Backup through Tablet

[davidd]

Well, some more to report, I think we have a kind of success!

I formatted the SD card in the PC, then placed it in the camera, and without formatting in camera, took some shots.
It seemed to work OK, without in-camera format

Now I have the following method, using the two apps, X-plore and MyFiles

For CF card, format in camera, and access with the tablet using the X-plore app. MyFiles cant see it. Save files to internal SD card.

For SD card, format in PC, and then access with the tablet using the MyFiles app. X-plore cannot see it. Save files to internal SD card.

To transfer from the internal SD card to the USB stick second backup, use Myfiles, X-plore cannot see it.

As long as I can remember all that, I should be OK.

I'm waiting for the arrival of a powered OTG cable, to see if I can access the 250Gb SSD drive.

[davidd]

The powered OTG cable arrived today, so I tried it out in great excitement!

As soon as I connected it all up and switched on the USB charger that the device was plugged into, the light on the SSD drive came on, green, and I was hopeful.
Unfortunately the tablet was unable to see the drive at all, with either app. I tried plugging a USB stick in, and the tablet could see that, so the cable is OK.

Looks like the original plan (128Gb USB stick) will be the one!

[arthurking83]

My newly purchased USB stick CF card reader arrived today too.
Read some folks had success with these types of card readers .. but not this one.
TabII says high powered USB device connected, won't allow access.
So these CF card readers will also be hit and miss on older gen devices ... ie. non USB3/USB-C type connected devices.
Works perfectly on the phone and newer Lenovo tablet .. so all good on that front(ie. going forward)

The powered OTG cable arrived today, so I tried it out in great excitement!

As soon as I connected it all up and switched on the USB charger that the device was plugged into, the light on the SSD drive came on, green, and I was hopeful.
Unfortunately the tablet was unable to see the drive at all, with either app. I tried plugging a USB stick in, and the tablet could see that, so the cable is OK.

Looks like the original plan (128Gb USB stick) will be the one!

I'm thinking, if the 256G SSD was used for PC duties .. maybe it's formatted in NTFS??
Try using either exFat, or Fat32 formatting and try again on Android.

Can't remember, but I think Android doesn't recognise NTFS(natively .. but may with additional drivers/apps)
Android historically used ext3/ext4, and Fat32, but I think also recognises exFat on some of the later versions.
Fat32 up to 32G works fine, but can be flaky(not guaranteed) on any OS... could be device dependent.
So, for more positivity/surety, I'd say if you reformat a large(ie larger than 32G device) exFat would be the way to go .. ie. Android and PC(Windows) shouldn't get confused.

[davidd]

Hi Arthur, it was a good thought, but when I checked the formatting, it is formatted as exFAT. I re-formatted it and tried again, but the tablet does not even acknowledge that something has been plugged in, it cannot see the drive at all.
The 128Gb USB stick that I have is formatted exFAT, and the tablet sees it with no problems, so the formatting is not the problem.

[arthurking83]

Hi Arthur, it was a good thought, but when I checked the formatting, it is formatted as exFAT. I re-formatted it and tried again, but the tablet does not even acknowledge that something has been plugged in, it cannot see the drive at all.
The 128Gb USB stick that I have is formatted exFAT, and the tablet sees it with no problems, so the formatting is not the problem.

Not sure what's going on then.

Another thing too.
I have a USB powermeter device, and never thought to use it to check power usage(s).

Quick test on my new thumbstick CF reader shows that it barely draws 100mA(which makes it a medium power USB device) .. not high power as Android says when I connect it.
In read mode, I reckon I've seen max 70mA, and in write mode it varies between about 70mA and about 110mA, sometimes a quick spike to about 140mA.
So averaging out in write mode at about 100mA or so.
At idle it only sits at 10mA(min resolution, so probably less than that.

Hence .. have no idea why early Android with microUSB can't detect the device properly!
100mA is not a lot of power draw.

While the flexibility of Android is great for the kinds of uses we're describing here .. and at least you've found one resolution to your need .. it's still annoying that it's so hit and miss.

[davidd]

Well, travelling over for a while, so I thought I would report on how the ideas worked out.

After a few days I tried to back up the photos from my CF card, as discussed above. I was dismayed to see that most of the photos that had been copied to the tablet from the CF card seemed to be corrupted, with bands of colour running across them. The video files that I copies from the SD card seemed fine. I decided that somehow the tablet was not copying the 14 bit NEF files correctly, and that my idea was not going to work. Twice during the trip I was able to have access to a PC, and I just copied files directly from the CF card to the USB stick drive, so that I had at least one backup copy. I was not able to check to see if they were OK.

When I got back home I was very keen to copy the photos off the 2 32GB CF cards into my computer. I was horrified to see that all the photos coming off the cards were corrupted too.

2019-09 Canada3_00001.jpg

It seemed that ALL the photos on the CF cards were affected, making me think that perhaps the camera sensor had failed or something.

Then on the spur of the moment I tried my old USB2 Sandisk CF card reader, and the photos were fine! I copied them all over to the computer , a bit slow, but reliable.
It seems my brand new USB3 Verbatim Multi card reader is faulty.
Anyway, I have all my photos, which was the object of the exercise in the first place. It seems the tablet idea was OK after all, just the card reader faulty.

[ameerat42]

Find the closest bin and...

[arthurking83]

.....
It seems my brand new USB3 Verbatim Multi card reader is faulty.
.....

Disappointing!
But at least you still have all your files intact.
Out of curiosity too, did you connect the card reader to a USB3 port(or USB2 port)?
I assume it was a USB3 port(on the PC).
If so, maybe try test with some random files on a CF card but this time using USB2.

I once had an issue with a new USB3 device(docking station for a HDD), kept stalling at some point during transferring data(1Tb+)
Didn't realise it at the time, but where it stalled it also corrupted some files, so I lost a few(maybe 20 or so) NEF files.(turns out they weren't important, and would have been deleted anyhow).

eventually found out why it all happened .. docking station ended up "hacked to tiny bits" for the purposes of greater knowledge of microelectronics .. and a new docking station was bought(that works flawlessly).

So my thinking is: if you do try the USB2 test with the reader and it does work properly, then the card reader is junk(as in should be junked!) .. it's almost certain that it uses the same JMicron chip my docking station used, and no amount of firmware updating will make it work.