tomtom backup.

[tomhagg]

Hello,is it possible to backup my tomtom using mydrive as a few days ago I bought a map,and if anything goes wrong I dont want to be paying for another map.thankyou for any help.

 

[dhn]

You can't back up the map but it should always be available in your account if needed again.

 

[tomhagg]

You can't back up the map but it should always be available in your account if needed again.

thankyou for your reply,so whats the point in doing a backup

 

[Arno]

so whats the point in doing a backup

You cannot do a backup with newer devices, that use MyDrive Connect, as dhn mentioned already.

You were asking about backing up but no one suggested it.

 

[- et -]

thankyou for your reply,so whats the point in doing a backup

IF your device can be backed up, you would be able to back up personal POI files.

In simplistic terms, if you buy something (like a map) from TomTom, the ability to back up that item on your own computer might provide a method through which it could be copied to someone else's GPS. If you download it again from TomTom, it provides a little more protection against piracy.

- Tom -

 

[canderson]

Maps are still keyed to individual device serial numbers, so the piracy issue really hasn't changed.
As far as backing up goes, if he never purges the cache that MyDrive creates, if he ever needs to load that same map again, there won't even be a download from TomTom ... it's going to be installed from the cached copy.
Of course, with updates happening every quarter, new copies will get cached as well when downloaded, also becoming available. That's one of the things that makes map switching less painful --- MyDrive is smart enough to take a peek at what's on the hard drive of the PC where the map was originally downloaded.
So in essence, it's already backed up, though if that cached copy is ever deleted, a fresh one will be downloaded again as needed from TT's server.

To the OP:
Our recommendations regarding backup apply ONLY to the old Nav2 devices where it was possible to copy the full content of the unit to a PC. Back then, maps were NOT kept 'on account' on TomTom's server, and bummer if there was no backup and the map on the device was somehow deleted or corrupted! That particular backup advice no longer applies to Nav3 and Nav4 units (anything sold in the last few years).

 

[tomhagg]

thankyou very much for explaining to me.

 

[mgp roofing]

Users may well want to backup their favourites--otherwise, they will be lost if the device fails or is lost/stolen. Is there a way on more recent units?

 

[dhn]

You can backup the favourites (called My Places in the newer models) using MyDrive. See here:

http://download.tomtom.com/open/man...alnavigationinformation-MyDrive-CONNECTED.htm

 

[canderson]

Hard to get a copy off of their site back to the PC to edit, though. Am hoping some day that a mechanism for that is created. Meanwhile, one must depend upon the ability to manipulate that information on their web site.
Many of us keep our favorites in a single POI file to keep from having a huge list in MyPlaces that makes POI lists hard to locate under all of the favorites. Also offers the convenience of being able to edit the favorites as a POI file with 3rd party tools, then re-upload it to MyDrive for transmission to the TomTom device.

 

[tomhagg]

Hard to get a copy off of their site back to the PC to edit, though. Am hoping some day that a mechanism for that is created. Meanwhile, one must depend upon the ability to manipulate that information on their web site.
Many of us keep our favorites in a single POI file to keep from having a huge list in MyPlaces that makes POI lists hard to locate under all of the favorites. Also offers the convenience of being able to edit the favorites as a POI file with 3rd party tools, then re-upload it to MyDrive for transmission to the TomTom device.

thankyou,this is very helpful.

 

[canderson]

Guess a side note would be helpful to explain the rationale and process.

I have, for quite a long time now (back to about 2008) been keeping all of my favorites in a file called "_favorites.ov2". Note the underscore. That forces that particular POI to the top of any list since they're displayed alphabetically. Over the years, I have used several 3rd party tools to manage my favorites list, including one called POIEdit. Back in the 'old days', favorites would sometimes be lost due to the loss of a particular file on TomTom units during map updates, and the combination of having a local copy of my favorites on my PC and not having to worry about how recent my backup of that one file was got me started using the *.ov2 file for my favorites.

Afterward, I kept even more recent backups of things, but had no reason to change back to TomTom's way of managing favorites. Later, when we got to units that handled things in entirely different ways (especially these newer units, once custom POI were finally supported), I found even more benefit in keeping them in *.ov2 format due to the way all of the favorites were in the same list with all of the custom POI categories.

There's an upside for some users in not keeping all of the 'loose' favorites ... the fact that those users with many favorites discover that they're displayed all over the map, sometimes obscuring a lot of the other information on the map! That's not currently a problem with custom POI files.