Do a memstick backup!!!!

[oneeyesquare]

I just dropped my NZ. In the living room from my hands while walking. It hit the carpet and then slid onto the wood floor on it's face. Couldn't get it to start until I pulled the battery out and reinserted. And, yes, I was a little worried....
Anyway, it hard reset... I now I'm stuck reinstalling/configuring. The good news is I had put Netfront and Picsel in flash. They're fine, but Zlauncher and Fonts4NZ need to be reinstalled. I had everything else on stick, so no biggy....
If I only had backed up....

[ClieMarty]

Yep, but not only that. Do also a regular MS backup on your PC. With my old NR my 128 Lexar got corrupted somehow. Could not restore a thing. Everything was gone. Had to reformat the buddy. Since then, I copy my whole MS to a dedicated folder on my PC every now and then.

[ILOVENZ90]

I agree with you. Do a backup as soon as you can. My NZ90 hardreset by itself last Wednesday.

On that day, I tried to open and play the monopoly which was saved on my memory stick. And then I got a fetal error message and asked me to soft-reset. (I got this message several times when openning monopoly)

When I soft-reset it as I did last several times, my NZ90 "Hardreset" by itself and all my data lost immediately (It didn't ask me to push "up/down" button as usually when you hardreset the machine).

I don't know what the problem is. My battery is around 60%. But my NZ90 is sit on the cradle (Maybe that's the problem...)

This morning I took some pictures of my baby, and my NZ90 was freezed after capturing 3 pics. I have to soft-reset to unfreeze my NZ90.

Anybody suffer this problem?

[ILOVENZ90]

Originally posted by ClieMarty
Yep, but not only that. Do also a regular MS backup on your PC. With my old NR my 128 Lexar got corrupted somehow. Could not restore a thing. Everything was gone. Had to reformat the buddy. Since then, I copy my whole MS to a dedicated folder on my PC every now and then.


YEAH RIGHT! I am using Lexar Memory stick! Maybe that's the problem for the capture problem and hardreset problem...maybe

[rhart00]

I do RAM backups to MS a couple times a day on my NX. I find the built-in MSBackup works fine but I prefer Backupman because it allows me to schedule backups and also restore individual files. I also use MSImport to do backups of my MS every couple days.

I can't even count the number of times that backups have saved me after hard resets and other losses of information. HIGHLY recommend doing regular backups of RAM to the MS.

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by rhart00
I do RAM backups to MS a couple times a day on my NX. I find the built-in MSBackup works fine but I prefer Backupman because it allows me to schedule backups and also restore individual files. I also use MSImport to do backups of my MS every couple days.

I can't even count the number of times that backups have saved me after hard resets and other losses of information. HIGHLY recommend doing regular backups of RAM to the MS.

Good man!

You know the importance of having mutliple backups. It's all to easy to trash the MS, RAM, and the desktop backup!

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by oneeyesquare
I just dropped my NZ. In the living room from my hands while walking. It hit the carpet and then slid onto the wood floor on it's face. Couldn't get it to start until I pulled the battery out and reinserted. And, yes, I was a little worried....
Anyway, it hard reset... I now I'm stuck reinstalling/configuring. The good news is I had put Netfront and Picsel in flash. They're fine, but Zlauncher and Fonts4NZ need to be reinstalled. I had everything else on stick, so no biggy....
If I only had backed up....

One day when you drop it on your toe, you'll wish it was a Tungsten... :D

[oneeyesquare]

I'd hate to drop either on my toe. There's a reason I now wear steel toe boots at work....
I got it put all back together. Even benefited several developers as the trial versions had run out and couldn't be reinstalled! Made a memstick backup and created a new folder in my Clie folder on the PC and copied the Memstick to there as well. Soooooo. If I can keep from being fumble fingers, I should be all set!
This is the first hard reset I've experienced since I bought my NX last October. Dumb luck I guess. I had backed up about a month ago, but had deleted to make more room on the stick. I REALLY need more memory....

[YTTAN]

ClieMarty, ILOVENZ90,
Is it true that Lexar MS will corrupted? I thought MS is quite strong just like compactflash when compare to SD or MMC.

I got one experience to share is i got two 128MB MS always on hand one is for all program/dicts/jpg/video and the other one is MP3 and for voice recorder in U's lecture. So i switch it too often that got 1 time i put one of a MS into my shirt pocket and i forgot about it and dump inside washing machine to wash it. Later i thoght it is lost so i use the newer 128MB MS to replace it. The next day when my wife ironing my shirt she felt something that obstruct her work(ironing) and she took something out of my shirt----my 128mb MS!!! I was shock but happy that i finally found it. I quickly try it in my clie, to my surprise it is working as usual.

So i think it is worth to buy original Sony MS if Lexar spoil easily.

[the_iceman]

Great Post OneEye!!!!!!!! Many a time, we get so busy... we think that simply SYNCING will give us what we want in the event of a crash or whatnot. I do try and ensure I perform a backup from Handheld to MS at least weekly, and weekly I also will transfer my MS contents back to my PC just in case!

We are sorry this happened to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(

Least your NX is still rockin!!!!!!!! :)

[oneeyesquare]

Iceman, that avatar.... What is your wish master....

Unfortunately I learned the hard way. Late last night, I went to hook up to the internet, til I realized that the driver was gone. Back to the computer, pull out the disk, hotsync, reconfigure the settings....

Amazingly I now have a backup on the stick and the PC. I may learn hard but I DO learn!!!

[DanT]

Yea. Lexar is bad news.

As far as backing up the RAM to MS and MS to PC, I do it once a week with MSBackup, keep the last two week versions in PC and purge the older versions. Having two versions of backup is useful especially before and after installing a new app.

I also use BackupBuddyVFS to do an automatic daily backup at midnight for some data that change daily like DateBook, AddressBook, ToDo, MemoPad, etc. If the Clie crashes and requires a hard reset, the data that I would lose will be just for that day.

[YTTAN]

Last time i use to try all sort of new softwares and i use to backup 2 version but now i will think carfully before i install it. First you must think do you really need that software?

Just to remind all not to follow my footstep that as most of the time i been wasting time trying out all sort of softwares with crashing and hanging my clie, i should rather make full use of the existing good softwares to my personal needs instead.

Recommended Top ten good third parties softwares:

Megalauncher - Most favourable launcher - better than yishow/x/zlauncher
agendus - just like outlook cum palm deskstop
Snappermail - can send mail with attached any file - jpg/bmp/zip/doc/xls/ppt/pps.
Tinysheet - MS Excel - super solid chart effect
Wordsmith - MS Words - some even said better than MS Word
Ms dict - support my English
Handstory - updated news - no need to buy newspaper
Isilo - good for convert English & chinese story book
Acid image - jpg/bmp/gif /map viewer
Mcfile - just like explorer

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by oneeyesquare
I'd hate to drop either on my toe. There's a reason I now wear steel toe boots at work....
I got it put all back together. Even benefited several developers as the trial versions had run out and couldn't be reinstalled! Made a memstick backup and created a new folder in my Clie folder on the PC and copied the Memstick to there as well. Soooooo. If I can keep from being fumble fingers, I should be all set!
This is the first hard reset I've experienced since I bought my NX last October. Dumb luck I guess. I had backed up about a month ago, but had deleted to make more room on the stick. I REALLY need more memory....

LOL, very good... what did you do with the handstrap?

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by the_iceman
Great Post OneEye!!!!!!!! Many a time, we get so busy... we think that simply SYNCING will give us what we want in the event of a crash or whatnot. I do try and ensure I perform a backup from Handheld to MS at least weekly, and weekly I also will transfer my MS contents back to my PC just in case!

We are sorry this happened to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(

Least your NX is still rockin!!!!!!!! :)

Yes, it's happened to me more than once where the MS, RAM, and desktop got corrupted. I didn't even have to drop it on my toe...

[dramsey]

Be aware that the backups created by the MS Backup program can only be restored to the device they were made from. If your Clié is damaged and must be replaced, your backup is useless.

[oneeyesquare]

Why is that? I have renamed my second NX and current NZ with the same Hotsync name to inititially load them. What about the MS backup makes it specific?

[dramsey]

I don't know what it is about the memstick backup that makes it device specific. My father was bitten by this when his T615 was damaged. Oops, backup no good! Of course, this was a restore to a new, blank Clié (isn't that what you'd want to do?); I haven't tried restoring to a Clié with the same HotSync name.

[oneeyesquare]

I was under the impression that the key identifier on our Palms was the Hotsync name. My NZ's trucking along pretty good, so I hope I won't need to test this myself!!!

[dramsey]

Nope, just tried it. I have an NX and NZ, both with the same Hotsync name. Attempting to restore the backup from one to the other results in this error message: "The backup set that you selected is not tha backup data of this device". You'd think it might be because they were two different models, but again the same thing happened to my father when he tried to restore his T615 backup to a new T615.

[the_iceman]

Well........

The MS-BACKUP program is really nothing more than a 'copy' utility with a little 'front-end'. The backups are stored in a directory on the MS in /PALM/PROGRAMS/MSBackup/<sequence #> directory.

It isn't like a compressed .zip file which contains all the program/files inside of it. All the files which are backed up are completely accessible.

It is simply a straight-copy of the files from Internal RAM to the MS. Whether you can or cannot use the actual MS-BACKUP to restore the files from one handheld to another is almost a moot-point. Since you have all the files on the MS you can transfer them to your PC, and should have no problems whatsoever getting them all back on your handheld.

Hotsync may help with some of it.... but it is easier (when you add/delete..../re-add/re-delete) applications and files to know exactly what to put back on after a failure. One may think they only need to be able to use the "Archive" or "Backup" directory from Hotsync to find the .prc/pdb etc... files needing to be loaded.... but many a time we forget exactly what we had on there and sometimes those little configuration files needed don't show up there.

The MS-Backup program/utility is nice to be able to take a snapshot of all the files in Internal Ram and copy them to the MS and from there to your PC for redundancy.

I would believe that even if you take a hard-reset on your PDA and end up not being able to do a 'MS-BACKUP RESTORE' from your last Backup .... you could still go into the CLIE FILES program and select all the files in your most current backup ... and have them move back to RAM. I haven't tested this as of yet .... since I haven't had a hard-reset situtation needing to test this out.

[DanT]

I think restoring your RAM via HotSync does not copy the unsaved preferences like MSBackup would. As a result, you don't get the mirror image of your RAM when you restore your RAM with HotSync. You will lose some of the preference settings and may need to re-enter registration codes of 3rd. party apps, which is a pain in the rear if you don't have them handy. I store those codes in CryptoPad with lock code just in case I need to access them while I'm on the road and away from my PC/laptop.

I have an idea about restoring your old RAM to a new Clie with MSBackup, as follows:
1. Stick your old MS to the new Clie.
2. Rename your old MSBackup directory to, say, Palm/Programs/Old MSBackup using FileZ.
3. Create a new MSBackup folder by launching MSBackup with your new Clie.
4. Delete the files in Palm/Programs/MSBackup/0 folder with FileZ.
5. Copy the files in Palm/Programs/Old MSBackup/0 folder to the Palm/Programs/MSBackup/0 folder with FileZ.

If that works, then you can delete the Old MSBackup folder. If not then you just need to return your MS to the original state and no harm done.