USB Connection modes

[ericsbcn]

Hi. I just got my new Droid X last week. I love it so far.

I've been playing with it a lot and have a lot of it figured out. But I was wondering about the USB connection modes. What is the difference between the modes?

- PC Mode.
- Windows Media Sync
- USB Mass Storage
- Charge only

Charge Only is self explanatory. And Mass Storage seems pretty obvious also: mounts the card as a disk on your computer.

But what about the other two? From what I can tell, the other two also mount the card. But it shows up as a separate "Droid" device in Explorer (I use Windows XP). And only a subset of the directories is visible. It also seems like you don't need to stop the device in order to disconnect the cable. Unlike with Mass Storage mode.

 

[TheJester34]

The PC Mode is for the internal memory on the DX. You have 8GB built in, so you use PC Mode to access it. And you don't have to unmount it. I believe it works like a UUSB drive. Unless you're accessing folder in it, you won't need to disconnect. Not real sure about the other one, though

 

[ericsbcn]

No, that's not right. When I use PC mode, I see the following folders, which are on the card:

- albums
- bluetooth
- dcim
- music
- pictures

 

[specmac]

Eric is correct. The internal 8 meg is not available for modification (internal use only to store apps and data).

- PC Mode - Access the SD card both for PC and Phone (does not dismount the SD card)
- Windows Media Sync - Allow sync with Windows Media Library
- USB Mass Storage - Access the SD Card from PC (dismounted from the phone)
- Charge only - Phone is charging from the PC, but PC cannot access the SD Card

For all modes, you should switch to "Charge only" before disconnecting the cable. This will avoid data corruption on the SD Card.

 

[hub_cap]

how do you switch to "charge only" before disconnecting?

thx