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Treo 8GB HDSC Memory Card Great On My 680 + Hack For Treo 700p

I have recently discovered that the Treo 680 natively supports the new 8GB SDHC cards (the Treo 700p also works via a simple hack) and naturally I just couldn’t wait to to get my hands on one and take it for a spin…

Treo 8GB SDHC Card

Over the years I have amassed quite a large collection of SD cards – the ones above are just ‘a few’ of these – which have been key to help me really enjoy the digital entertainment capabilities of my Treo – with music (Pocket Tunes Deluxe), movies & TV shows (CorePlayer), photos (SplashPhoto) audiobooks (Audible), ebooks and podcasts. 

To date I have typically travelled with some ten SD cards (see The Joy of Large Capacity SD Cards) giving me close to 30GB of mobile storage but I will now very happily change this to four 8GB SDHC cards (the fact that their price keeps dropping and is now below $75 per unit at places like Newegg also makes it affordable).  Another plus is that I am now finally able to put the _entire_ contents of my PC’s personal and business files (excluding music and movies) on just ONE 8GB card and access these on my Treo on the go (with DocumentsToGo and other applications) – absolutely amazing.

Treo 680
Getting started using an 8GB SDHC card with your Treo 680 simply requires you to insert it in the SD card slot.  However, there are two things to note. 

First, when you check Card Info in your Applications you will see that it will state that your card has 3602.4MB Free (image above left) instead of 7602.4MB but don’t worry as this is just a small reporting error and does not reflect the storage capacity that you have available – all applications on your Treo will have access to the full 8GB storage capacity.  For example, in the image above right my card actually has 7044.3MB used but it only reports 3044.3MB.

Secondly, unless you have recently purchased an SD Card Reader that specifically works with the new SDHC cards you will be unable to use your old card reader to transfer files.  I personally chose to get the small SanDisk MicroMate SDHC Card Reader (pictured here) which I like a lot and is backward-compatible to work with all previous SD cards that you might have.  Some people have also reported some success using the Softick Card Export II software (which turns your Treo itself into a card reader) with SDHC cards but I personally prefer the simplicity of a standalone card reader.

Treo 700p
Enabling the use of an 8GB SDHC card on your Treo 700p is a bit more complex but even a novice user should be able to do this within a couple of minutes.  You’ll first need to:

  1. Download and install the free FileZ application (or a similar one such as the great Resco Explorer)
  2. Download but do NOT install and do NOT HotSync this SDIO-sdsd.prc file
  3. Have a standard (not SDHC) SD card of any size ready
  4. Have your new 8GB SDHC card ready

Then do the following:

  1. Copy the SDIO-sdsd.prc file to your standard SD card (not SDHC)
  2. Insert the standard SD card in your Treo 700p
  3. Open FileZ, browse to your SD card, select ‘Copy’ the SDIO-sdsd.prc file and ‘Paste’ it to your ‘Internal’ memory folder
  4. Exit the application and soft reset your Treo

After all this you should now also be perfectly able to use your new 8GB SDHC card with your Treo 700p.

Overall
It may not be ‘super’ easy to get started with these new 8GB SDHC cards but the fact is that our Treo is actually one of the very few devices out there that is actually able to even use them so I think that the small trouble and some patience is well worth the effort.  To be honest I haven’t yet quite absorbed the fact that I now have an incredible 8GB on a single SD card on my Treo!  Amazing…

Treonauts are always amazingly amazed


Posted by Andrew on February 7, 2007 at 06:31 PM

Treo Accessories , Treo Memory Card

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Voor iedereen met een chronisch ruimtegebrek op SD kaartjes is er goed nieuws. Ook de nieuwe SDHC kaartjes kunnen in diverse Palm devices gebruikt worden. [Read More]

Tracked on Feb 22, 2007 6:04:30 AM



Comments

1
by George in Canada | Feb 7, 2007 7:03:34 PM

Hi Andrew,

I have enjoyed your site for several years now, but now that I own a 705v, I am not seeing as much on your site covering this device. I hope you will offer more coverage and more products.

2
by Andrew | Feb 7, 2007 7:13:25 PM

George - hang in there... I know that Windows Mobile software coverage has been slim on Treonauts but I hope to have significantly more of it coming your way very soon...

Cheers, A.

3
by cindie | Feb 7, 2007 7:45:50 PM

I love your reviews and site. So helpful! Does the 8 GB card work with the Treo 650?

4
by Karl | Feb 7, 2007 8:00:04 PM

8 GIG SD CARD!? OK I ran and ordered one from Newegg, I sure hope it will work. I already moved that little prc file over and that didn't kill anything, so I'm optimistic. What exactly is the difference between a regular SD and these cards? Why didn't I see them at CES anywhere??

5
by A. Smith | Feb 7, 2007 8:08:34 PM

Hi I am pretty familiar with Filez and Palm Hacks but I couldn't get this one to copy Because the SDIO driver on my device is locked in the ROM.

Any Suggestions?

6
by Michael | Feb 7, 2007 8:21:58 PM

Love this site!

Do you know if there is a 8gb hack for the 700wx?

Michael

7
by David | Feb 7, 2007 8:51:45 PM

Will the hack allow my Treo 650 to read 4gb cards now?

8
by LESLIE | Feb 7, 2007 9:05:46 PM

WHAT IS THE LARGEST CARD FOR MY TREO 650?
I THINK THE ANSWER IS 2GB- AM I RIGHT?

9
by Steve | Feb 7, 2007 10:28:51 PM

I am having trouble with my 700p recognizing the 4gb card I purchased. I am using a Connect 3D 4GB Secure Digital Card. Do you know of any problems? It reads the card sometime, is there a hack to help with this?

thank you for your help, this iste is fantastic.

Steve

10
by skoenig | Feb 7, 2007 11:17:02 PM

@ Steve reformat the card on a pc..theres a post about it on the forum somewhere, it helps apparently but will loose the card on the next time your Treo sleeps

@ LESLIE I dont' know, I can't think over your shouting.

~ Steph

11
by Sven Ehlert | Feb 8, 2007 4:27:10 AM

Careful with SDHC Hacks on older devices. Sure, you can install the new driver, but if your machine ever crashes completely (needind a hard reset), your SDHC driver is also gone. And even if you'd have a full backup of your device on the card, you wouldn't be able to read it.

The only option I'd recommend a SDHC driver on older devices would be a custom ROM with the SDHC driver included.

12
by Sven Ehlert | Feb 8, 2007 4:48:10 AM

Some clarifications on the SD mess:

(Hope I get that right from memory ...)

SD (not SDHC) Cards are only specified up to 2 GB capacity. That's the limit of the used FAT filesystem.

SD (not SDHC) Cards > 2 GB capacity are _unofficial_ Cards that use the FAT32 filesystem, although the SD standard only allows FAT. To read these cards you need a FAT32 compatible driver. AFAIK the FlifeDrive has such a driver included. Such cards will never be officially supported.

SDHC (aka SD 2.0) Cards are the official SD extension for sizes > 2 GB up to 32 GB. They also use the FAT32 filesystem, but introduced a different addressing format than older SD cards. Thus, even if your device might support FAT32 it is still unclear if it supports the unofficial 4 GB SH Cards or the official SDHC Cards. The whole situation is a gigantic mess...

For clarification see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card

Another remark about the reporting error on the free size in the Palm Card Info Utility. This is likely an integer overflow - A 32 bit integer can store values up to "4 GB", everything above will result in a wrap around, giving you the figures you mentioned. This should only be a problem when you have a little bit more than 4 GB free space on the device: It will report wronlgly a nearly full card.

13
by Brian | Feb 8, 2007 10:02:14 AM

Saw that Newegg has A-DATA 8gb SDHC for $46 after MIR :) just follow the link in the article.

14
by Mike | Feb 8, 2007 11:34:12 AM

Andrew,

I think you mentioned it before, but what do you use to carry your SD cards around?

- Mike

15
by Andrew | Feb 8, 2007 12:07:23 PM

Cindie - I believe that there may a way to get the 8GB SDHC cards to work on a Treo 650 and I'm looking into this now. Will update shortly.

Karl: What is SDHC?

SD High Capacity (SDHCTM) card is the new SD™ memory card based on the SDA 2.00 specification, introduced by the SD Card Association. This new SDA 2.00 specification enables SD cards to reach higher capacities - 4GB-32GB.

Because SDHC cards are recognized by new SDHC host devices differently then standard SD cards, it is not backwards compatible with legacy SD format host devices. Standard SD cards are forward compatible with new SDHC host devices.

Legacy SD host devices and SD cards (up to 2GB) are FAT 16 file system compatible, while the new SD 2.00 file system specification defines a SD FAT 32 file system for the new SDHC host devices and cards.

Be aware of non-SDA 2.00 specification compliant SD 4GB cards on the market. If these non-compliant SD 4GB cards record data in a SDHC host, and are then used in a legacy SD host, issues and problems may occur. File system incompatibility, data corruption, and potentially you may actually loose the data/pictures. In addition, if these noncompliant SD 4GB cards are inserted into a legacy SD host device, the host device may not recognize/utilize the card as 4GB, [and it] instead may read as a 2GB card. If the SD 4GB card does not have SDHC on it, it is not SD 2.00 compliant.

More SDHC compatible devices are expected to be available in the second half of 2006. To ensure compatibility, look for the SDHC logo on cards and host devices (cameras, camcorders, etc.)

Compatibility with SDHC 4GB:
4GB SDHC cards can only work with SDHC compatible host devices. To ensure compatibility, look for the SDHC logo on the packaging. Please check with your device manufacturer for their current/future supported SDHC devices.

A. Smith - please add the file to RAM instead of ROM.

Michael - sorry, at this point no news on a hack for the Treo 700wx.

David, Leslie - I'm looking into how to enable 4GB and 8GB cards on your Treo 650.

Steve - there may be a problem with the actual card.

Sven - I don't think that the hard reset issue losing the SDHC hack on the Treo 700p is a big deal. People should simply keep a copy on their PC or a spare standard SD card.

Cheers, A.

16
by motzingw | Feb 8, 2007 12:55:14 PM

Re: A. Smith - please add the file to RAM instead of ROM.

The result on my 700P is the "new" slot driver in RAM and the original slot driver in the "ROM" at the same time. Both are on internal memory.

Is having both files (one in ROM, one in RAM) correct?

Thanks.

17
by toothman | Feb 8, 2007 1:22:55 PM

Hi. I'm a newbie to the forum but a regular subscriber to Treonauts Daily. My questions is this: If I install the 700p 8 gb SDHC hack, will it mess up or cause problems with the use of my regular SD Card apps. In particular I run TomTom 6 (have maps installed) on a regular 1 gb Sd card. If it messes these apps up I probably won't install the hace. Thanks in advance for your help. PS: Grear newsletter and forum.

18
by Andrew | Feb 8, 2007 2:34:43 PM

toothman - as I mentioned in my post the Treo 700p SDHC hack is fully backward compatible and you will thus be able to continue to use your existing standard SD cards as before.

Cheers, A.

19
by dgarts | Feb 8, 2007 3:40:49 PM

I love my Treo650, and my wife is growing with hers, but wouldn't it be wonderful if Palm got the heads out of whereever they've shoved them (whether in the sand or...elsewhere) and shipped us a PDA with 8GB on board AND the SD-slot to boot?

Sheesh. They act like time (and their competition) stands still.

By that I mean, rather than limp into the market late with a minor upgrade to, say, 1GB, why not leapfrog and make a splash with 10? (with a file management system that won't require waiting 5 minutes for a PDF email attachment to open)...

20
by carl | Feb 8, 2007 4:12:46 PM

@Leslie

You can use a 4Gb SD card on your Treo 650. It requires a ROM hack and can 'brick' your 650 if it is not done correctly.

I did it with my 650 and now use a 4Gb card for movies and TV shows. Hacking the ROM was easier than I expected though I made sure to back up memory just in case.

21
by Drbuzz0 | Feb 8, 2007 5:26:06 PM

I agree with dgarts. The current generation just doesn't have enough internal storage to store all your programs (if you use it for more than basics) without resorting to an SD card. This is problematic if you want to change the card and all your stuff is on one card. Considering how cheap flash memory has gotten, Palm would do well to jump ahead and give you 2 gigs or so off the bat internal, with the option for units with up to 8gb or more. If nothing else, it will stop the complaints and even if the high memory units (which would obviously cost more) are only bought by a few, it would earn some very good press and reviews from enthusiasts. Get on it, Palm! I'd pay extra for mega-memory!

22
by Mike | Feb 9, 2007 12:08:10 AM

Hi,
I installed this file on my 8GB card and then copied to handheld (700p Sprint), but it only showing 4GB? Do you think it will still hold 8GB of data?

Thanks

23
by motzingw | Feb 9, 2007 3:34:54 PM

Since installing the extra slot driver my Treo 700P freezes when the camera and the messenger applications attempt to access the SD card.

Has anyone else experienced this after using the "hack"?

Thanks

24
by Karl | Feb 9, 2007 10:03:00 PM

I got the card, but it shows up as having 3.6G of free memory - what am I doing wrong?

25
by jll | Feb 11, 2007 10:59:06 AM

same here with my 700p and transcend sdhc 8gb, no matter which way i copy slot driver to ram, upon soft reset will only see ~3.6gb, card driver software will only connect as 3.5gb card, win xp explorer shows 8gb on card

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