reimaging with winimage

[joepagIII]

could someone please confirm that winimage does indeed work remember to backup using nvbackup and restor the backup before you hotsysnc...thats what has worked best for me

[c33m0n3y]

Joe,

I'll try it, but need some instructions. Can we start with a compressed LD image file named "- ", and go from there?

[joepagIII]

yep that should work...it did for me...

[c33m0n3y]

After I get the file, do I just copy it onto the CF card? WinImage doesn't seem to read the file unless it has an .iso extension.

[joepagIII]

no you have to ttell it to restore virtual image to hard disk just copying dont work whene the warning comes up say yes

[joepagIII]

it will take between 30 to 45 minutes depending on how fast your machine is

[c33m0n3y]

OK, it's going through right now thx joe

[joepagIII]

no prob...just let us know how it goes

[c33m0n3y]

Hmm, winimage gave me a red cross error (no explanation) right as the CF card was completing the image writing. Should I try to do it again or is this the right thing that's supposed to happen?

[joepagIII]

nope whene it completes its done...no pop ups...or anything...you could always try that...remember if the chs isnt the same as the md your not going to be able to do it...i use a sandisk you have that transcend right...that might be why use the drives from the wiki on how to convert md to cf. for best results

[c33m0n3y]

now my card is saying that it needs to be formatted...

[dmitrygr]

windows will say you need to format...ignore that...it will ruin the card

[c33m0n3y]

Here's the weird thing: I kinda put in the CF card backwards in the dead LD, and then when I realized it, pulled it out, then tried to read it in my USB reader, I got the "The disk is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" message. Before I was able to read it as any normal memory card. Do you think my CF card is fried? If not, how can I get it to be recognized again in windows, or does it really matter for reimaging with my LD image?

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Mendodave]

Here's the weird thing: I kinda put in the CF card backwards in the dead LD, and then when I realized it, pulled it out, then tried to read it in my USB reader, I got the "The disk is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" message. Before I was able to read it as any normal memory card. Do you think my CF card is fried? If not, how can I get it to be recognized again in windows, or does it really matter for reimaging with my LD image?

Any help greatly appreciated.

A CF or MD drive out of a Lifedrive will say that when you plug it into a winders box...so you may have done it correctly.

Windows can't read a properly set up Palm drive.

David

[joepagIII]

it wont bee seen by windows..it wants format it...dont ley it....go to disk managment and see if the 3 partitions are there

[c33m0n3y]

yep, 3 partitions-65MB Healthy, 22MB Unallocate, 3.73 GB Healthy. Is that good?

[joepagIII]

in windows managment it does see it as 3 partitions...just dont know what to do with them

[joepagIII]

yep thats what its supposed to see...try plugging it in correctly this time mind you...remember that one is on the list for problems ie wiki

[JavaJiveJump]

what's wrong with M$??? Should be such a simple thing, eh? I can't even merge the partitions and just use the MD as an external drive. Dmitry gave me some documentation on doing the process though on another thread. I'll have to go back to that and see...

[c33m0n3y]

Maybe that's why I get the error at the end of the imaging. Hmm. I wonder if I will still be able to use it for the Powerdrive app...

[joepagIII]

to do that i use a gparted live cd....faster....but ive never had any problems using the managment console...just select delete on al the partitions...

[c33m0n3y]

I did plug it in again on my dead LD and no dice, still dead.

[joepagIII]

have you pluged it in the battery may be dead give it 15 minutes...or the battery may be bad....

[c33m0n3y]

I'll give it another go. It can't get any deader than what it is :). Here's another question. If I unplug my MD on the "live" LD that I have, and then stick in the CF that may or may not work, and then do the swaperoo again, does a cardless LD remember anything like card settings and such? As I explained before, I don't want to mess up the working one just yet.

[joepagIII]

get nvbackup...restore after you plug inn the md then you should be fine...it works for me

[c33m0n3y]

So NVBackup is like an internal "Hotsync" with your SD card then?

[joepagIII]

it backups everything...way better than hotsync...no need to re register any software...

[c33m0n3y]

I just d/l and did my first backup. However, I installed it on the LD. The more I thought about it, I should have installed it on the SD card, right?

[joepagIII]

i think it automaticly does tht...just reinstall to the card

[joepagIII]

go to prefrences and tell it to put it there

[c33m0n3y]

It is already on the SD card, thx!

[joepagIII]

updates...im curios to see if the transcend you have is not the same as the on on the wiki page

[c33m0n3y]

joe, I'm using the one on the non-compatible list, so I'm concerned about trying the whole re-imaging thing right now. It seems all the compatible cards are really expensive (over $45) for what one's getting. I may try putting the card on my live LD anyway to see what happens, but I know I'll be beating my head on teh wall if I mess something up.

[joepagIII]

just reimage it and see...thats all you can do...i choked up enough totbuy a predone one the figured out the winimage trick...

[c33m0n3y]

does the battery need to be disconnected when you pull out the MD/CF card?

[joepagIII]

nope just do a soft reset

[dmitrygr]

disconnect it
it is only safe when the slot is powered down
that is only if the device has no power, is off, or an app (like powerdrive) deliberately powers the slot down

[joepagIII]

i may have misunderstood the question....

[c33m0n3y]

Well, here's what happened:

I backed up all my stuff to my SD card using NVBackup (very wise decision, thx joepagiii). I couldn't disconnect the battery, because one of the inner screws was tightened to the point that I almost stripped it, so I stopped. Then I locked down the power button, and with some plastic tips I gently disconnected my MD and pulled it out. I then tried to image my MD, but what I'm gathering is that my card reader can't provide enough power to an MD, so it just gets stuck. It reads CF cards fine.

Anyway, so I say, what the heck, I had that Transcend GS4GBF133 4 GB card that I had previously tried to image (and had gotten an error message on WinImage, but that upon checking it on DiskMgmt it showed the right partitions, big props to the unnamed poster of the image and joepagiii for putting me in touch w/ winimage). I gently put it in the slot. Then I clicked on the power button and PRESTO! all of a sudden I was staring back at all my previous programs. I was like, "wait, that's too easy!". I looked around, and yes, I was still staring at my MD outside the LD! :D So, it looks like NVBackup immediately loaded all my stuff back onto the CF card. The only missing stuff was what I had on the MD files, which is no big deal, because I have all that on my HD anyway.

Anyway, so I clicked on UDMH, it reset, and now it looks like I'm stuck on the white boot screen. "PalmOne". What should I try next?

Edit: OK here's what I did. I thought I couldn't disconnect the battery, so I unplugged the CF card with the "PalmOne" screen still on. Screen remained lit after disconnection. Disconnected battery somehow, disconnected CF card. Reconnected CF card, reconnected battery. Same stuff, "PalmOne" screen with no progress bar. Disconnected battery again, this time reconnected my MD. Palm booted again. The interesting thing is that I did not know the "PalmOne" screen would stay on w/out a card. My "dead" LD doesn't even get there. Therefore my dead LD must have some kind of board problem, not just the MD.
Anyway, I now feel more comfortable about the whole process here. I'm gonna buy a better card reader (this one was bought w/a camera about 6 years ago! ) so I can try to image my MD's.

The other interesting thing is that the CF card was working fine until the reset. Therefore the problem is in the boot, but not the card. I ran a couple of apps while the card was on, and they ran fine, until UDMH tried to reset.

[joepagIII]

you were supposed to do a soft reset after the swap

[joepagIII]

you were supposed to do a soft reset after the swap

[c33m0n3y]

So, do you think if I re-insert the CF card and do the reset it will work?

[joepagIII]

cant hurt to try

[c33m0n3y]

Put the 4GB CF Transcend. It won't boot. I also bought a new CF card reader that recognized my MD's, and after I ran WinImage to backup my MD to my PC, I tried to run WinImage to restore the virtual image to the CF, but it didn't work. It gets me to the screen that asks which partition to use, the 67MB or the 3.9GB, and regardless of which one I pick, the next message is a warning that I'm going to erase everything on the CF, but after I click OK, it just goes back to the WinImage screen and doesn't do anything.

Can you see something from what i'm describing above that I'm doing wrong?

[joepagIII]

nope...try formatting the disk to fat. then try again if it dont work on you ld then its the compatibility issue and wait for powerdrive

[c33m0n3y]

can I reformat the CF card with WinImage? If so, can you let me know how?

[joepagIII]

just do it thru windows....

[PocketPowerPC]

... does a cardless LD remember anything like card settings and such?

A MD-less LifeDrive is a pretty paperweight. I've had mine open and on without a MD in it and it just freezes.