Talk:Developers/Issues

Filled entire XO Memory with USB drive and froze XO.

We were using the XO for 24 hours when we froze up the startup screen. What happened was, we used a 1GB USB Flash drive filled with many files to transfer a couple of games from the http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities#Games page and inadvertently filled the entire XO memory because - we think - we did not use the “Unmount” command in the XO journal to remove the USB drive. Many attempts to restart the XO failed, with only one dot showing on the startup screen. After searching throughout the XO wiki, we found information about using the game keys to see the opening information. The command list froze with a line saying something like “No memory available.” During one of the startups pushing some combination of game and start buttons, we got a grid screen entirely filled with green and about 6 or 8 short blue lines.As the XO was brand new, we downloaded the 653 system files from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activated_Upgrade and reloaded it onto the XO, erasing everything on the computer. We watched the Grid screen fill to about one-third with green dots, and now realize that we saw the Memory Screen earlier filled to the brim Now theXO operates fine.

Two notes: From using USB Flash Drives for a couple of years, it is quite ordinary - and habit forming - to just unplug the USB drive rather than Unmount the drive, without any residual effects. Perhaps if we had “Unmount”ed the USB drive, we would not have seen this memory load-up. The XO had stalled - or appeared to stall - when we were loading a 3MB game called “TuxPaint” and at some point we either shut-off the XO or unplugged the USB to get back to the main screen. [FYI, the large 653 file took about 3.5 hours to download from the wiki Activated-UpGrade web page.]

When we reloaded the 653 files, we first backed-up and then trashed everything on the 1GB USB Flash Drive before loading the downloaded files. When we loaded the USB drive in the XO Journal, all of the original USB file names were showing with a white icon plus the new files with color filled in icons. I thought we had cleared the USB drive before using it again, but the Journal showed many, many files. We unmounted the USB drive before removing it this time.

The XO is now working fine. Please add some information about using the “Unmount” menu to remove an external USB drive rather than just using the usual unplug method, or add some automated removal process when a drive is unplugged without unmounting it. Perhaps we bring too much knowledge to using a computer which caused the memory fillup.

Thanks for a great computer tool for kids and families - energy friendly and light friendly and kid size friendly - and we are glad to be part of the “Give One, Get One” program.