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Hello,
During a survey session with a DistoX and Pocket Topo, PDA crashed.
I was forced to reset it, to allow continuing the session (thankfully, for safety, we have written the main stations data on paper)
But I want also to retrieve other data. But it's not possible with pocket topo software which don't download again data already transmitted, but lost in the crash.
Data are they still in the DistoX? marked as already transmitted?
Is there a way to recover this datas, eg directly from a PC with bluetooth connection.
Thank you in advance for any advice.
Thierry Marchand
Comité Départemental de Spéléologie
de la Corrèze - France

DistoX data and PocketTopo

Postby thmar19 » Nov 27, 2013 12:59 pm
Hello,
During a survey session with a DistoX and Pocket Topo, PDA crashed.
I was forced to reset it, to allow continuing the session (thankfully, for safety, we have written the main stations data on paper)
But I want also to retrieve other data. But it's not possible with pocket topo software which don't download again data already transmitted, but lost in the crash.
Data are they still in the DistoX? marked as already transmitted?
Is there a way to recover this datas, eg directly from a PC with bluetooth connection.
Thank you in advance for any advice.
Thierry Marchand
Comité Départemental de Spéléologie
de la Corrèze - France

Hi thierry,
data are still there, until you write them over ...
if you haven't already solved your problem, you can use my distox mem.dump util.
cheers, marco

thmar19 wrote:During a survey session with a DistoX and Pocket Topo, PDA crashed.
I was forced to reset it, to allow continuing the session (thankfully, for safety, we have written the main stations data on paper)
But I want also to retrieve other data. But it's not possible with pocket topo software which don't download again data already transmitted, but lost in the crash.
Data are they still in the DistoX? marked as already transmitted?
Is there a way to recover this datas, eg directly from a PC with bluetooth connection.

I don't know PocketTopo, but for having programmed a DistoX calibration app for PalmOS PDAs, I can tell you that the published Bluetooth protocol does not offer such an option. Once a measure has been sent from he DistoX and acknowledged by the receiver (PocketTopo in your case), it is marked as transmitted (and erased?) and becomes unavailable. You should ask Beat Heeb whether he has a specific recovery app that can still fetch these transmitted measures, provided they have not already been overwritten by new ones.

Regards,

just uploaded TopoDroid 2.0.1 which has some undocumented
distox memory functions.

quick intro to read old data:
tap the "disto" button
tap the "sdcard" button
turn distox on
tap "read" to get the buffer cursor(s) [not necessary but gives you a hint about what to write next]
write the range in the boxes besides "dump", eg. "dump" "31" "40"
tap "dump".

main tags: D data, M magn., G gravity

BIG WARNING: "reset" turns the data on for retransmission.
(ok it is a dangerous feature ... will add a confirm dialog :) )

NOTE memory addresses range from 0 to 4000
ANOTHER NOTE read a little chunk of memory at at time;
and do not let your disto switch off in the process.

cheers, marco

Hello,
Thank you very much !!!
I have just retrieved all the data already transmitted!
Greetings
Thierry Marchand
CDS19 - France