FAT32 with Tungsten E2

[ballooneater]

I just got a 2 GB Patriot SD card and was wondering if anyone had ever resolved the issue of FAT32 cards on an E2. I've tried just about everything, including reformatting the card in FAT16 on Windows, but to no avail.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Dick Tracy]

Maximum SD card on E2 is 1GB. There are no legal FAT32 drivers for the E2.

[ballooneater]

I realize that and have tried the "hacked" version (FAT32.patched.prc), following all instructions given, but it still refuses to recognize the card...

[alegra]

FAT32 has nothing to do with the 1 GB limit. This limit could be removed with a new SD slot driver.

[lichan]

I have now tried the slotdrivers from the Treo 680, LifeDrive, and the TX in the E2. All of them lock up the E2 and require a hard reset and restore. The only ones left to try are the slotdrivers from the T5 and the Zire 72. Anyone care to post a link so we can finish testing?

[dabears900]

I'm having the same problem.

I found this driver:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/tungstene/sdioupdate.html

it was suppose to solve that 2gb problem but it didn't work for me. I also tried the fat32 patch with no success, the palm didn't even recognize the card.

If you found a solution or got the link above to somehow work please let me know!

[Dick Tracy]

Believe E2 has a hardware limitation.

[lichan]

The problem may indeed be an E2 hardware limitation. I have now tried the slotdrivers from the Treo 680, LifeDrive, T|X, Tungsten E (the mmc.zip mentioned by dabears900) and the T5. All lock up the E2 and require a hard reset/NVBackup restore. The slotdriver of the E2 is by far the smallest in size of any of the slot drivers. It is smaller than the driver of the M500. This may mean it is the problem being a crippled version of the software for some strange reason. It may be that each of the slotdrivers has a check for the correct hardware and won't run on any other device, except for the Treo 680 slotdriver which does work on the Treo 650 and Treo 700 but it is still running on a Treo. I don't think anyone has reported running a different slotdriver on anything other than an E2. The TX driver may lock up a LifeDrive or a T5, the LifeDrive may lock up a T5 or a TX. I know that the FATFS.prc from the T5 is exactly the same as the one in the E2, so the 1GB SD limit is caused by the slot and/or the slotdriver. Why Palm would change the hardware in this one specific model does not make any sense. It would be cheaper and easier design and manufacturing-wise to keep everything the same. It may be that one of the address lines is not connected and the E2 slotdriver is doctored to go with this and why all other drivers lock up the E2. I looked through the binary driver files to see if there was a model type check but nothing leaped out at me. This just leaves the Zire 72 but I would bet this driver would lock up the E2, also.

[alegra]

Data of the Tungsten C slot driver (FileZ):

SlotDriver: SDIO-sdsd
Type: libs
Creator: sdsd
Size: 31344 byte (15 records)
Version ID 31

Created: 22.6.04, 7:26
Modified: 22.6.04, 7:26

BTW, the hardreset doesn't mean that it's a hardware limitation. The FAT32 driver of LifeDrive also crashed on all other devices, so Dmitry Gr. had to patch it. The problem is that the slot driver has pure ARM code, and there aren't too many people who know how to patch ARM code.

[lichan]

If I remember correctly, from reading the original forum re FAT32, I think Dmitry patched it to get it to work instead of the version in ROM, some sort of wrapper. JAYAMERICAN (sp?) came up with the idea of changing the creator id, name, and version id to get it to override the ROM version, so no patching was actually needed to get it to work in Treo, Zire 72, T3, etc. I agree that the problem is probably not hardware (it doesn't seem to make sense that Palm would go to extra effort to cripple the slot in this one design - E2). Here are the size and version id of all the slot drivers I know of:

LifeDrive: 62022 bytes version 30 11/02/05
Treo 680: 47774 bytes version 1 9/14/06
TX: 46106 bytes version 1 9/13/05
T5: 45518 bytes version 30 9/19/04
TE: 34589 bytes version 31 8/28/03
TE2: 33158 bytes version 30 3/04/05
TC: 31344 bytes version 31 6/22/04

[alegra]

I think you need changing Creator ID etc. for the patched version, because the system doesn't always activate it immediately.

[MD_Brite]

Has anyone had any luck with the FAT32 driver working on the T|C? I have tried what others have stated with no luck, and I have heard it is a hardware limitation, I have also heard of otheers getting it to work. Please, I just need this cleared up.

[alegra]

FAT32 runs without problems on a Tungsten C, and the SD access is much faster now.

[MD_Brite]

FAT32 runs without problems on a Tungsten C, and the SD access is much faster now.

I don't mean to be off topic from this thread, but in detail how did you get the FAT32 to work on your T|C?

[alegra]

It didn't work for many months, but suddenly it worked.

FAT32.prc
Type: libf
Creator: fatf
Version ID: 10

[MD_Brite]

Would there be any reason why it would not work for several months? Did you add any other apps to make it work?

[alegra]

No, I rather think that it worked suddenly because I changed something. Try it, perhaps you'll have luck.

[KewellXi]

I just only use 1GB SD,FAT.