External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

I let my N800 fall on the ground the other day. It hit the ground hard, but there were no life threatening injuries, at least apparently. But the pop-out camera won't pop-in again anymore, for example, and the strangest thing is happening with the internal memory card.

I can still boot the Mer installed in the internal card, for example. And I can read and write files on its first partition, that I used to use for Maemo´virtual memory. But after the crash, Maemo won't detect the internal card anymore. It says it is unavailable, even though I can se it in the file manager. I have even re-formatted the partition from the file manager!... What can be going on?

I have noticed my fstab file is looking strange... Can someone post me theirs please?

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

Could the little magnet under the kickstand have popped out?

One end holds the kickstand closed, the other tells the n900 that the back cover is in place. Maybe only some software looks for the "back cover present" signal.

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

I am guessing something just like that!... Where exactly is this magnet located? (or should be)

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

take the back cover off and their will be a tiny square just below the clip that fastens itsshit that has a magnet in it (or should have) if it hasnt find a tiny magnet and place it in the gap just next to the card slot and it should redetect the internal card

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

Yeah, that slot is empty indeed. I'm looking for a magnet that fits... I don't have to care about the polarity, right?

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

shouldn have to, , best bet is try a magnet in to find out when/if it detects the card first (those fancy magnetic screwdrivers work well for it

can get picture of the location to put magnet if need be

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

nwerneck: check out the third post from this thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=5397). Someone lost the magnet and got it working by replacing with a magnet from headphones.

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

It sounds as though the magnet must be mwerneck's problem. For the sake of anyone else with strange internal-card behaviour after a fall, there is something else to look for. The slider that holds the card in place can move. Make sure that it is pushed all the way in the direction of the arrow.

Like mwerneck, I had no problem booting from the second partition of the internal card after dropping the N800. I have swap ("virtual memory") on a third partition of the internal card, and I don't know whether it was still active or not after the fall. In my case, the N800's strange behaviour was that the browser and Media Player would not save new bookmarks. The N800 said they were saved, but then they were not there when I looked for them.

To fix the problem, I tried to restore a backup, but got a message saying that the backup was not available. That suggested the internal card as a possible cause. I looked inside and found that the slider was all the way in the "out" position. After sliding it back in, everything worked again.

Re: External card unavailable for virtual memory after fall
 

You can see if there is a problem with back cover with this command in terminal:
# dmesg | grep mmc0

For example, now when I have Mugen 2400 mAh battery and its design flawed back door attached, it shows:
"[ 47.081634] mmc0: cover is open, card is now inaccessible"

I have a reclamation ticket waiting on Mugen. They promised to contact today, but nothing yet.

Hah, I just tried with a magnet and back door removed:
# dmesg | tail
[69147.354370] slide (GPIO 71) is now closed
[70042.612609] kb_lock (GPIO 113) is now closed
[70042.885528] kb_lock (GPIO 113) is now open
[71874.541870] mmc0: cover is closed, card is now accessible
[71875.041870] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
[71875.041931] mmc0: new high speed SD card at address b368
[71875.050201] mmcblk1: mmc0:b368 UD 968 MiB
[71875.050567] mmcblk1: p1

.... Then I took the magnet away:

[71893.135955] mmc0: cover is open, card is now inaccessible
[71893.331512] mmc0: card b368 removed

I'll say, it is a design flaw also from Nokia. Because of those magnets, there is no useful digital compass in N900 like in N97.