ROKR E1 problem

I just got the Motorola ROKR E1. It's nothing fancy, just an mp3 phone. I installed the 512MB flash card, but in iTunes, it only reads as a maximum of 241.6MB. I tried copying about 500MB of songs to it anyway, and after an hour of waiting (thank you USB 1.1), only 240MB of songs (35 songs) transferred before stopping.

Anyone know what might be going on? I installed that little black flash chip labelled "512MB" directly into the phone, and didn't know what to do with the SanDisk "adapter" thing that came with it, though it looks like the 512MB thing fits into that somehow.

I kinda dunno what's wrong or if I did anything wrong.

It isn't unheard of for those flash memory cards to be defective right from the manufacturer. I had a 512 MB USB flash disc that only showed up like 340 MB right out of the package. I'm thinkin it may have suffered an electrical shock, or maybe someone ran a magnet over it and corrupted it somehow. It's really hard to tell with flash memory, as it is really unstable...

What does your phone show it as in Free Memory?

free: 247328Kb
used: 248160Kb
total: 495488Kb

^ According to this, the flash card is fine, right? Maybe it's just iTunes screwing up, I have no idea.

I have not yet bought the ROKR but i would like to know if i have to buy Itunes inorder to listen to the music...cant i just take them off of my current downloader, limewire, or somting?

firstly.

NEVER use your phone as a flash card writer.

It's just too damn long.

Get yourself a multi card reader/writer., and slip your miniSD card into it's adapter., and insert THAT into the reader/writer (RW). Then do your will using the usb cable.

That is a way you can also test to see if everything is kosher.

Though not required...habitually you can train yourself., to always insert any flash card into it's intended device, and initiate a format. Once complete., you can take it out, and put back into it's RW....JUST IN CASE there're any bugs lying dormant on the circuitry.

So Once you get this RW to read your card, you'll know if it's the card that's fautly or the phone...(I'd guess card)

My 512 I got with Rogers Wireless for my v635i didn't need formatting, and it works fine.

so after all that crap I just typed off...DON'T USE YOUR PHONE AS A FLASH CARD WRITER!!!! Not stable enough, and not fast enough

bubble.tea: that requires me constantly opening and closing the battery cover of the cell phone whenever I want to change around the songs or what not. Not too efficient and causes wear of the phone.

how many remove/replace cover cycles you thing Motorola has tested their units on?

100 cycles? 1000, 10000cycles? I think it's upwards of a thousand. So basically if you change your songs/offload pics/download more games/wallpapers once a week (which if you're a freak like me you'll do for the first year)...then after that the novelty'll wear off...and you'll be damned if you have the urge to "play with your cellphone" more than once a month

Anyway., I dont' know technically if write speeds are faster with the rokr than with my v635...but if not...I'll be damned if I EVER try to copy songs via the phone.

Pretty sure it's just as slow. Seems slower than even USB 1.1 should be.

Is there any way to just transfer songs to the flash card using Windows Explorer (i.e. drag & drop)? Normally I'd think there would be, but I don't know how the directory structure of the Flash/phone works and I don't want to screw anything up.

I just buried into the phone's folder's through XP, and found 3 folders:

F0 (94.5MB 12 files)
F1 (71.8MB 11 files)
F2 (74.6MB 12 files)

All my songs also have weird 4 letter filenames, lik AUCB etc. Is it even possible to drag & drop without screwing up iTunes on the phone?

to use the itunes software you HAVE TO copy the mp3s via the phone...Req'd to append the proprietary information into the software.

If you simply add the mp3 to the flash card, it WON'T be imported/updated in iTunes...

pretty much a brain-fart iyam.

Robertozi, you can use ANY MP3s you have and put them on your rokr. But I would not recommend this phone at all. I went out on a limb and used it instead of a nokia this time. I don't think I could be more disappointed. iTunes sucks, the phone is slow, it's also delicate. Cingular is sending me my third one now because of defects. You do not have to buy iTunes, but that isn't enough for me to recommend this to anyone.

You don't have to buy iTunes either way... It's downloadable for free, is it not?

I still want to know conclusively... do I need iTunes to copy mp3s to the phone? Or is there some way to do it manually reliably?

You do need iTunes in order to do this. Unfortunately there is no drag-and-drop method. Hopefully it'll be better with the next ROKR.