Explain my phones USB Intricacies.

February 12, 2006 2:14 AM

I just bought a Sony Ericsson K750i Mobile Phone, and I love it. But I have some questions in regards to the Memory Stick and the Memory Stick Duo Adaptor that comes with the phone.

Before we begin, yes, I've read the manual. And my Google-fu has failed me on this occassion. Out of desperation, I'm turning to my fellow Mefites.

To begin with, here's a picture of the Memory Stick Duo Adaptor that comes with the phone.



I'm unfamiliar with Memory Stick technology, so my first question is... where the heck does this thing plug in? It certainly dosen't fit into the slot on the phone where the memory stick is plugged into. So what is the adaptor used for, and where (or what) do I plug it into?

My second question relates to transferring pictures I've taken with the phones camera and saved onto the memory stick via the USB computer to my computer.

Put simply, I can't do it! As soon as I plug the USB cable into the phone, a message appears on the phone's screen telling me that the Memory Stick is unavailable, meaning I can't transfer any of the photos I saved onto the stick to my computer. As soon as I unplug the USB cable, the emory stick once again becomes available. I can use the phone to e-mail the pictures saved on the memory stick to my home e-mail account, so I'm assuming that the memory stick is fine. But that costs money, and I'd prefer to save both time and money simply by transferring files via the USB cable. So what am I doing wrong? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

posted by Effigy2000 to Technology (10 answers total)

Best answer: The memory stick your phone uses is smaller than the standard memory stick size that Sony has been using for years.

Since a large number of Sony laptops (and many all-in-one card readers) support only the larger size, the k750i comes bundled with this adapter to allow you to use the duo format with them.

If you don't have either of the above then it won't be much use to you.

I can't help you with your USB problem, but buying an all-in-one flash memory reader is one (albeit not free) way of potentially solving the problem.
posted by mr_silver at 2:42 AM on February 12, 2006

Best answer: You plug the Memory Stick Duo into the adaptor and then you can put it into a regular memory stick slot - like the one in my Vaio for example. If you don't have anything else that uses Memory Stick media you have no use for the adaptor.

Regarding the problem with the USB cable, I can only tell you that it works for me. Perhaps you could try installing the latest drivers. There's no setup file in the archive so you'll need to go to "Add new hardware" to update.
posted by teleskiving at 2:46 AM on February 12, 2006

Another suggestion: you will see the message "memory stick not available" if your lens cover is open when you plug the phone into the PC. This is because the memory stick is locked out for other uses when it is made accessible from the PC. That in itself would not prevent you from downloading pictures but it is possible that the drivers are not installed properly and that you are attributing this problem to the (slightly misleading) message from the phone.

I suggest Settings->Control Panel->Add Hardware->Next->Yes I have already connected->Next and make sure that you can see Sony Eri Memory Stick USB device in the list. If the device is not installed properly you'll probably see it at the top of the list with the little "warning" sign on it and you can just install the drivers as described above.
posted by teleskiving at 2:56 AM on February 12, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks teleskiving. The driver does appear to be installed properly, but I still can't access pictures on the memory stick. I tried installing the drivers from the link you provided, but WinXP tells me that there's no drivers in the location I extracted those files to that are better than the ones already installed.

Big thanks also to mr_silver, for explaining what the adaptor is used for. I can now rest a little easier now that I know this.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:21 AM on February 12, 2006

What happens when you plug the phone in to the USB port? Anything? It's always worth trying another port, I've had so many weird problems with USB devices.
posted by teleskiving at 3:24 AM on February 12, 2006

I mean, does the computer show any signs of recognizing the device at all?
posted by teleskiving at 3:25 AM on February 12, 2006

Response by poster: Well, it says "charging", which at first worried me, but acording to the manual the USB cable can also draw power from the computer to recharge the phones battery, so I assumed it was simply doing both.

I can drag files to and from the phone's own internal memory, and when I do so the phone's display says that its doing that, but it dosen't do much else at all.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:28 AM on February 12, 2006

Response by poster: Oh, and as for the computer, there is a sound that plays when I plug the phone in, and there's two new icons down near the clock, named "Mobile Phone Monitor" and "Safely Remove Hardware", the latter of which contains a tree that reads USB Mass Storage --> Sony Eri Memory Stick USB Device --> Generic Volume (H:).
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:32 AM on February 12, 2006

On my computer, only the internal memory shows up under "My Sony Ericsson K750i". To access the memory stick, I need to open the removable drive (H: on your computer) from "My Computer". Is it there?
posted by teleskiving at 3:48 AM on February 12, 2006

Response by poster: Bizzare. It is there now. I suspect that the reason for that is when I unzipped the new driver files to my hard drive I right clicked on one of the files to install them, but I didn't think anything happened because, well, nothing seemed to happen. But perhaps it installed the new drivers, which is why WinXp said there were no drivers in that location better than the ones installed, ergo why I can now access files on the memory card.

Thanks for your help teleskiving! :)
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:57 AM on February 12, 2006