Damaged files on Windows Mobile

Question

I'm in need of help. The situation is the following: We have a software that runs on Windows Mobile 5 and 6. It is deployed in around 15 cities on different devices (Motorola MC35, MC55, MC65, MC75, MC75A, ES400). It works perfectly fine everywhere except in one city. They have MC75A devices and every once in a while we get a helpdesk about our software disappearing from the device.

The most interesting part is when we log in to check the device, all we can see is a damaged/corrupted file system and the OS, which is set back to default. We tried to reconstruct the problem here at our company, but we find it impossible. I'm wondering if anyone has ever bumped into this.

I'm gonna attach two images of the corrupted file system.

We use custom windows settings and AppCenter to protect the operating system from our customers. (They shouldn't be able to modify any settings on their own).

Answer 1

In general such corruption happens when the driver is interupted saving changes to the file system.

That can happen, for example, when a high priority thread consumes all cpu times. It may also happen, when the device is hard reset, for example by taking the battery out during thed river is writing to the file system.

A low battery normally cannot result in that corruption: a) as the device shuts down itslef with critcal battery power and b) the file system is in flash RAM (in contrast to Windows Mobile 2003 and before) and does not need battery power to hold data.

It is also possible that there is a bad behaving process doing these corruptions.

As you say you see this only in one city: What is the main difference with the devices there? Are others also using the same device? Maybe the device series itslef or there firmware is faulty (contact symbol/motorola for new firmware or patches to the 'disk' driver) Are the users in that area doing special things to the devices that others do not? For example remove the battery when they mean the device does not react? Is the MC75A used in other areas and there it does not show the corruption?

You see, you have some more items to examine a rule for the corruption?