<< > An ATA card may install, format, and appear to function properly for a
while
> -- but one day when your batteries are just a little bit low, the flash
card
> will fail, and when it does it will take your data with it (both on the
card
> and in the OmniGo's ramdisk).
<< Has this happened to anyone? >>
Yes.
<<< My understanding of Flash Ram, is that no power is
required to maintain the memory (That why their is no battery backup on
Flash).
Shouldn't the systems low battery protection shut it down in time? For
things
to get this bad wouldn't the OGO Lithium battery backup have been close to
dead?
>>
On the OmniGo 100, a "low-power" register is enabled in SunDisk ATA cards
that might corrupt the data. During reads and writes it is possible to get
garbage on the line which can corrupt data files.
ATA cards, even with the low-power register enabled, draw a huge amount of
current when they're being accessed. If your batteries are at 2.6V or lower
(which is about 3/4 full on your indicator), ATA cards can cause a "critical
suspend" in the best case (meaning your OmniGo reboots) or a crash in the
worst case.
Steve