Booting-up with or without the Mobile Connect card inserted?

[Terencek]

Now that's interesting -- and worrying...! Page 28 of the new Vodaworld magazine insists that we should "Never insert your Vodafone Mobile Connect Card/USB modem before starting up your computer, and never restart your computer while your Vodacom Mobile Connect Card/USB modem is inserted in your computer."

Oh dear. Like many users my card stays permanently inserted in my laptop, and has happily survived hundreds of boots and restarts. It has not yet evaporated in a puff of expensive smoke.

Is this something new? Is it real? Would be interesting to hear the rationale from someone in the know....

 

[Iam3G]

It doesnt really make a difference.

Only thing that could happen is that(if you PC is set to boot from another device) your PC wont boot up. It happens to me alot with customers and when i plug it out it continues to boot.

I havent seen anything bad happen while its left plugged in.

 

[ic]

It doesnt really make a difference.

Only thing that could happen is that(if you PC is set to boot from another device) your PC wont boot up. It happens to me alot with customers and when i plug it out it continues to boot.

I havent seen anything bad happen while its left plugged in.

Yep, that's the only reason I can think of for waiting until after the OS has loaded before inserting an E220 - in that the BIOS might be set to try and boot from a USB CDROM drive.

I'm surprised that malware miscreants haven't already come up with some malware that stores itself on an E220 and attempts to do its thing when the BIOS attempts to boot from an E220.

Now that's interesting -- and worrying...! Page 28 of the new Vodaworld magazine insists that we should "Never insert your Vodafone Mobile Connect Card/USB modem before starting up your computer, and never restart your computer while your Vodacom Mobile Connect Card/USB modem is inserted in your computer."

Oh dear. Like many users my card stays permanently inserted in my laptop, and has happily survived hundreds of boots and restarts. It has not yet evaporated in a puff of expensive smoke.

Is this something new? Is it real? Would be interesting to hear the rationale from someone in the know....

Unlike yourself, I always attach my E220 via USB cable after I have logged into my PC - in Windoze I used to wait until all the startup processes etc were running - my reasoning [in particular with Windoze which I no longer use] is that it's best not to give the OS too many things to deal with all at once, but I am also known for being over-cautious.

 

[ginggs]

Now that's interesting -- and worrying...! Page 28 of the new Vodaworld magazine insists that we should "Never insert your Vodafone Mobile Connect Card/USB modem before starting up your computer, and never restart your computer while your Vodacom Mobile Connect Card/USB modem is inserted in your computer."

I have a friend whose computer (a brand new Athlon64 PC with Asus motherboard) could not boot with his E220 connected. He had to boot up the PC, and once Windows was running, connect the E220.

It wasn't a Windows problem, it happened during the boot process, I suspect the BIOS was confused by the E220's CD-ROM device.

After flashing the E220 with MTN's 7.2Mbps upgrade, the problem went away.

 

[Terencek]

And what about emergency stops?

While we're on the subject, the same new Voda magazine also warns against doing 'emergency stops' with the card -- i.e. ejecting it without going through the 'Safely Remove Hardware' procedure. I also err on the side of caution and do the whole schlepp -- but I know many folks who can't be bothered and just hit the eject button after disconnecting and closing the software.

Hazardous?

 

[Iam3G]

While we're on the subject, the same new Voda magazine also warns against doing 'emergency stops' with the card -- i.e. ejecting it without going through the 'Safely Remove Hardware' procedure. I also err on the side of caution and do the whole schlepp -- but I know many folks who can't be bothered and just hit the eject button after disconnecting and closing the software.

Hazardous?

Possibly. Although i go the old route(safely remove hardware), i advise customers to do the same, but when they ask me if they can also just pull it out, then i say its ok too.

This is especially true in Vista, where after the installation, it removes the option to safely remove.

 

[ginggs]

While we're on the subject, the same new Voda magazine also warns against doing 'emergency stops' with the card -- i.e. ejecting it without going through the 'Safely Remove Hardware' procedure. I also err on the side of caution and do the whole schlepp -- but I know many folks who can't be bothered and just hit the eject button after disconnecting and closing the software.

Hazardous?

I would say only to your OS; I find these cards often don't detect again properly until after a reboot (or stopping and starting your USB and/or PCMCIA controllers).

 

[ic]

Again, this is where I'm overly-cautious with anything attached via USB & I prefer the "safely remove" road to the presumably more hazardous & more travelled road taken by many people I know.

IMO USB Flash Disks|Drives tend to need the safely remove operation to commit any buffered or write-delayed data before removing the device.

It probably isn't necessary for modems, although I wonder if SIM Cards might suffer over time with a repeated and unexpected loss of power.

This is especially true in Vista, where after the installation, it removes the option to safely remove.

I'm sure the same is true with heXPee and say the drivers that are packaged with HMC|HMP for use with an E220.

 

[vodacom3g]

Must say,I'm pretty gung-ho about this. I plug things in and remove them without using any of the 'safe' options.

So far, nothing's broken.

 

[Iam3G]

Must say,I'm pretty gung-ho about this. I plug things in and remove them without using any of the 'safe' options.

So far, nothing's broken.

Concerning the E220's and the Data Cards i've come across, nothing seems to have been broken.

But i cant say the same for my external Hard Drive though. On countless occasions i accidentally just plugged out the power without safely removing it, or accidentally plugging out the USB cable without notice, all this without using the safely remove option. It eventually gave in.