I know this is a topic widely discussed and though I have spend countless hours looking for the problem, I can't figure out what it is I need to do to fix this problem/if there is a problem that can be fixed.
Firstly, I have the n800. Secondly I have become adept at reflashing the OS; trying to get this to work for me. The features of os2008 are the best as far as I know. I had a few questions concerning the fact that I am unable to create virtual memory. None of my cards are corrupt. I've reformatted my card many times over. I've reflashed in hopes it was a previously faulty reflash. Tried differnet OS. I don't usually open more than 2 programs at the same time, however the nokia doesn't seem to be able to handle pidgin and canola at the same time. I'm consistently manually removing my batter in order for it to shut off/reboot because everything freezes. When a program freezes and the screen of "BLANK is not responding, close application?" appears and I say "ok" and it closes, everything is still glitchy, and when i go to shutdown, gets to the white screen with "NOKIA" (like the first thing you see when booting up) and just stays there... indefinitely. in any case. I've tried reformatting my card with the nokia file manager. no luck. made sure that i have enough space (in fact made sure absolutely nothing was even on it just to try) double checked that it was NOT set to 'read only' and I'm just at a loss. I love my nokia for what I use it for (mostly media and email and a few games) i'm just at a loss and any help would be appreciated... is it an os2008 screw up? or is there a different OS that is 'better' for what i want to use this for? (i.e. pidgin (or gaim) email and a 'canola' type media center (mediabox on older OS maybe?) in any case, thank you in advance

Try this:

1. boot from internal flash.
2. have more than 128MB on your vfat mmc2, /media/mmc2, ready to create virtual memory.
if you can not format, then do:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0
sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM

to re-partition the mmc2

3. format /media/mmc2
4.create virtual memory on mmc2 (up to 128MB)

well tried to format (again) through file manager. Nothing that I can see. As soon as it's through formatting, the SD just disappears and won't reappear unless I manually restart (actually taking the battery out) because the screen gets locked at the white "NOKIA" screen.
Tried: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 and this is what happened;

/home/user # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0
dd: writing '/dev/mmcblk0': Input/output error
15753+0 records in
15752+0 records out

So just tried skipping ahead to sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM.
errors that it was in use etc. tried to force it through and this is what I got.
sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM --force
Checkingthat no-one is using this disk right now...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy

This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probably a bad idea
Umount all file systems, and swapoff all swap partitions on this disk.
Use the --no-reread flag to suppress this check.

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 30304 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track

sfdisk:ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/mmcblk0: unrecognized partition table type
Old situation:
No partitions found
Input in the following format; absent fields get a default value.
<start> <size> <type [E, S, L, X, hex]> <bootable [-, 8]> <c, h, s,> <c, h, s>
Usually you only need to specify <start> and <size> (and perhaps <type>).


what should I do? **still very confused**
I wouldn't think that this would be such a difficult procedure.

well tried to format (again) through file manager. Nothing that I can see. As soon as it's through formatting, the SD just disappears and won't reappear unless I manually restart (actually taking the battery out) because the screen gets locked at the white "NOKIA" screen.
Tried: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 and this is what happened;

/home/user # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0
dd: writing '/dev/mmcblk0': Input/output error
15753+0 records in
15752+0 records out

So just tried skipping ahead to sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM.
errors that it was in use etc. tried to force it through and this is what I got.
sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM --force
Checkingthat no-one is using this disk right now...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy

This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probasbly a bad idea
Umount all file systems, and swapoff all swap partitions on this disk.
Use the --no-reread flag to suppress this check.

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 30304 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track

sfdisk:ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/mmcblk0: unrecognized partition table type
Old situation:
No partitions found
Input in the following format; absent fields get a default value.
<start> <size> <type [E, S, L, X, hex]> <bootable [-, 8]> <c, h, s,> <c, h, s>
Usually you only need to specify <start> and <size> (and perhaps <type>).


what should I do? **still very confused**
I wouldn't think that this would be such a difficult procedure.

I think you have problems with the SD and I assume you have a windows PC. If you are not familiar with Linux please search more here and learn.

If you uses a Windows PC; you should also know how to partition/create drive ....
Here is how you do it (for a 2nd hard drive, or a SD card, a thumb USB drive, etc....)

1. Take the internal SD out and put it in an USB reader.
2. Connect the USB reader to a Windows PC
3. My computer -> Computer Management -> delete any partitions on the drive (the SD)
see here
4. If you want to use the SD as a FAT32 partition then you can create partition, format
with windows and put it back to the N800 to use it (create virtual memory (or swap area) again!)

and i have two computers one running xp, and another running jaunty. either way, nothing seems to be working. tried a fresh flash of os2008 again and now it at least see's how much space is available (to extend virtual memory) like if i have only 71MB free on my internal card it shows that the max i can use is 64. However I still am unable to create/resize virtual memory. maybe i actually have some slightly screwed up hardware?

if this would be easier to do running jaunty, let me know.

use gparted

... to simply reformat 100% to fat32? or do I need swap space or anything else?

100% fat32 will do.