Lionel Dricot (aka Ploum) wrote: >> > Why can't I have access to the MMC card when USB is plugged ? >> >> You (actually your PC) _has_ access to the MMC card, I thought that was >> the whole point (apart from for flashing) > > but why is concurrent access not possible? Because of how USB mass storage devices and the FAT file system work. USB storage devices just make a "pile of sectors" available to the host - so what is happening is that the Nokia is allowing the PC to have sector level access to memory stick. Now, the first problem is that if the Nokia kept the file system mounted during this, and the PC wrote to the disk, then the data structures representing the file system to the VFAT layer in the Nokia would no longer match the actual file system - and you would get corruption. Now, in theory the Nokia could flush its buffers every time the host wrote, but that only solves half the problem - if the Nokia wrote to the file system the the PC would have no idea the file system changed, nor is there any mechanism in the USB mass storage protocol to so notify it - and once again you have file system corruption. You would have to force both parties to mount the file system read-only (not very useful).
