The Navigon 6310 is a personal navigation assistant, PNA, which runs the Mobile Navigator software (MN7.5.9) from Navigon on top of its Windows CE 6 operating system. One hugh flaw in the default setup is that it is not possible to backup the favorite destinations one has saved in the device as they are stored in an internal memory. This article describes how you can retrieve the Favorites.store and RecentTargets.store files and modify the Navigon software so the files are stored in a more accessible place instead (e.g. the internal flash drive or the memory card, both which can be accessed through USB).

First of all, a word of warning: modifying files in your PNA might break the device, perhaps even leaving it bricked. Be careful and always backup your device before attempting to fiddle with it, I will not be held responsible for any device failures due to someone following these instructions.

Extracting the Favorites.store and RecentTargets.store files

If you have a new device (or one that has been hard reset), you can skip this section and move on to the next one (as there is no file of interest to be retained). If you have saved favorite destinations in your device, follow the steps below to retrieve the file from the internal memory. Before you begin, make sure you have a memory card (micro sd/sdhc) since it’s needed during the process. In short, the steps involve downloading a third party program which will run a script to copy the Favorites.store and RecentTargets.store files to the memory card.

1. Ensure you have a Micro SD or Micro SDHC card inserted into your Navigon 6310 device
2. Connect your Navigon device to your computer via USB and turn it on (so the internal flash drive and the storage card become accessible from your computer, as “NAVIGON” and “NAVIGONSD” respectively)
3. Download MioPocket (I downloaded MioPocket 4.0 Release 68) and extract the zip-file to a local folder on your computer
4. Copy MioAutoRun.exe, MioAutoRun.mscr and MortScript.exe to the root of the memory card
5. Rename MioAutoRun.exe and MioAutoRun.mscr to UpdateMe.exe and UpdateMe.mscr respectively
6. With a text editor (no unicode!), edit UpdateMe.mscr so it only contains:

   # See "NAVIGON"/NAVIGON/Settings/ApplicationSettingsPathes.xml (see under <Favorites>), enter the corresponding filenames below:
   FavoritesLocation = "/MN Settings/Favorites.store"
   RecentTargetsLocation = "/MN Settings/RecentTargets.store"
   
   # Specifies where the files will end up after being copied
   Drive = "\"&Part(SystemPath("ScriptPath"),"\",2)
   FavoritesDestination = Drive\"Favorites.store"
   RecentTargetsDestination = Drive\"RecentTargets.store"
   
   # Copy the files
   Copy(FavoritesLocation, FavoritesDestination, TRUE)
   Copy(RecentTargetsLocation, RecentTargetsDestination, TRUE)
   
   Message("Files should now have been copied. Remove the memory card from the device and perform software reset (with a pen or similar, press the 'reset' button on the bottom of the device) before reconnecting it to your computer.", "Note")
   
   Exit

7. Properly disconnect (eject) the NAVIGON and NAVIGONSD drives from your computer and disconnect the USB cable from the Navigon device , this will cause the device to restart and automatically run the script above which results in the following output: 
8. Remove the memory card from the Navigon device
9. Perform a software reset (with a pen or similar, press the small “reset” button at the bottom of the Navigon 6310) and wait until it has restarted (do not insert the memory card yet, since that would cause it to hang on the same screen again)
10. Again, connect the Navigon device to the computer via the USB cable
11. Insert the memory card into the Navigon device (it should thereafter appear in your computer)
12. The contents of the memory card should now look like the following (the RecentTargets.store file is missing since I hadn’t done any travels since the last hard reset which I performed in order to start with a “fresh” system): 
13. Now, remove or rename the UpdateMe and MortScript files in order to prevent them from being run when restarting the device or later removing and inserting the memory card
14. Done, your favorites and recent destinations/targets are now copied onto the memory card.

This post does not cover how to extract previously saved Routes.

Change storage location of the Favorites.store and RecentTargets.store files as well as Routes

First, one must decide where to store the favorites as there are two options; either in the internal flash drive (NAVIGON) or on the storage card (NAVIGONSD). Both are accessible via USB, so it comes down to what you prefer. I’ve decided to store the favorites (and recent destinations) in the internal flash drive so I don’t have to have a memory card inserted in order to run it.

1. Connect the Navigon device to your computer via the USB cable
2. Move the Favorites.store and from [NAVIGONSD]/Favorites.store to a location of your choice, I’ll go with [NAVIGON]/NAVIGON/Favorites.store (directly in the “main” NAVIGON folder)
3. If you have one, move the RecentTargets.store file correspondingly
4. Edit [NAVIGON]/NAVIGON/Settings/ApplicationSettingsPathes.xml, change the <Favorites> line from <Favorites>/MN Settings/Favorites.store</Favorites> to:

   <Favorites>./Favorites.store</Favorites>

   “./” corresponds to the [NAVIGON]/NAVIGON folder. If you would like to store the favorites file on the memory card, use for example /Storage Card/somefolder/Favorites.store.

5. Edit [NAVIGON]/NAVIGON/Settings/ApplicationSettingsPathes.xml, change the <RecentTargets> line from <RecentTargets>/MN Settings/RecentTargets.store</RecentTargets> to:

   <RecentTargets>./RecentTargets.store</RecentTargets>

6. Edit [NAVIGON]/NAVIGON/Settings/ApplicationSettingsPathes.xml, below <Routes> change the <Path User=”writable”> line from <Path User=”writable”>/MN Settings/Routes</Path> to:

   <Path User="writable">./Routes</Path>

7. Save the ApplicationSettingsPathes.xml file
8. Unmount/Eject the NAVIGON and NAVIGONSD drives and disconnect the USB cable
9. Done. Test it out by adding some favorites and ensure the modification date and file size is changed accordingly (or use a Hex editor to ensure your newly added favorites are saved).

How to perform a hard reset

Just as a reminder to myself, how to perform a hard reset: keep the power button pressed for ten seconds or so until “Factory reset” appears on the screen.