Why can't I connect by phone to my PC by USB? (Hard)

Factual Questions
1

I have tried for hours to get this working, and am on the verge of giving up, but thought I’d give it one last chance and try here. :slight_smile:

I just bought a Motorola V360 mobile phone. I’d like to connect it to my PC via a USB cable, so that I can transfer songs and video to it in Windows XP. My digital camera (a Canon A410) came with a mini-USB cable, which is the type of connection my phone has, so I want to use that cable to connect it to my PC.

Before I go on, I’ll add that I know my USB ports work fine, as my digital camera and USB printer both function normally. I also know that the USB cable is okay, as it works perfectly with the camera. Finally, I know that there is nothing wrong with the phone, as I have tried using a different phone of the same model and encountered the exact same problems.

Yet, when I connect the phone to the PC, I get nothing but errors. Browsing through the folders on the phone’s micro-SD memory card is extremely slow when it does work, and often doesn’t work at all. When it doesn’t work, I generally get one of two errors from Windows XP: either “The parameter is incorrect” (yeah, that’s helpful), or it tells me that an I/O error has occurred. These errors also come up in Windows Explorer when I try to transfer a file to the memory card. In addition, my event viewer is filled with errors of event ID 51 (“An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging operation.”) and event ID 11 (“The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\D.”).

Occasionally, things will work okay for a moment, and I’ll manage to get a file to the memory card, just very slowly. At least 90% of the time, though, I’ll get the above errors.

I have googled for this problem until the cows come home on ways to fix it, and I’ve tried everything I can think of. I have attempted to check the memory card for errors using chkdsk (although I never thought this would help, as I have tried two memory cards and it’s pretty unlikely both would have errors). Chkdsk would only get 1 or 2% way through its check before coming up with the same I/O error. I have tried copying to the memory card using the copy or xcopy commands from a DOS prompt, but they fail with the same I/O error (which I guess proves that the problem is quite low-level). I have played with every possible setting Windows offers for USB drives (especially the turning on and off of delayed writes). I have checked the amount of power that Windows claims is being provided to each USB device, but it reports that it’s receiving the full 500 mA. I have tried shutting down every single process that Windows would allow me to (as well as unplugging all other USB devices), to see if a process was using up some of my I/O bandwidth so that not enough was being left for the phone. Again, no difference.

I’d like to try this with another computer, but at the moment I don’t have another one available to me. Until then, does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Just

2

Grrr, I give my post a quick proof read, but I don’t proof read the title. Typical. Could a mod please change the title of the thread to “Why can’t I connect my phone to my PC by USB? (Hard)?” Thanks!

3

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because the USB cable for the camera is different than the one made for the phone, despite the similarity in the connectors. In a USB cable, there are four conductors: +5 V, Signal +, Signal - and Power ground. Ultimately, Signal - and Power Ground are connected to the same place, but they are separate in the cable. The reason for this is that in order to reduce interference and signal loss, the Signal + and and Signal - conductors are twisted together, just like telephone cabling. This twisting, for various reasons I won’t go into unless someone asks, is very important for maintaining data transfer speed and integrity. My guess is that in the Motorola V360 cable, the Signal - and Power Ground conductors are reversed from those in your camera. The cable will still kinda work, since the the connections all ultimately go to the right places, but not really very well at all–just like you’re describing. The fix, of course (assuming you do not want to do surgery on your camera cable) is to buy the proper cable.

4

You may also want to check with your vendor. According to one of the Amazon reviews the phone should come with the appropriate cable.

5

Good point. Check the box–if a cable is included it will usually be listed under the box contents. Thoroughly check all the packaging material; sometimes little accessories like that are well hidden. If it’s listed on the box (and even if it isn’t), but definitely not inside then you’ll want to go back where you bought it and ask them to give you one.

6

The USB connections I have seen on Motorola cameras are the same as most digicams, a wide industry standard. I don’t think the wiring is the issue but the protocal that the phone is designed for. Some cameras for example can be configured for point to point communicationa or as a storage device. The phone may not be made to communicate with a PC or without particular software.

7

Industry standard? Ha! Not when it comes to consumer electronics accessories. I’ve seen literally dozens of different configurations for USB connections on various cameras, phones, MP3 players and anything else you can think of. In any case, when it comes to blowing off standards and going hog wild with proprietary parts the worst two offenders in the consumer market are Motorola and Sony, in my experience.

8

Indeed. To quote from the manual (PDF!):

I would recommend getting a memory card reader for the card within instead of the Motorola Original data kit. You can get a little 6-in-1 or something from eBay for $10 plus shipping, as opposed to $19.99 for a Motorola cable and $29.99 for the Motorola software.

9

I had a issue like this w/ a verizon wireless phone connecting via a USB port, the cable that I bought from Verizon however was really a USB>serial adapter (I plug in the USB cable>popup found new hardware - Serial port 9 ready). So the phone only had a serial connection built in.

The problem was I set the data speed on the phone too high (something like 288k/s) and would get errors like you stated, selecting 144kb/s worked (along with 14.4 IIRC).

10

But does reading the memory card give you the same utility as the data kit? I’m not asking that to be rhetorical, I don’t yet own a phone with a removable memory card.

As for non-standard USB cables I’d be very suprised if the problem was identical plugs having different pinouts.

11

I wouldn’t. I have seen it–and not just with USB, either. However, that may not be the case here, if Bambi’s link is accurate. Nevertheless, it amounts to the same thing on Motorola’s part: using a proprietary construct for a part of the unit’s functionality in order to get more money out of the consumer. The software isn’t included, and it isn’t free.

12

Ditto on what kanicbird said, though my experience was with a Nokia at work. I spent the better part of two business days probing the pinouts on the phone and attempting to solder the plug from an old charger we had sitting around to one end of a USB cable.

Theoretically, I got everything right - both Windows and Linux recognized it as a USB device - but it turns out that the phone only had a serial interface with custom AT commands.

I managed to convince my boss to spend the fifty bucks on the damn Nokia-issued cable and software.

It’s all a giant rip-off, if you ask me.

13

I too have seen this before on Nokia phones: the cable may be special because it acts as a licensing device for Nokia DataSuite.

14

Which is really, really strange, given that most Nokia handsets that support Bluetooth support several profiles, including the ones that let you use software other than Nokia’s (such as OBEX file transfer and serial port). I’m surprised you had to pay for the software, though, as all of the Nokia handsets I have had have offered Nokia PC Suite for free in the phone box and for download, with only the cable to purchase.

15

No, it does not. It does let you move content on to and off of the card, but in order to do anything else you’ll need the cable.

For instance, my handset can sync my contacts, calendar appointments, text / media messages, pictures, sounds, and Internet bookmarks and perform backups through its data cable. All I can do with the card reader is move stuff to and from the card.

16

The cable is not enough, you need to buy Motorolas’ Mobile Phone Tools software for 30 bucks to enable it.

I get pics off my RAZR by setting up the bluetooth and pulling them onto my iPaq, then copying them to My Pictures.

17

Thanks for the replies. I should have mentioned this in the OP: I know of other V360 owners who are able to transfer files to the phone without any special software, and without a specific Motorola cable. In fact, one person has said they can transfer by USB using the cable that came with his Canon Powershot camera (although it may not have been an A410).

So, if others can transfer files to their phone without any special software, and with any mini-USB cable they happened to have lying around, is it still worth my buying another cable? (The only reason why I know of so many other people’s experiences is because this particular phone was made available here in Australia at an exceptionally good price, and I learnt about this one-off deal on a message board full of people sharing their experiences with the phone.)

18

The other possibility is that your service provider (Telstra? Not familiar with Aussie telcos) has disabled certain features in your phone. I have a dim memory (found it!) of Verizon removing certain data transfer features from a one of the Motorolas that they carried. Doing so allowed them to force their customers to use Verizon’s service to put pictures and sounds on the phone. It’s possible that your carrier has done something similar.

I would recommend seeing if you can find a copy of the software on eBay and trying that. I don’t think that the cable is proprietary, because I’ve had a couple Motorola handsets that used a USB - USB Mini cable I just happened to have laying around.

19

Nope, it’s not that. It’s true that the phone is branded by my service provider (it’s actually a V360v, the second v standing for Vodafone), but no other V360v owners I’ve spoken to online are having the same trouble as I am.