Talk:LifeDrive

Weasel words
Although the LifeDrive uses a hard disk which was selected for fast spinup speed, some have noticed delays in application launching which were greater than those in previous non-hard disk based handhelds. Not NPOV. Not sourced. Please cleanup! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jmacns (talk • contribs).

Linux on LifeDrive

 * http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/PalmLifeDriveStatus
 * http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/PalmLifeDrive

Just some links, should you guys think the page needs this --2mcmGespräch 09:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

LifeDrive MicroDrive to Compact-Flash Replacement
We were numerous to successfully replace the MD by a CF:


 * http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111497

It results in massive soft|hard reset speedup, casual use general speed improvement, and much less fear to break the internal md, which appears to be rather fragile.

two methods exist:
 * extract rom from update and build a new rom image yourself. this is tricky, and failed for me, but seemed to work for others
 * copy raw image from md, with a tool like dd

what I did, under linux, with a sandisk usb cf reader and a sandisk 4GB cf card:
 * power off, lock keys, open, unplug md
 * plug md in cf reader
 * backup: $ dd if=/dev/sda of=./ldmd.img
 * plug cf in cf reader
 * restore: $ dd if=./ldmd.img of=/dev/sda
 * plug cf in ld
 * power on
 * much happiness occurs

you can compress on the fly too: which gives a space occupation improvement of 4GB->20MB if you did a secure hardreset (fills hd with zeroes, thus more compression), allowing for the image to easily be stored for future reuse/restoration or to operate from a linux livecd, as it would then easily fit in a ramdisk.
 * backup: $ dd if=/dev/sda | bzip2 > ./ldbak.img.bz2
 * restore: $ bzcat ./ldbak.img.bz2 | dd of=/dev/sda

--Lloeki 08:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC) (lloeki_ld on 1src link above)


 * Now, how to use a larger than 4gb CF *without* buying PowerDrive. I've read that the current version of PowerDrive re-writes the ROM ID every time the LifeDrive is reset, which has led to some claims of it bricking LDs due to wearing out the small flash ROM. A better action would be to *only check* to see if the ROM ID is OK, and only re-write it if the ROM ID is NOT OK. There's already at least one application for re-writing the ROM ID, so there's no real need for any 4gb+ CF card hack to do it.

ROM update
I have to give my thanks to whoever added that ROM update link! I've been looking for update for my LifeDrive for a couple of months and never stumbled on it until I saw it here! Now more of my applications work! --Stalfur 10:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's also a good idea to keep a periodic eye on websites like palminfocenter.com, which regularly keep track of things like this. Dysprosia 11:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Battery capacity
I've changed the battery capacity from 1800 to 1660 mah. Three out of the top three Palm LifeDrive reviews found by Google states "1660 mah", and several users who have disassembled their units have reported finding 1660 mah batteries. -- Tomlouie | talk 20:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Pre-production units
Go forth and search and ye shall find info on pre-production LifeDrives equipped with 5gb Seagate drives that were much faster than the 4gb Hitachi production units received. The Seagate benefited from a 2 megabyte cache VS the paltry 128K cache in the Hitachi. For the savings of a few beans, Palm crippled the LifeDrive's multimedia capabilities for playing video and audio from the internal drive.


 * In other words, Palm sent early reviewers LifeDrives with decent performance to get good reviews, then shipped production models with the slower Hitachi drives. I believe that's called bait and switch. Bizzybody (talk) 09:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

AC adapters
The LifeDrive will charge using the adapter or sync cable from any other Palm that uses the Athena connector. However, the indicator LED will only turn green if the adapter has the third contact on the top side (towards the screen) of the connector. The adapter that shipped with the Tungsten E2 does not have the third contact but will charge the LifeDrive. Like the E2, the LifeDrive will also charge from a USB connected sync cable, but at a slower rate than using the AC adapter. BTW, Dmitry Grinberg has released all his Palm Powerups Palm OS software as freeware. Bizzybody (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2013 (UTC)