open to be attacked by software pirates.
Information is power, and no one likes their info stolen.
There are many reasons.
iOS phones encrypt their storate. And the reason why they don't support external storage cards is probably the same reason why Microsoft uses the SD-DRM and encrypts the WP7 storage.
I don't know how Symbian handles its storage, but I'm pretty sure that OS at least supports Encrypting the file system on SD cards. It supports pretty much everything ele.
Right, let me give my own perspective on this.
Until recently I was a WM6 user. I regularly upgraded my phone, and the last one was an HD2. WM phones never came with any real amount of storage, just a piffling amount of internal memory (what, 500MB?). I was therefore faced with the added cost and hassle of having to purchase a memory card and insert it into the phone. This was a bit like buying a PC without a hard disk and having to buy and install your own. It was an added hassle and expense.
Once you had your SD card inserted, you were then faced with the decision of where to store the data for each of your apps. Take email - do you store all your emails and attachments on the internal memory, thus using up a good chunk of that precious resource, but having it work quickly, or do you store it all on the SD card, where there's a lot more room but it's slow and clunky, and if anyone steals your phone they can pop the card out and get at the data? When you install apps, you're again given the choice of where to install it. Do you go for the speed of internal storage? Do you put it on the SD card, knowing if you ever pop out the card, your app will be unavailable? Decisions, decisions.... Too much damned complexity. The average user shouldn't be faced with these choices, if I install an app, it should just go on the phone wherever, period.
Not only that, once my card was in there, I never once removed it. The majority of my apps were on it, my emails, and all my media. I totally filled it with media. Popping out that card would more or less break my phone. My apps wouldn't work, my emails would be missing......so I never did. Nor did I ever use it as a mass storage drive....because there was never any free space on it. Instead I had a 32GB USB memory key hanging from my keychain - that was my portable mass storage solution.
Not only this, if I wanted to put media onto the card, I had to connect to the PC and drag and drop my stuff directly onto the phone. What a hassle! Doing this didn't optimize the size of the photos for the phone's screen. It didn't drop the bitrate of my mp3s, it didn't convert videos to the right size and format. All that had to be done manually, and I never bothered, so my media took up a lot more room than it had to. So inefficient.
So, given that I never removed the card, and that doing so would hose my phone, and that it was always full, so never got used as mass storage, and that it was insecure, and an added expense and hassle, and putting media on the card was a manual process, what would I have done in a next generation phone to cure all these issues?
Well, I would have made sure the phone came with plenty of onboard memory, and I would have removed the distinction between internal memory and the "card" so it was all one storage container. I would have secured the memory so even if it could be removed, the data couldn't be read in another device. I would have made sure the memory was fast enough to deal properly with a modern OS. I would automate the process of converting and downsizing media by using software on the PC to automatically perform those tasks. I'd also make the process wireless and fully automatic. I'd.......oh wait, that's what Microsoft already did in WP7.
So I'm happy, even if you lot ain't.
I just got 2 Focus's for the Wife and I. Using the SD card sticky in the Focus forum here as a general help, I purchased a PNY 8Gb C4 for the Wifes, and a Patriot 16Gb C2 for mine (Frys, and the Patroit was the last one in the store from the Display! No one buys C2 anymore).
The back overlay on both devices mentions memory cards, and quick startup quide shows you how to install them and what happens if you remove them.
I put the Cards in last night (phones just arrived yesterday), formatted (hold the Power/Camera/Vol Down at the same time, answer questions) and in a few seconds each system was formated. Both are working fine right now.
Right now though doesn't mean much, many in the SD thread are having issues after several weeks, though it seems it more prevalent with the 32Gb cards. YMMV...
What I find goofy about the whole thing is that it has been stated that 7 needs random read/write, which is not measured by class rating, and can vary even within the same type of card, but very few people have posted numbers showing that they tested their cards at all before gleefully sacrificing them to the hungry maw of the Focus. Seriously guys, do more testing and post more numbers before rendering your cards unreadable to a PC. It'll help us all to better understand what works and what doesn't.
This bites.. I always knew that the card inside the wp7 was secured, but I always had faith in the power of this forum. Especially in recovery situations. Now I have lost a lot of irreplaceable data, like dozens of pictures of my young child. It seems I had a little too much faith.
Thank you for this information. it was very helpful. I have already moved away from Windows phones to android, and am going to start using nandroid. Hopefully this won't happen again.