Hi,

Got my Reader about a month ago and have manged to figure out the file coversions to LRF through book designer etc, Also manged to convert a lot of my CBR Comics through Ratafaran and Primo PDf - all thanks to the tutorials here and dowloads available - No help from Sony.......

But i have a problem with my 8gb Sony Duo Memory stick.

When first installed, the reader read all the books on the stick just fine, then after importing a few more books to the memory stick, the reader would not show the books & the library software does not even recognise it as present - I also have a 2gb Sandisk card that reads just fine - always seems to be ok.

I have tried re-formatting the memory, and reloading the books, again this seems to work for a while but them the same happens???

Anybody got any ideas?

are you sure you got a genuine 8GB thing? there are a lot of fakes out there and if you go beyond the true size, it will crash.

Are you able to throw files in it and see it in your PC?

Oh, and format it to FAT. the PRS has some problems with FAT32 and it's really slow some times.

FAT doesn't support partitions greater than 2Gb. It will need to be FAT32.

How many books do you have loaded on it? seems I've heard several complaints from people who have a LOT of books loaded onto their 505's causing issues such as yours

I have an 8GB SanDisk card that works fine. It's formatted FAT32 and it's full of mp3s. The only problem is the dismal wait for re-indexing when that is required.

FAT doesn't support partitions greater than 2Gb. It will need to be FAT32.

Mine 4GB mstick and 4GB SD-cards are formatted in FAT and they are working fine on PRS505 (and yes, they are fully loaded AND I can access the files)

According to wikipedia:
FAT: max size 2 GiB
4 GiB with 64k clusters (not widely supported)

I think you're pushing your luck to use it, TBH. 4GB filesystems have never been, to my knowledge, a supported option under FAT. It probably works because the underlying msdos filesystem support in linux is very flexible.

The 8gb works fine whentransfering data betweeen pc's - Its a full 8gb (filled it to make sure) but for some reason PRS505 don't like it - I am thinking of using this elsewhere (psp) and gettting some more sandisk's - so 4gb ok to use on the reasder?

I think you're pushing your luck to use it, TBH. 4GB filesystems have never been, to my knowledge, a supported option under FAT. It probably works because the underlying msdos filesystem support in linux is very flexible.

If it works, it works. And according to the almighty internet, as long as the 64k clustersize is supported, it'd work.

The 8gb works fine whentransfering data betweeen pc's - Its a full 8gb (filled it to make sure) but for some reason PRS505 don't like it - I am thinking of using this elsewhere (psp) and gettting some more sandisk's - so 4gb ok to use on the reasder?

It's the same problem as with the PSP (also from sony). If the card is formatted in FAT32, it's just really slow. If it's in FAT, it's smoother.

If you get a 4GB stick, you have to format it to FAT, otherwise it'd still be slow. (of just get a 4GB SD-card, somehow SD-cards are faster on the reader)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335

Well, aren't we lucky that Sony is not microsoft and that we're not accessing the card with Windows 95/98 or Windows NT

Cheers Guys - I'll use FAT

Cheers Guys - I'll use FAT


Can you format your 8GB stick in fat?

I too, am having this issue. I'm currently trying to format my card with the following options:

mkfs.msdos -F 32 -s 64 <device>

That "-s 64" will make 32k clusters.

There is no way to format an 8gig MS as FAT16. If anyone has a way, I would love to hear it.

I hope the forthcoming patch will fix this issue.

Just formatted my 4GB SD card to FAT16... much quicker!

Thanx for the heads up!

15j
:D

more info on this:

I was finally able to get my reader to read "most" of my books, I say most because I'm not sure which files are not being read and it may have something to do with those files.

I think it's a question of file access, instead of dumping my entire collection onto the card, I dumped a little at a time. Of 4.5 gigs on the MS, I dumped like 2.6 gigs, allowed it to read and preprocess and then dumped the rest. I also did a full shutdown on the second read.

For those of you using rsync, rsync --size-only --stats -P -L -v -v -r --whole-file seems to work best for me. The --whole-file option prevents any rsync algorithm so it should keep file access to a minimum.

Also, the partition type on the MS is fat16, just as a test, although it is formatted fat32.

More as I get it.