GPS - it's just a computer innit?

[yoav]

And just like other computers, they occasionally freeze and only a prolonged press of the on/off switch will bring them back to life, but you lose the data you haven't saved. So, my question is, is there anything you can do to a Garmin 810 when it freezes without losing the current ride? I think the answer is no, but I'd thought I'd check with the cognoscenti.

[Feanor]

My 810 has frozen several times now, totally unpredictably.
Once after 24k, once after 70k, once after about 400k etc etc.

(Totally unlike my 800, where it would white-screen-of-death about 350k, which was predictable and work-around-able.)

But I've always managed to recover the data.
What I've found is that when the 810 crashes, it leaves a corrupted FIT file in the Activities folder.
It's only slightly corrupt: it's not been closed out correctly.  All the data is still present.
It won't show up under the Activities menu on the device, because it's corrupt.
However, it does show up when connected to the PC.

So for example on a recent 600, the my ride was in about 6 fit files, 2 of which were corrupt from crashes.
I copied the files onto my PC and ran them through the Fit File Repair Tool:

http://fitfilerepairtool.info/
(It's not free, but I've had good results with it.)

[Kim]

It's been downhill since the eTrex 'x' in this regard.  XML written to a write-only file on the SD card in parallel with internal memory was admirably bulletproof.  I've not had a problem with corruption of logs on the new eTrex, but I still don't trust it not to truncate things.  And the FIT binary file format is asking for trouble.

[yoav]

Thanks Feanor, I'll try that, though I'll need to find a Mac program or an online service as I don't have a PC.