Re: [NTLK] Linear Flash Card, Bad sectors?

From: Laurent Daudelin (Laurent_Daudelin_at_fanniemae.com)
Date: Thu Mar 04 2004 - 10:14:35 PST


On 04/03/04 13:03, "Gregory J. Wayman" <gwayman_at_mac.com> wrote:

> I have a Pretec 32 card, it shows 19188K used and 12161K Free
>
> If I try to load any larger programs or Books on this card it will
> freeze upon restart. Originally when it did this I did a backup and
> erased
> the card, then I guess when I restored it I was a little more selective
> in what I put back on the card (not nearly the amount of stuff that
> was on there previously) So I was kind of lulled into a false security
> that I had rectified the problem. Now that I am trying out more
> programs it is starting to do it again. Yesterday I tried to load a
> 1300K book on the card and it locked up on restart, I then restarted
> with
> all packages deactivated, moved the book to internal store, thinking
> this would free it up. Nope. I had to delete the book from internal to
> get the card to finally load.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Also, where can one buy a new Linear Flash card this size, I think I
> would rather buy a card I new had some life in it and not been in a
> router at some time, like most on eBay?
>
>
> Greg

When a flash RAM card starts exhibiting those problems, it means that the
card starts having bad sectors, like a hard drive. Unfortunately, the Newton
OS cannot remove those sectors from the mapping list, so, basically, the
card is toasted.

You can check on eBay for similar cards. Just make sure you ask the seller
where that card was used before. Flash RAM cards have a certain number of
read and write cycles. Depending on the usage, the card may be worn out, so
you have to watch out for those, specially if they were used in some
routers.

-Laurent.

-- 
========================================================================
Laurent Daudelin                 Developer, Multifamily, ESO, Fannie Mae
mailto:Laurent_Daudelin_at_fanniemae.com                Washington, DC, USA
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