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Tomtom 720- Is hard drive dead??

 
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futuresbright
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Location: west yorkshire

PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:11 pm    Post subject: Tomtom 720- Is hard drive dead?? Reply with quote

My TT GO 720 has just died on me

When i turn it on all i get is a picture of the device, a hard drive in the bottom right hand corner and a big flashing white cross in a red circle.

It will allow me to connect to computer and format drive and then copy my backup files to it but it just will not boot.

I can however go down the SD card route and with all files on it it does boot and everything is OK.

Is the hard drive dead? anyone suggest anything to get it to boot?
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mikealder
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Its not hard drive as such, the device contains solid state memory chips that retain (or rather should retain) the files, if its not responding to a format then its probably died.
To keep the device in use employ an SD or SDHC card as the device can support memory cards up to and including 32GB in capacity, with memory cards at very low prices these days its cheaper to fit one of these and carry on using the device rather than scraping the 720 which is still the best hardware produced from TomTom in a long time in my opinion - Mike
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futuresbright
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mikealder wrote:
Its not hard drive as such, the device contains solid state memory chips that retain (or rather should retain) the files, if its not responding to a format then its probably died.
To keep the device in use employ an SD or SDHC card as the device can support memory cards up to and including 32GB in capacity, with memory cards at very low prices these days its cheaper to fit one of these and carry on using the device rather than scraping the 720 which is still the best hardware produced from TomTom in a long time in my opinion - Mike


thanks for reply mike,

Thats what ive done, everything seems ok using SD card, doesnt really matter that main memory has died, was just wondering if there was anything else i could do to bring it back to life?
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Trevor1234
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi futuresbright
If you have formatted and tried unsuccessfully to restore a valid Backup to your 720 there is very little left that you can do.

You have stated that you can run the device from your card and I think that’s the best thing that you are going to manage. Mike Alder appears to think the same and he’s usually spot on. I have a 720 and Tomtom haven’t come out with a better model yet. Lets hope that you get many more years out of your device/card.
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futuresbright
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Trevor1234 wrote:
Hi futuresbright
If you have formatted and tried unsuccessfully to restore a valid Backup to your 720 there is very little left that you can do.

You have stated that you can run the device from your card and I think that’s the best thing that you are going to manage. Mike Alder appears to think the same and he’s usually spot on. I have a 720 and Tomtom haven’t come out with a better model yet. Lets hope that you get many more years out of your device/card.


looks like it will be running from the card from now on!

Makes no difference really, will give it a good trial tommorow and see if there are any issues but hopefully will give me another few years use.

thanks for reply.
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Andy_P
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The internal memory on my 720 died about a year ago, and I've been running happily with everything on an SD card ever since.

The only minor hassle is that TT Home will not recognise the device at all if I plug it in with a USB cable, so I have to pop the card out and put it in a card reader plugged into a USB socket on the PC. Home then finds it and runs fine.

Strangely, Windows finds the SD card OK when it's still in the Go.
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deep_south
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Might be worth doing a "full format", not the "quick one" using Windows Explorer - I had a similar problem a couple of months ago on my TT, and a full format & restore did the trick for me.

I tried to do a new backup first and that failed, which led to beleive the flash memory was dodgy. I was pleased this worked, as it was about a month out of warranty....
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Andy_P
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

deep_south wrote:
Might be worth doing a "full format"


My memory died slowly over a few weeks, exhibiting more and more bizarre behaviour For a while, I could copy stuff to it AND red it back, until I disconnected from the PC and re-connected, at which point it would forget everything I'd just added, but kept the older files.
Re-formatting got more and more difficult to complete, until eventually Windows wouldn't recognise it as a "drive" at all.
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futuresbright
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

tried everything including full formats,quick formats, formatting to FAT and FAT32.

files will write to device but it will not boot.

not too bothered now been running for the last couple of days on SD card with no difference whatsoever.

Sorry Tomtom no more pennies off me for a while yet!!! Very Happy
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Robbo66
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Andy_P wrote:

The only minor hassle is that TT Home will not recognise the device at all if I plug it in with a USB cable, so I have to pop the card out and put it in a card reader plugged into a USB socket on the PC. Home then finds it and runs fine.


I have my device running from a SDHC card and haven't had any problem connecting to TT Home except when I updated Home this evening to 2.7.2.1825 after which it didn't connect. When I tried it later, Home started up okay.
It is strange how two seemingly identical devices behave in different ways. Yours may be older than mine, don't know if that has any bearing on things. Or the make of card may have an affect, who knows.
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Andy_P
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Robbo66 wrote:

I have my device running from a SDHC card and haven't had any problem connecting to TT Home


But is your internal memory screwed like mine is, or are you just running off the card by choice?

What I think is happening with mine is that when you plug in the USB cable, the TomTom announces itself: "Hi I'm a TomTom with storage memory, give me a drive letter... Oh and by the way, I've got an SD card slot too. Can I have one for that?"

With dead memory on the TomTom, Windows looks at what's going on and replies "No you're not, sod off...." but then: "Oh, heres an SD card, I'll give that a drive letter if you like.

But Home sits there waiting for the "main" bit of the TomTom to announce itself can't find anything and never gets as far as looking for the SD card.

Just a less robust bit of programming. TT never expected that situation to arise, so never made Home clever enough to deal with it.

AS you can see from the above, my technical understanding of what's going on is completely lacking , but that's how it "feels" to me!

Laughing
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Robbo66
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Andy_P wrote:

But is your internal memory screwed like mine is, or are you just running off the card by choice?


I am running off the card by choice.

Your reasoning seems sound in that Home searches for a non existent internal memory, and on not finding one, doesn't connect your TT. Mine of course brings up both lettered "drives".

One advantage of updating via a card reader is that you can't accidentally update the wrong memory, as I have recently done, and lose various things.
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