..... ....

Odd. Latest firmware, I assume?

IIRC the external slot supports more voltages than the internal.

Make sure that the battery cover is closed, and also that you haven't lost that little magnet which tells the N800 the cover is closed.

It's a little square black thing some 2.5x3mm sitting in a depression between the latch and the corner of the piece of metal on the inside of the cover.

OMG! I have had the same problem for months now. I just looked, and sure enough, the magnet is missing!! It seemed like the case was a little loose, but I had no idea that might the problem.

Question is, how to get another one?

uhm.. Is it not this cover? http://www.mytrendyphone.no/shop/bat...kia-6671p.html

If it is attached to the battery cover it is possible to buy it separate

You could try to email salg@mytrendyphone.no ..

And even when it is a Norwegian e-mail.. Norwegians write/understand English also

Thankfully, I won't have to answer this question. I went to look carefully and there, tucked away inside just out of sight (threatening to go deeper into the machine) was the magnet! I pulled it out with tweezers, re-mounted it and voila, I 'have' an internal memory card again!

[rant]

Now, I love my N800, and I've been careful about how I criticize the product because I do believe in it so much, but I have to say, this is one of the very worst design flaws I've ever seen in any product.

What logical reason can there be for disabling the sd card when the little magnet is not in place? What is the function of the magnet? To hold the cover or 'enable' the SD card?

This is a serious usability issue, and it makes me wonder who was in the hardware specs review meeting where someone said,

"I think we should make it so that if the magnet on the back cover isn't in contact with the circuit board, then the internal SD card should be inaccessible. After all, it has to be that way because...."

Right. Engineers. I do hope this 'feature' hasn't been 'continued' in the N810

[/rant]

The magnet is there for a quite important reason: The N800 _must_ detect that you may be about to remove the SD card, before you actually do it. This is because it must unmount the card, which means to write any non-written data to the card first to avoid card corruption. This takes a non-zero amount of time.
When you close the cover it re-mounts the card.

This could of course have been done by some other way than a magnet, e.g. by a mechanical cover-closed detector, but that involves moving parts which sooner or later may stop working. A magnet is a quite elegant solution, if only the glue was a bit better..

For the external slot there _is_ a mechanical sensor, connected with the little latch that closes the SD slot.

Thanks, TA for this explanation. It does make sense to un-mount the card to avoid corrupting it

I guess my rant should be revised to place the blame on the person who decided that glue was the best way to mount the elegant little magnet! Or perhaps it is the person who ordered the cheap glue!