transferring data from one CF to another

[ipaqker]

Hi all,
i just wanted to know if there is any way to backup my CF card and then transfer the data to another one

All of your help will be appreciated
Regards

[Gerard]

There are several ways.
1) Use the Pocket PC's memory: copy/paste groups of files or folders from the CF to main memory in bundles of whatever size you have room for. 5Mb at a time should be easy, unless your device is really stuffed with files. Then insert the new CF and cut/paste the files to it, using exactly the same folder structure if you are moving any data such as programs or playlisted media files. If you do a neat job, all shortcuts should work just fine.
2) Using a laptop's PC slot and a CF>PC card adapter, copy the whole file set to the hard drive (to the desktop, for simplicity). Just drag a highlight over all files, right-click on one and hold it, drag it to the desktop and let go, the select either Copy Here or Move Here. Reverse this to move all to the new CF.
3) If no PC slot, use a USB connected (or other) CF card reader to do the same routine.
CF cards behave just like any drive. Moving data is easy. Just be sure that if programs are installed to the CF you preserve paths by careful notes on organization of files.

[TJOtala]

I just did this on a vacation trip to Kauai last week to move stuff from couple of CF cards onto to my 1GB MicroDrive. I used Resco File Explorer to move stuff to iPAQ and then onto another card.

To my huge dismay, when I got home I had somehow trashed several digipics, plus I got several CRC errors on the MD.

I still don't know exactly what went wrong - I have a few theories:

1) my iPAQ was low on power, so I used the PC Card Expansion Pack's battery as a crutch - I kept getting warnings, but figured that the Expansion Pack would keep it sufficiently alive (it seemed to, anyway)

2) I *thought* I waited long enough between card swaps to ensure that any kind of read/write caching would not bite me. Perhaps it did afterall.

End result: I lost about 150 digipics out of 650 total, i..e about 22%. OUCHOUCHOUCHOUCH!

Next time, I'm bringing the damn AC adapter.

[Misfit]

Originally posted by TJOtala
I just did this on a vacation trip to Kauai last week to move stuff from couple of CF cards onto to my 1GB MicroDrive. I used Resco File Explorer to move stuff to iPAQ and then onto another card.

To my huge dismay, when I got home I had somehow trashed several digipics, plus I got several CRC errors on the MD.

I still don't know exactly what went wrong - I have a few theories:

1) my iPAQ was low on power, so I used the PC Card Expansion Pack's battery as a crutch - I kept getting warnings, but figured that the Expansion Pack would keep it sufficiently alive (it seemed to, anyway)

2) I *thought* I waited long enough between card swaps to ensure that any kind of read/write caching would not bite me. Perhaps it did afterall.

End result: I lost about 150 digipics out of 650 total, i..e about 22%. OUCHOUCHOUCHOUCH!

Next time, I'm bringing the damn AC adapter.

To make SURE they copied OK, here's what the eternally paranoid about losing valuable files (uhm, that would be me) would do:

-Keep a copy of a ZIP archiver in the internal memory
-pop in the SOURCE CF
-Create a new zip archive in the internal memory
-Copy (NOT move) your files from the CF to this zip archive
-Insert destination CF
-Move zip file to destination CF.
-extract the zip file to internal memory (or Zip TEST the zipfile, either way works).
-If you get no errors while extracting/testing, your files should be OK.

You get the added bonus that the zip file should take up less space then the original files did. (Not so with digital camera pics, in general those are already compressed, as jpegs.)

[TJOtala]

Yup, I agree completely about paranoia. I will be doing the same or similar thing in the future, although I may not bother with ZIP since these are JPEG files that don't compress much more.

In fact in honor of this catastrophy, I may write a new utility similar to the good ole DISKCOPY for MS-DOS, especially with the /V flag.

[nGage]

TJOtala, My sympathy for your loss. I had pretty much the identical experience a few months back in Tasmania. I wanted to move pics from my 48Mb sandisk CF in my digital camera to my 128Mb sandisk CF in my iPAQ so I could wipe the 48Mb one and take more pics. I did this laborious process of copying some of the pics to the internal memory and then swapping cards and copying from internal memory to the 128Mb cf. When it was done, I just wiped the 48Mb cf thinking all was OK. Alas it was not so. I had about a 10% loss (10 out of 100)

Cheers

[ChrisJW]

I've always found that using a pair of USB CF adaptors on the PC is the safest and by far the quicker.

And, as they just act as normal drives, using MS Backup is fine for a quick and easy backup.

[TJOtala]

Er, yeah, well, I was only carrying the iPAQ... not even a laptop and certainly not a pair of laptops. It was a *vacation* afterall ;-D

[nGage]

Ditto.