TT go 720 won't boot

Joined
Aug 24, 2012
Messages
2
Location
belgium
TomTom Model(s)
go 720
i think i have format my tom tom drive,

When i turn on my tt i get a picture of my tt and a harddisk and there is a red cross blinking
i have no backup of my tt :-(((
 
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Do NOT ... repeat ... DO NOT format your unit if you have no backup. At a MINIMUM, we need to find a map for your unit somewhere, either on the unit or on your PC. With that, we can do almost anything.

When you connect your 720 to your PC, can you still see it as a hard drive? If you can see it, please look into it to see if there is still a Western_Europe folder on the unit. If not, we'll have to see if there's one anywhere on your PC.
 
Do NOT ... repeat ... DO NOT format your unit if you have no backup. At a MINIMUM, we need to find a map for your unit somewhere, either on the unit or on your PC. With that, we can do almost anything.

When you connect your 720 to your PC, can you still see it as a hard drive? If you can see it, please look into it to see if there is still a Western_Europe folder on the unit. If not, we'll have to see if there's one anywhere on your PC.

no, i don't see my tt on my pc, only when i use total commander then can i see the hard drive but i can not reed it or anything, it is like a not formated hard drive
 
While the unit is connected to your PC, try pressing the reset button in the bottom of the unit (gently) with a paperclip or similar. Be sure you're using the original cable that came with your TomTom if possible, and if your PC has front and rear USB ports, please use one of the rear ports.

If we can't get things to where your PC can at least see your unit, there's not a whole lot we can do.
 
When canderson says "there's not a whole lot we can do", he's maybe being a BIT pessimistic, but we do need to get the 720 recognised as a hard disk drive by your PC before we can proceed.

If you are sure you have an empty, unformatted drive, then go ahead and format it to FAT32 - don't use any "quick format" options, do a full format, but it MUST be to FAT32.

Once you've done that, try saving a test file to it (any text file will do) and see if you can read it OK.

IF NOT - it is very possible that the internal memory has failed permanently.
This is quite a common fault on the x20 models, I have a Go720 where it died ages ago, in which case even after a re-format you will not be able to save a test file to the memory.

If that's the case, then you can run the entire system off an SD card instead. You will need to buy something like a 4GB SDHC card, Class 6 or above.

--------

Once you can see the internal memory as a drive OR you have a decent SD card installed, and can save files to it, we can then walk you through reinstalling the operating system files and all the free stuff like voices (using TomTom "Home" or by manual file copying), but if you have formatted the device without making a backup first, then your vital map is gone forever and TomTom will not replace that for free.

To buy a new map for Europe will cost around 60-75 Euros.
Let us know if you want to proceed, and we can get the rest of it working first.
 
@Andy
"If we can't get things to where your PC can at least see your unit, there's not a whole lot we can do"
What can we do if we can't get his device recognized as a drive by his PC? That's critical to accomplishing anything, including the formatting of the unit, if it comes to that.
 
What we can do?

At least one and possibly two things:
1. I've no idea what total commander is, but it's not totally clear if the PC is not seeing theTT at all, or only seeing it as an unformatted drive.
Maybe when it is formatted, the PC will "see" it.

But I suspect that it's dead memory chips, so

2. add an SDcard....
My Go720 has defunct internal memory and that's not recognised as a drive by my PC any more at all. But it works fine with everything dumped onto SD.
 
Total Commander is a Window Explorer file manager replacement. Personallly,I use PowerDesk, never Explorer.
 
Adding an SD card works when some part of the internal memory is hosed, but if the block of flash memory that contains bootloader is dead (one quick way to make the device unrecognizable as a drive to Windows - which I may have badly assumed is what the OP is trying to tell us), adding an SD card won't solve that. The initial USB dialog is a function of the bootloader code.

Installing a fresh SD card is the same as formatting the internal memory (when it's working). Both still depend upon the integrity of the boot code. When an SD card is used in lieu of internal memory for the application, the device doesn't really boot off the SD card, it boots from a boot block that isn't available to the OS as part of the memory system, then grabs the application from the SD card. So when we talk about 'booting off the SD card', that isn't entirely accurate.

If the OP's PC really CAN see his unit as a disk drive, then I'm all wet and it's another story altogether.

Either way, unless/until we can get that unit to be recognized as an external storage device by Windows, we're not going to be able to do anything with it. So we need more info from him to focus on that, if it's actually the problem. We need to be able to get it connected well enough to recover his map (unless we can find it on his PC because he says he has no backup - though he may have the original from a LMG) or he's out the price of a new map, too.
 
2. add an SDcard....
My Go720 has defunct internal memory and that's not recognised as a drive by my PC any more at all. But it works fine with everything dumped onto SD.
That's an interesting state of affairs. The initial USB negotiation between the host (your PC) and the device determines whether the device claims to be an external storage device and it is at that point that it is treated as such by the host via a USBSTOR driver, etc. That USB negotiation is managed by the bootloader, not anything in the unit's file system -- which is why you can format it and still have it function as an external storage device. Is it that the PC sees it as a corrupt external storage device (that I would readily understand), or refuses to deal with it at all? I'd be curious to know what USBDeview makes of it with the SD card removed. That utility doesn't require that there remain any sort of integrity to the file system at all, but will identify what the device claims itself to be.

If the device appears to be a corrupt storage device, Windows should be hollering about formatting it, but still recognize it.
 

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