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can you "reimage" a palm?

Forum Smartphones & PDAs : Palmpilot - can you "reimage" a palm?

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

I have a tungsten e that is about 5 months old, but is always freezing
up and has to be reset constantly. The battery seems to be ok. Once in
a while I will get a memory mgr error. Is there a way to reimage a
palm the same way you would reimage a desktop computer? I have done
plenty of hard resets and it doesn't help. I feel like it needs to be
cleaned out and reimaged.

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

"Joey" <jojo6x@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7c06455f.0404091251.5211352e@posting.google.com...
> I have a tungsten e that is about 5 months old, but is always freezing
> up and has to be reset constantly. The battery seems to be ok. Once in
> a while I will get a memory mgr error. Is there a way to reimage a
> palm the same way you would reimage a desktop computer? I have done
> plenty of hard resets and it doesn't help. I feel like it needs to be
> cleaned out and reimaged.

A hard reset will put the palm back into the same 'as new' state it left the
factory in. This isn't quite the same thing as reimaging it, but does wipe
it clean of all data, leaving only the OS and pgrograms originally put on it
by Palm.

Are you sure you are hard resetting - this should wipe everything and just
pressing the reset button is not the same thing and will not do this.

Also - if you are hard resetting and hotsyncing afterwards, you will reload
all the same programs and data you had before which defeats the object of
what you want.

Cheers, Julian

Reply to JL

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

jojo6x@yahoo.com (Joey) wrote:
>I have a tungsten e that is about 5 months old, but is always freezing
>up and has to be reset constantly. The battery seems to be ok. Once in
>a while I will get a memory mgr error. Is there a way to reimage a
>palm the same way you would reimage a desktop computer? I have done
>plenty of hard resets and it doesn't help. I feel like it needs to be
>cleaned out and reimaged.

When you synchronize after a hard reset, you are loading all the
software and data back on it, and you probably have a poorly-behaved
program on it. Try renaming your <username>\backups directory, doing
a hard reset, and not installing any 3rd-party programs for a while to
see if it's stable.

--
William Smith
ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:19:59 +0100, JL wrote:

> A hard reset will put the palm back into the same 'as new' state it left the
> factory in. This isn't quite the same thing as reimaging it, but does wipe
> it clean of all data, leaving only the OS and pgrograms originally put on it
> by Palm.

Yes, with the exceptions of changes to flash RAM, such as new OS,
and any programs that may have been 'flashed'. These aren't as
likely to be the source of problems though.

Reply to BillB

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

BillB <rainbose@earthlink.newt> wrote:
> Yes, with the exceptions of changes to flash RAM, such as new OS,
>and any programs that may have been 'flashed'. These aren't as
>likely to be the source of problems though.

I'd imagine the OP would know if he'd been fooling around with Jack
Flash or something along those lines...

--
William Smith
ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Joey wrote:
>
> I have a tungsten e that is about 5 months old, but is always freezing
> up and has to be reset constantly. The battery seems to be ok. Once in
> a while I will get a memory mgr error. Is there a way to reimage a
> palm the same way you would reimage a desktop computer? I have done
> plenty of hard resets and it doesn't help. I feel like it needs to be
> cleaned out and reimaged.

There seems to be some confusion as to your definition of "reimage."

Care to elaborate?

My understanding is that you'd like a complete backup of your Palm...
If your Palm ever crashed, you'd have a backup copy of everything on
it, before the crash.

Something similar to Drive Image (Powerquest)?

Yes? No?

Larry

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 10:50:09 -0400, William P.N. Smith <> wrote:

>> Yes, with the exceptions of changes to flash RAM, such as new OS,
>>and any programs that may have been 'flashed'. These aren't as
>>likely to be the source of problems though.
>
> I'd imagine the OP would know if he'd been fooling around with Jack
> Flash or something along those lines...

In most cases probably yes, but that requires several assumptions
to be made. Was the OP the sole/first owner of the TE and be
unaware that someone else may have updated flash RAM? Could anyone
using Jack Flash or something like it not realize that a hard reset
won't return the TE to the factory original state? Judging by the
OP's thinking that hard resets don't sufficiently "clean out and
reimage" the TE, he certainly doesn't have your experience and
knowledge of Palm OS devices and might well be unaware that hard
resets don't restore flash RAM. Paradoxically (if that's the right
word) he's asking a good question, as hard resets in some cases
don't "reimage" to factory-shipped condition.

In any case, my reply wasn't to the OP, but to the person who said
"A hard reset will put the palm back into the same 'as new' state it
left the factory in." He wisely questioned whether the OP wasn't
mistaking soft resets with hard resets. I initially started to
reply to the OP by mentioning what I thought might be causing the
problem - hotsynching problematic software after the hard reset. I
had some suggestions, dealing with maintaining the same Palm
username, restoring datebook/todo/memo data but none of the
non-original software. The instructions on how to do this safely
seemed to be getting less than straightforward. Before sending it,
I read your shorter, much clearer method (renaming the BU directory)
so I tossed it in the trashcan.

Reply to BillB

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

> My understanding is that you'd like a complete backup of your Palm...
> If your Palm ever crashed, you'd have a backup copy of everything on
> it, before the crash.
>
> Something similar to Drive Image (Powerquest)?
>
> Yes? No?
>

what i want would be the same effect if i put in a boot disk into my
desktop, reformated the hard drive and stuck in the windows cd and
reinstalled the operating sytem from scratch.

Reply to joey

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

jojo6x@yahoo.com (Joey) wrote:
>what i want would be the same effect if i put in a boot disk into my
>desktop, reformated the hard drive and stuck in the windows cd and
>reinstalled the operating sytem from scratch.

This is a hard reset:
Press and hold the power button
Press and release the reset button
when the first screen comes up, release the power button
press "up" to clear all data.

Note that synchronizing to your computer will reload all data and
programs, remove or rename the ...\palm\<username>\backup directory to
prevent programs from being reloaded.

[This assumes, as we've done without any further input from you, that
no-one had run any programs that'll fiddle with your Flash memory,
like Jack Sprat or others. If this assumption is incorrect, you can
use the instructions for _that_ program to reload your original Flash
image. If none of this paragraph makes any sense, then please ignore
it...]

--
William Smith
ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On 15 Apr 2004 06:12:15 -0700, jojo6x@yahoo.com (Joey) wrote:

>> My understanding is that you'd like a complete backup of your Palm...
>> If your Palm ever crashed, you'd have a backup copy of everything on
>> it, before the crash.
>>
>> Something similar to Drive Image (Powerquest)?
>>
>> Yes? No?
>>
>
>what i want would be the same effect if i put in a boot disk into my
>desktop, reformated the hard drive and stuck in the windows cd and
>reinstalled the operating sytem from scratch.

You have to realize that, even through both are computers, a Palm and
an IBM / Mac compatible are different.

The operating system on your home computer is on a hard disk drive.
That's why you have to wait for it to boot-up, it has to load the
operating system into it's RAM. Where as your Palm's operating system
is in ROM and runs from ROM so there's no delay between turning on
your Palm and using it.

I have a T3 and, shortly after I got it, I found that Palm had an
update to the T3's OS that I could download. This I did and when I
installed the new OS, I did what you're talking about. I installed a
new OS then did a hot-sync that installed the programs and data files
that I'd backed up.

Is this what you're trying to do?

Jack

"The virtuous need but few laws; for it is not the law which
determines their actions, but their actions which determine the law."

-- Theophrastus

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