new (used) H10 20G -things I've learned

[pjjohnsen]

My first post.
I have an iriver 895 (2 actually), an iriver 899 (1 gig) and recently after a ton of
research, I purchased a used one off of ebay. I wanted to post a little information regarding some of the things that I learned from this board and other sources that may be helpful.
A little history:
1) H10-20G received in the mail, battery discharged. Battery fully charged via ac/dc converter.
2) H10-20G with a bunch of music and photos still on it, firmware rev 1.
3) H10-20G plugged into my home XP SP2 machine using UMS trick
(hit reset button with paper clip, hold the "O" button and power on H10).

4) Using Microsoft Sync Toy (available on the website, note: I had to install
the MS .NET 2.0 framework on my XP machine also-read the sync toy install
notes! -it's a decent tool, there are probably better ones), I made a full backup of the H10 before I changed anything. Side note: Sync Toy works
fine on 2 of my Win2k machines and I can load the H10 from them as well (not
via WMP 10 as that is not compatible with Win2K).

5) I downloaded the latest MTP firmware update tool from the global iriver
site (www.iriver.com), the tool (unlike the U.S. version at iriveramerica.com) has the ability for manual intervene, which
I will explain here. Being a software engineer and having used a modem up
until 2 years ago, I don't like software and (worse yet) firmware updating tools that depend on piping the data via the internet. I also like to have a copy of the raw firmware files on all my computers. So the global MTP firmware has a manual intervene step that let's you browse for the .zip file (which I also obtained V2.51US from www.iriver.com). That localizes your update of your player to your local machine, if you care. Note: this firmware update formatted (at least the FAT table within) the H10, so the player was empty with approx. 18.5 Gig of free space. SOOO, back-up your player before a firmware update.

6) Loaded my music:
I read somewhere regarding hints on battery life/efficient disk usage, that if you create a directory structure first and then populate it with the music
the H10 (or any player) will either use battery more efficiently or maximize disk space. This may be wrong as the FAT (File Allocation Table) is parsed or
read by Easy H10 each time and builds or rebuilds the database so I am not sure the validity of this, but anyway, I wrote 2 batch scripts, one to populate the directory structure and one to copy the music.
example 1 (each new mkdir on one line):
mkdir "E:\Music\favorites\ AC_DC\22-ACDC-1997-Bonfire\01-Live From Atlantic Studios"
mkdir "E:\Music\favorites\ Aerosmith\Aerosmith"
mkdir "E:\Music\favorites\ Aerosmith\Toys_in_th e_Attic"
mkdir "E:\Music\favorites\ Alice In Chains\Greatest Hits"
...
example 2 (each new xcopy on one line):
xcopy /s /q /y ".h10_bak\Music\favo rites\AC_DC\22-ACDC-1997-Bonfire\01-Live From Atlantic Studios\*" "E:\Music\favorites\ AC_DC\22-ACDC-1997-Bonfire\01-Live From Atlantic Studios\*"
xcopy /s /q /y ".h10_bak\Music\favo rites\Aerosmith\Aero smith" "E:\Music\favorites\ Aerosmith\Aerosmith"
xcopy /s /q /y ".h10_bak\Music\favo rites\Aerosmith\Toys _in_the_Attic" "E:\Music\favorites\ Aerosmith\Toys_in_th e_Attic"
xcopy /s /q /y ".h10_bak\Music\favo rites\Alice In Chains\Greatest Hits" "E:\Music\favorites\ Alice In Chains\Greatest Hits"
I would recommend a small try me first and you can even do a test
via mapping a network drive to a test directory as such:
make test directory C:\h10_test, map a drive letter E: (for example) to
C:\h10_test. Run your script and confirm your directory structure and
files are how you want them.

7) Used Easy H10 (it's a fantastic post-processing tool to keep your H10 aligned with the music you just loaded).
MAKE SURE you pick your version of the firmware in the
"Model and firmware revision:" drop-down list.

Also, this is the easy way to label your radio stations.
Wherever the Easy H10 application is installed, usually in
C:\Program Files\EasyH10, there exists a subdirectory "tuner". If you
create a file <your_city>_h10_stat ions.fmr and populate it like this:
# Specify the region (frequency band) for FM tuner.
# value = {0: Korea, 1: Japan, 2: Europe, 3: USA}
# The following looks like a comment line but does specify the region.
#$Region=3

# more comments...
92300000:kgon-rock
94700000:knrk-rock
100300000:z100-pop

...up to 20 stations names are supposedly limited to 10 chars (kgon-rock = 9)
(see attachment for Portland Oregon radio stations, rename
"pdx_radio_stations. txt" to "pdx_radio_stations. fmr")
Then select the "import" radio stations function from Easy H10. The file
you just created should appear in the drop-down list.
Thanks to:
http://www.pdxradio.com/pdxfm.htm

After your database is built, it is very quick to re-run EasyH10 and just
Update database, Update playlist, "none" for tuner after you get your
radio stations as you want.

8) I have a full copy of the H10 music directory on 2 of my computers (including a win2k machine). I use Sync Toy to manage/update the H10 by just copying new music into my copy on the C:\h10_2_5_1_backup.
I split the music directory into "favorites" and "new_music" to keep track.
Unfortunately, favorites takes up 17G, so I need some revision to make a
bigger "hole" for moving newer stuff on and off.

Conclusion/notes:
Player works great, I have not ever used Windows Media Player, I use Win amp (but not to sync with the player). So I use the UMS trick, sync toy,
easy h10 (all 3 over and over) to successfully interact with the H10.

Battery indicator is buggy, after I charge the player and the LED indicator
goes out, it can still show the same number of battery "bars" that it did when
I plugged it in to charge it (say 1 or 2 versus 4). If I reconnect it to the AC/DC charger and power on the player (the battery indicator is replaced by a charging icon) and then remove it the wall charger and it refreshes the battery indicator. I read this trick on this board, it works great.

Thanks to all the contributors. I wrote this mostly to inform that
the player works in "Emergency Connection" mode on win2k systems just
fine.

additional info:
Song names that begin with a <space> will not play on the H10:
e.g. " 01-Yes-Heart of the Sunrise.mp3"
Why would you start your files with a space? Odds are you would not, I "inherited" a number of them. Thought I'd share.