using Pandora as a SD card reader

[second exodous]

I know this has been asked before but I did a few searches and couldn't find anything. I'm at my parents, in the sticks, and I have no SD card reader. My parents have an iMac before they were equipped with them and I brought my fitpc3 so no SD reader. I'm here for two weeks so I could get one through Amazon Prime and get it by Tuesday but it would be handy to be able to read the SD cards in the Pandora kinda like I do the micro-sd card in my phone by plugging it into my computer.


I run Linux Mint Maya btw, so I'd need to do it in Linux or in the worst case scenario on my Parents x86 iMac with Snow Leopard.

 

[Askarus]

Pandora Button > System > SD-Mass Stroage > mmcblk0p1/mmcblk1p1


0p1 is the first SD and Partition 1 (0p2 would be partition 2 if you have more)


1p1 is the second (left) SD


If you namend them you have to select the lablle of your SD.


That's it. It's verry easy and you shoud be able to use it with any Computer.


(SD should be Fat 32 if you don't use Linux computers to read the card)

 

[second exodous]

Thanx! Good point on the Fat 32, I format mine as NTFS so everything can read them though, even OSX with the right addon.

 

[mcobit]

Remember: if you use ntfs you always need to reinstall the codecpack after reflash before you can use the sd in the Pandora.

 

[second exodous]

Pandora works fine, I just wanted to pull a few of the PS1 games off my Pandora SD cards to put on my phone while I'm here, I just got the Gameklip and wanted to try it out.

 

[SNESFAN]

I didn't have a sd card reader on my computer and I did the whole "usb sd card drive" tool. I was loading an impressive amount of content (12GB worth of dosbox apps 100,000 files) and while it did work.... it didn't work *well* The transfer time on a class 10 card took approximately 7 hours to complete. It would start out at 2~5MB/sec but after about an hour it dropped to ~80KB/sec and even dropped as low as 500bytes/sec. I think low power mode might have been the cause of some of that, possibly even lack of ram maybe? This was on SZ 1.51 (256MB CC Pandora)


for small files >500MB the transfer rate is tolerable. ~5min


EDIT: also want to note the battery held out during the entire process

 

[esmith13]

this may sound like a dumb question but If I follow the above instructions to put an SD card in mass storage mode how to I plug into my PC to access it? I tried a standard-A to mini-B cable to the OTG port and the charge light came on but my PC didn't recognize a device being plugged in. Tried with two different windows PCs, with and without a powered hub in between. Pandora displays the screen to "click OK when done accessing the SD card in storage mode" during my attempts - no luck...


Thanks in advance.

 

[SNESFAN]

you're doing it right, you leave it on that screen


it's the mini usb port on the pandora that plugs into the usb host on your computer. You shouldn't need a powered hub as the pandora powers it's self.


I haven't had any issues on windows or linux machines. I was even able to pass the usb drive to a linux virtual machine inside a windows environment

 

[esmith13]

I thought I was, it's just not working... I let it sit for 5min and windows didn't recognize the device at all. Tried two PCs, both did have Win7 x64 but that shouldn't matter - mass storage drivers should pick it up just fine...


I don't need an OTG cable, do i? I'm just using a standard-A to mini-B...

 

[SNESFAN]

I have x64 windows 7, no problem here.


and no special cable is needed.


question, does your unit charge (charge light) when connected to usb when plugged into the mini port?

 

[esmith13]

yes it does.

 

[pmprog]

Sounds like it's not loading the mass storage module properly. Have you tried enabling mass storage before connecting it to your PC?

 

[esmith13]

yes i wait for that "click ok to stop" screen before I plug the cable in.


Does it matter if USB host is on or off? (I know that's for the other port but maybe conflicting?)


Does it matter if "USB Network" is on for startup or not? (not even sure what that one does to be honest)

 

[pmprog]

Not sure, I have USB Host off when I do it. I've never even looked at USB Network, so I guess leave that at a default

 

[esmith13]

Got it working. Had to reflash 1.51 for some reason... resolved a few of the out-of-the-box issues I was having...


Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

 

[Zero3K]

Is it possible for the USB transfer speed to be increased?