GPSrChive Discussion Forum

Yesterday, I went into Mass Storage Mode and extracted some tracks out of the GPSr as per normal.

Today, after I select to enter Mass Storage Mode when prompted, it displays the Garmin & USB symbol for anywhere between 8-12 seconds, then displays the power-off symbol and shuts down. I have tried this a dozen times and have yet to get into Mass Storage Mode.

I suspect the unit may have updated to 3.4 while it was connected yesterday.

Any thoughts of how I can get into the unit without wiping everything?

Are you sure the battery is charged?

yes, was showing 3 bars, and swapped it for a fully charged one and no difference

See the GPSMAP 66 Troubleshooting page for Forced Mass Storage Mode information?

Forced Mass Storage Mode isn't helping either. I hold the Up botton down and it displays the Garmin logo, then after around 10 secs, it either restarts (screen goes blank and then the Garmin logo appears again), or spurious lines appear on the screen and I have to use the power button to bring the Garmin logo up again. At no time have I seen the USB logo. I have the batteries and SD card removed. I did try and connect it to a different computer last night for the same result (ie problem seems to be computer independent).

Is there any other way to get tracks off the GPSr? Can they be somehow copied to the SD card as a GPX for example ?

I managed to get my tracks off via Garmin Explore, so I'm happy to wipe everything to recover this situation

steerage250 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:01 am I managed to get my tracks off via Garmin Explore, so I'm happy to wipe everything to recover this situation

You downloaded tracks already synced with Garmin Explore?

What method are you using to 'wipe everything'?

steerage250 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:01 am You downloaded tracks already synced with Garmin Explore?

What method are you using to 'wipe everything'?

I haven't tried to wipe everything - I was just saying I was happy to now do that if it was a suggested fault-finding technique (after I had downloaded my tracks from the Garmin website, that had been synced through Garmin Explore).

Sadly (happily?), the problem seems to be PC-dependant. I was away from home, and using my Microsoft Surface Go (which I have used MANY times before to connect to the GPSr. I also tried to connect it to my fathers desktop and it behaved the same. Now I am back at home, it works just fine when connected to my desktop, but not on others.

I summary:
- works OK on 1 Windows 10 desktop
- shuts-down on 5 others (3 x Windows 10, 1 x Windows 7, 1 x Windows 95)

I'm wondering whether the timing of the shutdown is related to when Windows recognises the "disks" and opens-up the 2 File Explorer windows (one for the internal memory, and one for the memory card). Each computer responds a bit differently, and with some variability in terms of timing, but the 8-12 or 14 seconds mark is probably about the right sort of time period.

Some recent windows updates certainly did affect how external disks are displayed in Windows Explorer....

as a fault-finding step, is it safe to use the firmware update procedure to revert back to version 3.1 ?