Restoring Files after dead battery

[JCrou82]

I went away this weekend and I forgot my charger. In any event, the battery finally died out. Once I returned and charged it back up I had lost everything. I then synchronized with my PC and I was able to get task, contacts and dates back, but my XCel and word files won't transfer. My old partnership is on this PC still and I renamed the Pocket PC to match with the partnership, but still won't. Does anyone know how to resync a Pocket PC or force it to syn the files via some registration edit?

Thanks

 

[Nelviticus]

ActiveSync can get a bit funny when it comes to partnerships. Even though your device has the same name as before, ActiveSync thinks that it's a different device. What I have done in the past is note down my sync settings, disconnect the device, go to the 'file' menu in ActiveSync and select 'delete partnership', then re-connect the device and set up a new partnership.

If it still thinks that the old partnership exists, go into 'C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Microsoft\ActiveSync\Profiles' and delete the rogue folder.

As for your Excel and Word files, you can copy these over manually. Just click the 'explore' button in the ActiveSync application and you can navigate around your PocketPC and copy whatever files you like to it.

I certainly hope that Microsoft improve ActiveSync drastically in the next release as it's very flaky at the moment.

Nelviticus

 

[JCrou82]

Thanks for the post. But my issue is that when I modify the files on the pocket pc, they get synced to a whole nother folder on my desktop. There's no way to change the path of the synchronization folder, it's disabled. I could just move the folder, but then I have to change my data backup settings to include this new location. Is there another way?

 

[Nelviticus]

Aha. My apologies, I must have read your question wrong.

Anyway, the help file for ActiveSync says that the location of the sync folder is fixed and is based on the device name. Am I right in assuming that you're being forced to use a different device name than previously? If so then just follow my suggestion above for re-creating the old partnership, or maybe the following site can help you:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;259954&Product=pockpc

Sorry if I'm barking up the wrong tree!

Nelviticus

 

[JCrou82]

no no, it's the right tree just the wrong branch. Basically, I can sync my contacts, calendar and contacts, but my files which are at this path, g:\usera\my Documents\Mini-J MyDocuments, didn't get synced after the dead battery. So, yes I was forced to create a new profile, but this profile created a new folder at this path, c:\documents and settings\usera\my Documents\Pocket PC MyDocuments. Now, I could move the files from the G drive to the C: drive, but that would cause issues with my current back ups in the sense that the c drive isnt' being backed up and backing it up would take up too much disk space. I want to tell ActiveSync to use my G drive location instead of this C location. The other profile in active sync is still there, but it won't use this profile to sync. Each time it asks me to create a new profile/partnership, but uses a c path not a g path.

thanks

 

[Nelviticus]

Hmm, I'm not sure how you ever used a different path from the default in the first place, but a solution that *might* work is as follows:

- Disconnect your device and shut down ActiveSync. You might have to use task manager to do this.
- Back up your registry.
- Run regedit and do a search for the phrase "pocketpc my documents". This occurs twice in my registry in keys that point to the sync folder path.
- Change these keys to point to the folder you want.
- Copy all the files including hidden ones from the old folder to the new one.
- Cross your fingers, re-start ActiveSync and re-connect your device.

It might work and it might not - the fact that there's no option in ActiveSync for changing the path would suggest that other paths will cause problems, but the fact that it used to work OK for you suggest that otherwise.

It seems that the default sync folder is always in your desktop PC's "My Documents" folder, so if you're able to change the location of that you may also be able to move ActiveSync's default folder.

Nelviticus

 

[JCrou82]

Thank you nelviticus. I will try all of those options as soon as I get home tonight. I really do hope ActiveSync gets a remodeling so that syncing becomes easier instead of a pain as is now.

Thanks