Data disapearibg

[sehs33]

Hi everyone,


I happily used my Pandora yesterday and my session ended with a normal shutdown and me packing it in its protective case (for those who donn't know me well, I treat my gadgets veeeeeeeeeeeeery carefully). Anyway, just switched it on (typing this on the Pandora) and found out that all apps on my desktop and start menu disappeared! Browsing my SD card I can see all files on the root folder + the Pandora folder holding all my stuff, opened the Pandora folder and it's empty


Any idea what might be wrong? I will check the card on my PC later but is there anything I can do?

 

[TrashyMG]

Hi everyone,


I happily used my Pandora yesterday and my session ended with a normal shutdown and me packing it in its protective case (for those who donn't know me well, I treat my gadgets veeeeeeeeeeeeery carefully). Anyway, just switched it on (typing this on the Pandora) and found out that all apps on my desktop and start menu disappeared! Browsing my SD card I can see all files on the root folder + the Pandora folder holding all my stuff, opened the Pandora folder and it's empty


Any idea what might be wrong? I will check the card on my PC later but is there anything I can do?

I've had issues with SD cards / USB key chains that don't seem to hold data. I write a file to it once, think it took.. go to another device and it was missing.. Do it over again and it works fine.


I'm not sure if it's just a flaky card or my system wasn't writing properly.

 

[WizardStan]

run a check disk or fsck. Strange that there would be any corruption, but it could happen.


Also, if you haven't it may be a good idea to run h2testw, just to be sure the card is what it says it is. Even a single byte not being what it should be can thrash the FAT.

 

[sehs33]

Thanks TrashyMG and WizardStan...


I haven't added a single file to the card since more than a week, the card isn't off ebay it's an Adata from newegg (trusted brand and shop). What puzzles me is how only the content of the entire Pandora folder disappeared... I'll do more tests tonight and report my findings.


Thanks again guys

 

[sehs33]

OK, so I popped the card in my PC, and it looked the same as it is appearing now in the Pandora...


I did a Check Disk on Win XP and the shitty FOUND.000 appeared... The file system got corrupted somehow...


Opened FOUND.000 and all files are DLLs that have nothing to do with my original files (but I guess combined have the same size as my data). I am now using a commercial recovery software to recover my files, it has taken ~3 hours and still ~2 hours remaining. Will be going to sleep and praying that all folders and file names be recovered else I will be in deep sh*t


So to summarize:


- My Pandora is running HF4 and is with 2 A Data 16 GB SDCH cards formatted as FAT 32


- I last used my Pandora yesterday to play Atari 2600, haven't created a single save or changed any configs, so the emulator shouldn't have written anything to corrupt the card (I assume)


- Exited the emulator normally, shut down my Pandora from the start menu and hid it in its protective case which was kept on the dresser with temp around 20 C


- Switched it on today to find that the desktop and the start menu has none of my apps. Browsed the card and all files on the card root were there, opened the Pandora folder and it was empty


- Card is of a known brand which I used before, the card is only used in my Pandora and it wasn't off ebay, got it of a respectable online shop


So I am sad to report this, but there's something wrong in the Pandora OS that caused it to corrupt my card


If we all agree that the underlined is logical, where can I file a bug with that?

 

[Prometheus]

It's an A-Data card? I hate to say it, but it's probably the fact that it's an A-Data card - I've heard quite a number of reports of A-Data branded cards failing.

 

[Eridger]

It's an A-Data card? I hate to say it, but it's probably the fact that it's an A-Data card - I've heard quite a number of reports of A-Data branded cards failing.

Personally I plan on using only Patriot cards once I get my Pandora. Kingston if I have to, but I like Patriot.

 

[DaMummy]

a-data cards are great below 8gb, but there are many reports of failing a-data sd cards 16gb and up, some newegg review research should have told you this i think

 

[sehs33]

Thanks for your replies everyone:


- I have never heard of an SD card corrupting itself without writing to it.


- I have used A data cards for almost five years now and i never faced a single problem with them, I have faced issues with most other brands


- This card has 500+ reviews with an average rating of 4 stars: http://newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211245


I love my Pandora and would never raise such a flag "Pandora might corrupt your SD card" unless it made sense and so we can try solving this issue.

 

[Trip]

You could try formatting the SD card with a EXT2,3 or 4 file system by either formatting it directly on your Pandora or downloading the GPartedCD, burning it to disc and then booting it on your main comp.


Personally I would try formatting it in a different card reader on another computer using the GParted CD. This would at least let you know if it's a problem with the file system, SD card or the card reader hardware in your Pandora (last one's unlikely).

 

[sehs33]

@Trip: Would prefer to keep the card as FAT32


@WizardStan,Prometheus: Thanks for the tip regarding H2testw.


Just finished recovering my data, formatted the card in Win XP (I remember there being a tool to do a better format from some camera manufacturer but I can't find it, can anyone point it out please?), ran h2testw and here's the log:

Test finished without errors.

You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.

Writing speed: 7.60 MByte/s

Reading speed: 13.1 MByte/s

H2testw v1.4

 

[Mr_Loon]

...(I remember there being a tool to do a better format from some camera manufacturer but I can't find it, can anyone point it out please?)...

That would be from Panasonic IIRC.

 

[sehs33]

Thanks a lot Mr_Loon, I formatted the card using the Panasonic utility and I just copied the recovered files back to root\pandora but now althoguh all my apps appear on the desktop and start menu, but nothing happens when I try executing them. Tried renaming the folder Pandora to be all lower case, but that didn't solve it. Most likely the SD card label differed now after the format (is there any problem with cards that have no labels? I remember ED fixed this issue in HF3 but I might be mistaken...


Edit: just noticed that among the recovred files on my PC two unnamed folders with some config files, can anyone guide me please with a quick dir of their SD card? Thanks in advance...


Edit 2: Ginge is working normally, everything else on the card not, strange...

 

[Prometheus]

As far as I know, the folders with configuration files can only be /pandora/appdata (that is, "appdata" in a folder called "pandora", in the root of the SD Card). I'm guessing they're unnamed because of the recovery? Or did you recover your appdata directory also? If the latter, I have a thought on the matter, which I've outlined below.


On the Pandora itself, can you browse to the appdata folder for one of the apps that you're having problems with, please? Once you're there, press CTRL and H to show hidden files. Is there one there called "aufs.xino"? I'm told by WizardStan that it's impossible and that you should never see it (and that I need to stop discovering stuff that's actually meant to be impossible ), but in my experience sometimes that file is left behind after running something, and will prevent it from running again until it is deleted.


If it is there, right-click it, then hold down Shift, and left-click on the "Delete" option in the menu that appears. This will let you delete the file whilst bypassing the trash bin.

 

[sehs33]

@WizardStand: Are aufs.xino kinda of temporary files created while apps are running and deleted by the os once the app exits?

 

[WizardStan]

@WizardStand: Are aufs.xino kinda of temporary files created while apps are running and deleted by the os once the app exits?

Kind of. The file is used by the union file system driver to kind of map things around. What it does is create the file, open it, and then immediately unlink it. If you open a file in Linux and then delete that file, that file is said to be "unlinked". The process that opened the file can continue to read and write to it, but as soon as that application closes, everything about that file will be returned to free space. A lot of applications use this trick of opening and then deleting a file to create some temporary space on the disk they can use without worrying about other applications accessing it. An unlinked file is essentially deleted: no other application will be able to see or open it. The fact that this aufs.xino is still there sometimes after the application ends (or crashes) suggests that it wasn't unlinked for some reason, and certain wasn't fully deleted afterwards. That is very unusual.

 

[sehs33]

I just tried this with two apps and it worked wonderfully


Was wondering if searching the card on my PC for all files named aufs.xino and then deleting them would cause any issues? I highly doubt it would especially since they will be deleted while the card in not in the Pandora...


I will also be posting a separate thread with all what happened with me and how I recovered my card (with everyone's help of course=) so if anyone suffers from the same issue doesn't have to go through this whole thread.

 

[Prometheus]

^ I'm rather glad to know that it's not just me who's encountering this behaviour.


I don't believe that searching for them and deleting them en masse (whether the card is in the Pandora or not) should cause any issues, incidentally.

 

[sehs33]

i know why i can see them, they were deleted but the recovery software recovered them =)

 

[Prometheus]

Oh, I know that. But prior to this, as far as I know, nobody else has reported seeing the aufs.xino files at all!