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Reading and writing Memory Sticks in eCS.

Started by eilygre, 2012.05.09, 14:53:06

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eilygre

I bought an external card reader/writer for my memory sticks from my camera as it seems that eCS/OS2 can not use the internal card writer. I can read, write and format the 1 GB memory stick but not the 4 GB. eCS sees the 4 GB card, gives it a drive letter but says it has a wrong format or that the drive letter does not exist. It can open an empty window showing no files even if there are hundreds. I therefore have to reboot to MS to read/write/format the 4 GB card.
Any solution to the eCS problem?

ivan

What camera are you using?  My Nikon D60 can transfer pictures via the USB cable without any problems using Cameraderie v1.5 from hobbes.

If you must, for some reason, use an SD card reader you will find that most SD cards need to be LVMised before they can be seen on OS/2.  It would also be a little unwise to format the SD cards that are going to be used in your camera.  Once the LVM information is on the card it should stay there even if the camera formats the card.

ivan

Pete

Hi eilygre

You need to use LVM or DFSee to create a Volume for the 4Gb card.

Regards

Pete

guzzi

The easiest way to format a usb disk with dfsee is to use a recent version (10 or 11) and use the menu option 'scripts' and select  'Make FAT32 Data (USB) disk'. This will create a partition of the right type, put the lvm info on it and formats it fat32.

ivan

There might be a problem with that guzzi. some cameras also put some information and directory structure on the SD cards when they format them - DFSee does not do that, therefore the cards are not recognised by the camera.

ivan

StefanZ

There is more problems.

The biggest is the one where the device expects certain FAT32 format with certain geometry and boot code.
It happens (very often) that this device is not readable by eCS, even DFSee will report i.e. geometry error.

If you "fix" it using DFSee and eCS is able to mount the drive, then it usually happens that due to changes the device itself is not able to mount (or see) the drive. I had this experience with Amazon Kindle 4.

So in my opinion the LVM + USB + FAT32 in eCS needs complete overhaul to see/mount even "strange" FAT32 formats on various external MSDs. Until then, eCS will never be fully usable for USB mass storages.

St.


guzzi

I know there are problems with 'strange' partioning. With the cameras I've used, Canon and Nikon, I've not seen such problems. If a camera only has some dir structure on it, a reformat of the card prepared with DFSEE should generally make it usable again. Mind you, I've not even contemplated trying to make the 32 GB inbuilt memory of my Nokia phone accessible to eCS this way......

RobertM

#7
Quote from: StefanZ on 2012.05.14, 16:53:25
There is more problems.

The biggest is the one where the device expects certain FAT32 format with certain geometry and boot code.
It happens (very often) that this device is not readable by eCS, even DFSee will report i.e. geometry error.

If you "fix" it using DFSee and eCS is able to mount the drive, then it usually happens that due to changes the device itself is not able to mount (or see) the drive. I had this experience with Amazon Kindle 4.

So in my opinion the LVM + USB + FAT32 in eCS needs complete overhaul to see/mount even "strange" FAT32 formats on various external MSDs. Until then, eCS will never be fully usable for USB mass storages.

St.

Actually, this is not solely an eCS issue. This issue exists and persists in the Windows world as well. There are countless posts from people who have bought new SD cards for their phones, formatted them on a Windows machine, and watched (a) them be unusable on their phone or (b) experienced data loss or data corruption on their phones.

Now... for those who have formatted their cards on their phones, then inserted them into their Windows machine, they've noticed a variety of interesting issues as well. In my case, all sorts of corrupted files when I performed a simple copy. The only way that worked for me was to plug in my entire phone, copy off the card to the Windows machine, install the new card in my phone, format the new card in my phone using the phone's format utilities, and then copy to/through the phone to the SD card (ie: again, I could not copy directly to the card without causing corrupted data - or a situation where Windows "fixed" the card in a fashion where the phone now saw data corruption or could no longer use the card).

In all such cases, the only guaranteed method (and the only method approved by many of the phone manufacturers) is to format the storage device in the device using it (in my example's case, the cell phone), connect the *entire* device to the computer via USB and do all transfers that way. Anything else risks (or nearly guarantees) data loss, data corruption or storage media that is no longer readable by the device (ie: cell phone, media player, etc).

The other issues? Yeah, the USB and MSD stuff does still need some work - but that's not related to this particular issue.


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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StefanZ

Quote from: RobertM on 2012.05.24, 02:08:44
Actually, this is not solely an eCS issue. This issue exists and persists in the Windows world as well. There are countless posts from people who have bought new SD cards for their phones, formatted them on a Windows machine, and watched (a) them be unusable on their phone or (b) experienced data loss or data corruption on their phones.

Now... for those who have formatted their cards on their phones, then inserted them into their Windows machine, they've noticed a variety of interesting issues as well. In my case, all sorts of corrupted files when I performed a simple copy. The only way that worked for me was to plug in my entire phone, copy off the card to the Windows machine, install the new card in my phone, format the new card in my phone using the phone's format utilities, and then copy to/through the phone to the SD card (ie: again, I could not copy directly to the card without causing corrupted data - or a situation where Windows "fixed" the card in a fashion where the phone now saw data corruption or could no longer use the card).

In all such cases, the only guaranteed method (and the only method approved by many of the phone manufacturers) is to format the storage device in the device using it (in my example's case, the cell phone), connect the *entire* device to the computer via USB and do all transfers that way. Anything else risks (or nearly guarantees) data loss, data corruption or storage media that is no longer readable by the device (ie: cell phone, media player, etc).

The other issues? Yeah, the USB and MSD stuff does still need some work - but that's not related to this particular issue.

Hello Robert,

as long as I agree to your statement about file system operations being messy on these devices, as well as I agree to the fact that even Win/Linux might not have 100% success rates of USB MSD usability, I still have to insist on the validity of my comment:
The point here is not that even Win/Linux are not perfect in this sense, the point here is that all the other OSes are LIGHT YEARS ahead in success rates of this USB mass storage useability.

Unfortunately we have to face the harsh truth here: eCS's capabilities in this field are currently EXTREMELY limited, and this limitation will stick to the system and to the users unless somebody takes the stand, updates the code and brings it to the working level of at least Linux, if not win systems.

Honest - it is getting quite annoying to i.e. buy a USB stick and not know if it will work with eCS or not (my success rates are currently below 50%, with a bit more specifi devices - smartphones, mp3 players, book ereaders, USB printer - the success rate with eCS is close to 0%!!!)  >:(

St.

RobertM

Stefan,

I agree - but that's my point. With the issues even Windows is having with smartphones (there are literally thousands of threads on the issue), it means since OS/2 and eCS already have a slew of issues of its own with USB MSDs, that we have a MUCH harder road to travel.  :-\


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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Blonde Guy

Just two changes would make things better for eCS users.

1. allow IFS on devices with no partition table ("formatted like a floppy")
2. allow LVM to assign a drive letter to devices with no LVM info without modifying the device

I guess there is also the issue with devices with large block sizes, but I'm not sure that stops many people.
Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

StefanZ

Agreed.

...and there is one more thing:
majority of today's MSDs are being used on Win* systems. This means that majority of these MSDs are not unplugged safely and are in "dirty" mode. eCS will have to either have a way of how to check the filesystems for all possible issues or have the possibility (as win does) to ignore this dirty flags.

Because again, without this we will all these devices just for read-only, nothing more.