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Accessing storage card from apps on PC

I would like to sync all the files on my phone (M600) storage card to my PC, so I have a backup. I have a sync app (good sync) on my PC and ideally would just like to set it to sync the storage card to a folder on the PC every night.
Is there a UNC path or similar that will let me access the storage card from a PC app? In explorer it just shows "\Storage Card", but that only works in an explorer window that is already 'inside' the mobile device.
I know there are backup apps that will backup the whole card, and I use sprite backup to backup the device memory, but creating lots of very large backup files (mostly with mp3s and map files on them) doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things.
thanks
mark.

If you really want to backup the whole card, how are you going to get away from having some very large backup files? (summing your card is very big too lol)

Depending on what OS you're using, there are various options for mapping the Storage Card to at as a USB Drive. It'll be assigned a drive letter, and you can backup normally through the PC.
There are free options on WM5, paid for versions on WM2003.
V

Thanks - mounting as a drive letter would be perfect. Could you please point me in the direction of one of these programs (for WM5) - I couldn't find any on handago or pocketgear.

Search for WM5torage
http://www.modaco.com/index.php?automodule=downloads&showfile=1702
V

Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't think WM5torage will work for me - you have to manually activate/deactivate it and when it is activated the phone can't access the card and activesync doesn't work. It's very much a manual solution, in which case it would be as easy to manually remove the card and plug it into my pc direct.
What I am hoping for is something that just runs permanently in the background without getting in the way of normal operation, so I can automatically schedule a sync each night.
What are the commercial options? I don't mind buying if the price is reasonable.

Haven't seen a commercial solution, but I guess you could use mortscript or skschema to schedule WM5torage, run it at say 11pm-12am, and at the same time cause your pc to do a backup of the now visible card.
After 12am, have your scheduler app disable WM5torage. All good hopefully.
There used to be 3rd party software for PocketPC that could map the storage to a Drive Letter, but I haven't seen it for many years.
V

Thanks vijay - that might be a workable solution. I'll give it a try. It would be nice if there was something a little more straightforward though!

card export 2
markauk said:
What are the commercial options? I don't mind buying if the price is reasonable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try Card Export II for pocketPC.
http://www.softick.com/pocket-pc/cardexport2/
Unfortunatly wm5torage nor cardexport2 work on my TyTN
Anyone knows a suitable app for the Hermes?

Card Export II didn't seem to offer anything different from WM5torage.
I've tried using skschema and WM5torage and while it's a little 'manual' to set up, it works pretty well so far. Good Sync on my PC can be set to sync whenever it sees a specific new disc mounted, so all I had to do was schedule WM5torage to switch to USB drive mode at night, and then back again to normal mode 30 mins later.
Thanks everyone for the pointers!

Wanted: simple file transfer software xda<>XP

Dear all,
my xda (Prophet) gets connected to many different computers, the only common connection mode is USB. On some of them, I cannot install software by company policy.
What I am looking for is a simple, standalone program that can be run (eg from a USB stick) on the WinXP PC and will allow simple back and forth file transfer between the PC and the Prophet via USB.
No other functionality required. Does such a beast exist?
thanks for hints,
best regards
tdklaus

there are free programs which makes the pda acts as a usb mass strorage device in the eyes of windows

Rudegar said:
there are free programs which makes the pda acts as a usb mass strorage device in the eyes of windows
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that is nice to hear!
Now, how can I make you name one or two of these?
tdklaus

http://www.freewareppc.com/communication/wm5torage.shtml
1

Many thanks, exactly what I was looking for!
cheers
tdklaus

PDA Set up for Newbies

There are a lot of great things on this web site, but not much for the real newbie. This submission is to help newbies get up to speed. The concepts and some details here can help almost any newbie with any PDA.
I’ve worked with computers for 30 years since they were driven by “audio cassette” tapes. BUT I’m a PDA newbie! When I got my PDA, a Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes), I compared it to my last cell phone and was amazed that it had a color screen. I had no clue how I was supposed to get it to do what I wanted it to do. Since I‘m retired, I spent long hours on many days researching, finding free software, and learning and doing things to make it what I wanted. These are the results. I’m not going to go into all the research, just give you the findings and actions. Read your manual or download one from the Internet to learn the very basics of your phone. Try every possible button, menu and program to see what they do. Don‘t be afraid to crash your PDA at this point so long as you know how to do a Hard Reset (HR). I’m not going to give keystrokes on how to find the following data. Just don’t transfer important information to the PDA until later.
First, decide what you need to do versus what you would like it to do. Here’s what I wanted. I travel a lot and wanted a mini computer I could do MS Office work on, access the Internet to take care of business, call home on, find my way in strange locations, and enjoy a little. IOW, do what my desktop does except I wanted to carry it in my pocket.
One thing that will happen while you are doing all the following is that many of the PDA programs will show up as installations in your “Add/Remove Program” program in your Control Panel on your desktop. Since this includes entries going into your registry, it can lead to different problems. I use Norton Ghost back up to totally back up my system drive, let things happen as they will, then restore it back to normal when I’m all done. Then I install only ActiveSync, MyMobiler and Remote Keyboard plus a few others than I want to sync with when I connect occasionally. You should strongly consider doing this yourself.
First, I found out what I had - A full install of WM6 with several programs I really didn’t want and a real problem when I began loading program I wanted - not enough memory. The device says I have 64 Mb of RAM and 128 Mb of Flash memory (this is the “hard disk” storage available). When I looked at memory allocation it said:
Storage Program
Total 44.77 48.77
In Use 10.96 23.55
Free 33.81 25.20
This means out of the 128 Mb of storage 44.77 + 48.77 = 93.54 Mb were available and being used. Where’s the rest? Being taken up by the Extended ROM which holds the installation and system programs you are safer NOT playing with unless you know how to - like RegEdit, Task Manager (not Task), etc. These are system “hidden” files you can play with and really screw up your PDA. With “AdvancedConfiguration” you can set Extended ROM to be read and used. Also, almost ½ of the total available area set aside for Program installation on the hard disk was already used. I tried and found I could NOT delete or move any of the originally loaded files in “Windows” folder. We’re stuck with the bloat.
I haven’t found out for sure but (someone correct me here, please) the Storage seems to be used for a dedicated operating Page File or programs loaded into active operating memory type of work based on how many running programs you have running right now and the Program refers to the actual Flash (hard disk) space set aside for installations. Think of your desktop as having only a 50 Mb hard disk and having to have the operating system, Page File and programs plus storage on it. Doesn’t leave much.
A neat little trick I learned is that when you do a HR and are reinstalling the OS it pauses for 3 seconds with an explanation screen at one point before going on to install other proprietary programs (some of which were junk to me). If you want to know what was different, back up all your personal data and do a HR and let it run fully. Check all the Settings and Programs screens to write down what you have. Do it again but push the Soft Reset (SR) pin in the hole when it gets to that 3 second pause and let it reboot. It will stop the extended installation. When you do this you will find the numbers are now:
Storage Program
Total 44.77 48.77
In Use 5.77 22.85
Free 39.00 25.92
IOW, you cut your Page File use (running programs loaded into memory) by ½ but you didn’t really change what was taking up your Flash memory. That’s because during the install every program is loaded into the “Windows” directory and then installed or not. If not installed, they just sit there and can’t be deleted or moved.
In order to change this memory bloat I had to find a different way. The only way I could find was to “cook” my phone and hope it didn’t turn into a “brick” to throw away or send back to the factory for a fix. I began looking at what was available. Keep in mind that I had written down ALL the programs installed by WM6 full and WM6 Lite (fast SR at 3 second screen). I had decided what I would like to have and what I didn’t need or want. This is important to do before this next step.
I am very experienced at installing lots of OSs over the years from CP/M (really, really old), DOS, Windows XT up to Windows XP (very different from XT) and tweaking the hell out of them. Doing it on the PDA had me a little concerned because it’s so tiny and different (so what, right?). I learned that it really is about the same as my desktop in setup and running. The first time I did it, I was worried and then surprised at how easy and straight forward it was. If you are concerned about this step and have this particular PDA, go to http://www.america.htc.com/support/8525/software-downloads.html , download the most current OS and do an install from your desktop to PDA with it. If your phone bricks send it to the factory, it’s their system. Once you’ve done it, it’s much less worrying. If you have a different phone do a little Google research and/or read more on this forum for your particular phone.
I researched different ROM cooks to see what they had compared to what I wanted. I came up with Shamanix and K-Flex as most likely for me. Their installs went just as easily and safely as the WM6 did. Don’t look at just the pretty colors, look at what programs they have and how they function doing what you want. Do some “WM6 FREE SOFTWARE” Google searches to find out what is available out there and what you can get it to do. Here are the test results with both Full install and Lite install:
Shamanix K-Flex
Full Lite Full Lite
Total 66.18 50.77 66.18 50.77 66.80 44.77 66.80 44.77
In Use 2.66 21.00 2.63 18.77 9.11 28.52 2.78 23.19
Free 63.52 29.77 63.55 31.99 57.69 20.25 64.01 25.70
FIRST - Now 66.18 + 50.77 = 110.95 for Shamanix and 66.80 + 44.77 = 111.57 for K-Flex versus only 93.54 Mb for WM6. Suddenly the OS installation files squeezed out an extra 18 Mb of Flash storage for other things. That’s a LOT when many programs average as little as 200 Kb (fit 90 in that free space). Next, K-Flex used almost as much Flash (hard disk) storage as WM6 but Shamanix only used 18.77 in the Lite install which freed up almost 6 Mb for more programs.
Sounds good, right? Remember, check what each OS provides, how you like the looks and what you want on you PDA. Since camera, media and online gaming usage are not important to me, Shamanix Lite is best for me. It still requires a few additional installs to replace what it doesn’t provide but that’s better than the bloat.
(PLEASE CONTINUE ON NEXT REPLY)

2nd half of first post
(Continued from beginning of thread)
Next, I bought a 2 Gb microSD card. That’s great for storage, but I want to install programs to that location, especially the ones I don’t use very often and can run slow safely (cards are much slower than RAM). Save the Flash storage for anything that needs processing speed like music, video, gaming, etc. Once you have a card installed, every time you want to install a program, it asks where to install. If you have access to ER enabled you can select from Device, Extended ROM or Storage Card. Use Storage Card as 1st, and Device 2nd. I tweak installation folders on my desktop but on the PDA you can’t. If it’s going to the Storage Card it will create the proper folder automatically like most Windows installations do in Program Files. Also, if you already have it loaded, it will tell you it must uninstall the prior one before it can install the new one. Actually, they’ve made PDA pretty idiot proof which is a good thing.
Before I go any further, here are two almost mandatory FREE programs you MUST HAVE!!!! MyMobiler and Remote Keyboard can be found many places. Both will allow you to connect your PDA to your desktop with a USB cable and set your PDA aside while you do everything on your desktop. It gives you a copy of the PDA screen on your monitor you can zoom plus use the normal mouse and keyboard on so long as the mouse is hovering over the PDA screen. Sooooo muchchch eeesieeer!!!!!!! In fact, it should be your first two installs before anything else!
Here’s a helpful hit on installing programs. Many times an installation program will come as a .exe file you run from your desktop. What it usually does is extract and create a folder that will hold a couple of files ending in .CAB. Then it will copy the appropriate .CAB to your mobile device. Then it will run the .CAB for installation. The .CAB is the important part. All the rest essentially sets up your desktop to run the .CAB on your PDA. Many times the installation program will be a .ZIP, .RAR, or other compressed file or even a .CAB file. If it’s a compressed file, uncompress it and look for the .CAB. When looking at .CAB files you will often find several with identical names except for the few letters just before the “.CAB”. These are the same but designed for different types of operating systems. I’m sorry I can’t rediscover the link for the details (maybe someone reading this will give us the link later) but I did learn that those with .ARM, .ARM4, Xscale, or rarely PXA, OMAP, or Samsung S3C24xx are for the newer PDAs running WM5 or WM6. Every PPC2000-2003 and every smartphone on the market (at least that I know of) is an ARM device. The others are for older system. If in doubt, try to run each one. The ones that are incorrect will NOT install. Only the one that IS correct will. From then on you will know which type to copy to your PDA. Once copied to a named folder (I use “Install CABs”) on the Storage Card, they can be simply clicked on at any time and installed. To regain memory or stop using it, use “Remove Programs” in Settings/System to get rid of them. You can reinstall anytime later.
One thing I did was move almost all of the CAB files for the programs I wanted to a designated folder on the Storage Card. One suggestion from others is to rename each CAB with a “#-“ in front of the name with the number corresponding to importance of that CAB to you. That way, when you do a reinstall, or HR, out in the field, your CABs are with you and you can see which ones should be loaded first. This works well if there is some conflict with installs one after another. Personally, I haven’t run into that so I rename them to a shorter name that identifies what it is (e.g. in35prtv33.24.arm4.cab becomes PocketPool.cab). The next thing I do is use the settings or preferences in each program to make a folder on the Storage Card the default folder - like My Documents, Favorites, Downloads, etc. Now they won’t be lost if I have to HR the PDA.
Along with the information in the above paragraphs, I do something else because I’m gone when I’m most using my PDA. On the Storage Card (a copy on each card I have) is the installed programs in the normal “Program” folder which are my operating files and a copy of the “Install CABs” folder which also includes a backup of my Contacts. One additional item is a “Serials” folder in the “Install CABs” folder. This has a .txt file of all the registration codes I need plus copies of all the altered (cracked) files I need if I have to reinstall anything on the road. So long as I can Hard Reset my phone, I can reinstall everything back to normal and continue as I need. Since I have several Storage Cards this is on each card. The balance of the Storage cards will have different eBooks, music, DVDs, etc. that don’t all fit on one card. That way, I have several backups of critical files plus entertainment as needed. I use a small dot of different colored paint on the bottom edge of each card so I can tell which card is in the phone at any time.
With all the above, if my PDA freezes or stops working properly, the universal fix-it is to do a Hard Reset. If that doesn’t work, I’m SOL. If it does I’m in business. All I do is a HR (Lite) and soft reset at the 3 second warning. Then I go back into my Storage Card and reinstall those programs I need to get back to where I can work.
Once you have things loaded and working properly, you can consider tweaking the system. During this process you may have found multiple editions of software you want to use like three different registry editors, five different tweak programs, etc. Go ahead and compare and see which ones you want and delete the rest. On a PDA it’s fairly easy. When everything is said and done, you can do a clean HR and only load those specific versions you want and have a fresh, clean, trim system to backup as your first installation process.
Finally, so you can see the results I came up with in this process, here’s a list of the programs I installed. All are on and working. None of them have to be cleared before I can have room to open another one. These are the final versions of similar programs such that there is minimal overlap but expanded utility when more than one is installed.
Sound Pocket Dictate
Mortgage CALC
WkTASK
Touch Caller
Tao Java
GSFinder+
Pocket Mechanic
Adobe Reader
ActiveX Flash 7
Sompy Media Player
enAlarmPPC
True Term Translator
TT Swedish-English
TT Spanish-English
TT Portugese-English
TT Italian-English
TT German-English
TT French-English
Town Compass US Travel Directory
Town Compass DataViewer
Tagalog for Travelers
SKTools
Paris Guide
Metro
mCity Tours
Google Maps
Flashlight Colors
UniSync
Spb Pocket Plus
tGetFile.dll
MIcrosoft .NET CF 2.0
Maufait Instafind
DinaSoft Tap Text
DinaSoft MemMaid
DinaSoft HandyMenu
CallFirewall
Tab Web Viewer (IE)
Dictionary Manager
Schap's Advanced Config 2.0
Yahtz
Warefare Incorporated
Vision Quest
Trivial Pursuit
Super Wild Wild Words
Space Adventure in Infinite Space
Smart Mahjongg
Dames are Trouble Game
Word Mojo
Ultimate Bowling Fighter
Mazera
Mars Need Cows
Hellfire
Bzzz
Realms
1001 Crossword Puzzle
Xplodus
Xonix
Pocket Spades
Patience
JumpyBall
Hot Death Uno
Advanced Lines
Here are my original results on memory usage.
Storage Program
Total 44.77 48.77
In Use 5.77 22.85
Free 39.00 25.92
Here are the final results
Storage Program
Total 66.18 50.77
In Use 36.55 25.77
Free 29.63 25.00
In other words, by opening and freeing the Extended ROM, Putting as much on the Storage Card as possible and applying a few tweaks for caching and folder locations, I still have almost as much of both Storage and Program Memory as I started with to run almost anything without having to remove and reinstall programs on the fly.
It’s a lot easier than you think and idiot proof in most cases. Don’t fear playing with your PDA and making it what you want. Have fun and ENJOY!
Dr. Ken Rich

General Android -> Windows Backup strategy

Backing up camera photos, messenger pics, contacts, documents etc. to Windows in their original format.
Smartphone: unrooted Mate9 with Android 8
What I used to do:
Connect my previous phone (rooted Ascend Mate) to Windows via USB, it's SD card got connected as a real mass storage device. I then ran a custom robocopy batch routine that backed up/mirrored all the important things to my computer. I folder mounted everything interesting from the internal memory to the SD card, like messenger pics.
This worked really great.
Problem I have now:
My new Mate9 does not support true USB mass storage connection anymore. It only supports this awful pseudo MTP file transfer connection to Windows.
This makes robocopy unusable because it only works with real drives with an assigned letters of course.
I really don't know what to do now.
Any cloud backup solution is not an option for me, because of sensitive data and slow internet. Full phone backups feel like an overkill and I cannot access the files on the computer directly.
I know that some people run a samba server or something on their phones to turn the storage into NAS drives. (Robocopy supports NAS I think) This seems to be maximum overkill and difficult to setup and resource intense but I'm interested if its the only way.
Any tips? Thank you

Don't know much about Windows, or MPT for that matter, but perhaps you could map your device (folders you need) to a letter drive? If I recall correctly, that mapping will allow you to read the files located on the MPT drive.

This is acually possible. I found a commercial software that lets you map a driver letter to an MTP device but it's $40.
Did some more research and getting a drive letter for Android storage over WiFi is acually stupidly easy.
Just install WebDav Server on Android and click the button. Then on Windows Explorer -> Map Network Driver and enter the IP displayed on Android. Thats literally it.
I only hope that I can get two drive letters for internal and external storage. Need to try.

So I found a complete solution that I'm VERY happy with!
Its running two WebDAV servers on Androind, one for accessing the internal storage and one for the sd card. This allows me to map 2 network drives in Windows and that means robocopy magic!
Here is how I did it:
1. Install the free app WebDAV Server Ultimate. This app allows you to run multiple servers at once AND let you specify custom storage paths. Both things that the other popular app WebDAV Server can't do!
2. Create two new servers in the app with the plus button and specify the according storage paths. Also make sure these two servers use different ports. The name can be specified freely. Click on the play button to start the servers.
3. Open the Windows Explorer and click "Map network drive" in the top bar. A new window pops up: Pick a drive letter you want and enter the Network IP of your smartphone and the port under "Folder" like this example sceme: \\192.168.178.01:8080 Also check the box "Reconect at logon" if you want the drives to still be there after a restart. The your current phone IP can be viewed in the WebDAV app when you klick on the info icon.
Thats it basically. After that you have your internal storage and sd card mapped to driveletters in Windows over WiFi. Just write your robocopy routine and do one click backups You can check "Keep the device fully alive" in the WebDAV app settings which helped stability and might improve speed. I got about 4-5 MB/s which isn't fast but fast enough for me.
One more thing:
If you use Windows 7 and you want to transfer files bigger 50 MB you have to do this registry workaround by Microsoft. For security reasons, Windows 7 limits WebDAV filetransfers at 50 MB by default.

Doomkeks said:
So I found a complete solution that I'm VERY happy with!.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good stuff, I'd consider making a how-to thread in your devices forum for others!

Going from phone with sd card to phone without (android both)

Greetings XDA wizards,
Per my title I am switching phones. I plan to copy lots of media, is there a recommended folder naming scheme on the new phone such as naming a main sub-folder SD and then just copying my folders there via Windows Explorer?
Aim is to keep everything stored the same to be compatible with existing apps, ect, and frankly I am comfortable with a familiar layout. Old guys don't really like changes and I already had to go from years of Blackberry to Android.
If it matters phones concerned are: Nokia 8.3 5G to Asus ROG Phone 6.
I would appreciate any input on this.
Thanks

You can't simply copy files from one phone to another phone by means of Windows Explorer because the filesystems used on Windows computer and Android device are different: Extra tool is needed e.g.
MTP USB Device Driver Windows 10 64bit Driver | Device Drivers
MTP or (Media Transfer Protocol) is a set of custom extensions to the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) devised by Microsoft, to allow the protocol to be used for devices other than digital cameras, for example digital audio players such as MP3 players, and other portable media devices, for...
oemdrivers.com