Upgraded to Pleco2.0 How to upgrade SDcard?

[George Herzog]

I sucessfully have upgraded from Pleco1.0 ot Pleco2.0 on my Zire72 which has a 1/2 gigabyte SDcard that includes an automatic backup on every shut down. I just purchased the $99 bundle of new dictionaries, audio, and brush strokes so space is getting a bit tight.

Now I want to switch to a 2 gigabyte SDcard which I have on hand, but I am wondering how simple it would be to do so. I need more space for my Beiks Bdicty dictionary files [they have all the European languages, some technical dictionaries, and an excellent English dictionary].

Can I merely copy everything on the old card to a file on harddisk and then transfer it to the new card or do I need to consider something special for the automated backup?

I am using BackupBuddyVFS and really depend on it when traveling as occasionally the battery might die and I've not Palm Desktop to backup too. BackupBuddyVFS really minimizes my exposure to any data loss in such cases.

 

[George Herzog]

Just an update.
I Googled around and found there are a lot of ways to 'clone an SDcard'. Much depends on what's on the original.

Many suggest merely 'cut and paste' [which I worry won't work for me]; some suggest using a ZIP and Unzip proceedure to package everything [that should work to keep the file structure intact but may not write to a boot record on an SDcard]; and one person recommended using Norton Ghost to avoid any and all problems. Some even recommend exporting to another PDA and importing back again [which I find interesting and maybe useful in a pinch, similar to Cut and Paste].

Cut and paste might work with most Palm OS situations. But I need to manage a growing clutter of SDcards and USBmemory sticks anyway.

I guess I am going to try using Ghost because in this case I have to preserve a boot image on the card I am going to move to my Palm. That image happens to be a 'bootable SDcard' for my EeePC backup [it is kind of like Ghost on an SDcard, but for Linux]. It is a little more complicated than mere files and folders.

So, I guess I'll just try to make an archive Ghost image of all the SDcard and USB memory stick setups that I want to preserve. Then sort out installing to the appropriate size SDcard or USBstick in the future as they seem to be the same thing to computer's software.

The great discovery is that by using Ghost, I suspect that I can eliminate the increasing clutter of SDcards and memory sticks. I just lost 3 2Gbyte memory sticks as I have to many set aside for different uses.

 

[goulniky]

on a related subject. I finally got a new, working HTC Touch HD, got my new Keyfile, thanks Mike.

I also purchased Garmin Mobile XT, which I am now trying to copy over to a on a larger SD card (16Gb) than Garmin's 2Gb. Garmin doesn't allow that and I can't get the hack to work, so meanwhile I copied the Pleco dict to both SD cards, and I am switching between them.

Soooo, Pleco question : after exiting Pleco, switching cards, restarting Pleco, my alternate dictionaries seem to no longer be usable (main ones are ABC / NWP, alternate are GF / 21C). Does Pleco store fileID-type information that might confuse it when switching cards?

As to the original post, what is the Ghost application you were refering to? Would it make a hw image backup of a card that would solve my Garmin problem, and eliminate the card switching issue? (What Garmin seems to do to protect their maps is encode some unique data on each card, beyond reach of the file system)

After some fiddling, I was able to unlock both Garmin software and maps, so I will be using it on my larger SD card and won't have to switch cards.

 

[George Herzog]

Well, both Ghost and Acronis are really Hard Disk image cloners. They don't care what is on the storage device or what operating system, they just faithfully copy sector by sector and compress it into a specialized file for storage.

The SDcard and the USBmemory sticks are provided with features that make them able to mimic a harddisk. That means that they can beneifit from Ghost or Acronis as a means to clone. So, one would first copy the SDcard to an image file, just like copying a full harddisk. I suspect it will go much faster though. And then you would restore it to the other SDcard. That should give you a faithful image of the first on the second.

From what I understand, Palm devices ignore the 'boot image' portion of the SDcard/USB memory stick. But other devices may use it for either normal purposes or for unusual security. So if you have an adapter that can plug an SDcard into a USBport, just run Ghost to create an image of it. Then swap SDcards, and install the image on the second.

There are programs that confirm that the 2nd image is the same as the first. MD5sum is one that comes to mind and the utility that calculates it is available free. Since it works on files, I guess you would have to make a 2nd image file from the copied SDcard and use that to see that both have the same MD5sum number.

It sounds to me that you had trouble with whatever the 'keyfile' that Pleco creates is tied into, so the upgrade dictionaries were not recognized. You might be able to simply reinstall the upgrade keyfile to that SDcard. I really won't second guess why. But, if there is a legitimate way to allow you to have two images on one license, I'm sure Pleco will be happy to help you resolve it. Of course, Pleco is not going to be willing to enable anyone to make an unlicensed copy and abscond with their product for free. So some configurations might just require two licenses. Swapping cards and platforms are fairly grey areas that Pleco tries to accommodate out of good will. But at some point, they have to draw a line or give away the store.

 

[mikelove]

Usually the best way to clear this up is to use the "To Demo" button in the Ordering screen, then install your new keyfile - that should take care of any comonents failing to unlock correctly. (not sure yet why this occasionally happens, but it doesn't seem to be too widespread at least)

Pleco only cares about which card you're using it you activated the software with a Card ID, but in that case none of your dictionaries should be usable, unless you activated the software once with a handheld-serial-number-based System ID and then switched to a Card ID, in which case you should double-check that you don't still have an old copy of your keyfile lying around somewhere.