banging my head against the wall trying to create a new 120 GB DMS

[chico]

I've been working with VorTechS on creating a new DMS with the PhatHack Tools (v 2.11) , but due to the myriad issues I've run into I thought a post was warranted. Keep in mind that I'm creating a new DMS to have on hand in addition to the original 20 GB DMS that came with my Phatbox, so I do have a working DMS. I've already hacked my phatbox using the PhatHack tools. That went quite smoothly. I'm running the x86 environment of Windows Vista on my main PC, and I have an older, much slower, PC running Windows XP. Initially I had a problem with Vista even recognizing the new drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136130) as a USB device. I've installed a hotfix for Vista, and it cleared that problem up. I have noticed, however, that it still takes Vista much longer to recognize the drives on the DMS after I've created a new DMS with the PhatHack tools. For comparison, it takes XP about 30 seconds on my old computer to recognize the drives and it takes Vista about 20-30 minutes to do the same. Is that a function of the 111 GB FAT32 partition that houses the PHTDATA drive? If so, how do I address that?

The other main issue I've had is that, upon recognizing the newly created DMS, PMM 3.92 and PMM 1.87 both say that there is no headunit selected for the DMS. The headunit in my car is the VW Premium VI headunit, and I've created the new DMS with the VW 7.02 firmware, which is what is on my original DMS. I have looked at the CurrentSetup.xml (I think that's the correct file name, but I'm at work and can't check) from my original DMS and noticed that there is a field that specifically lists the headunit. I've added that to the CurrentSetup.xml file on the new DMS. Upon doing so, PMM 1.87 seems to recognize the DMS properly...for the most part. However, I have gotten "can't read CurrentSetup.xml" and "can't read WelcomeSoundFile.txt" at different times with PMM 3.92. That behavior is consistent regardless of the Windows version. Until I have a DMS that works properly with PMM 3.92 in Vista, this project won't be complete.

Any help you can provide for any of these issues is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[sbingner]

In short, vista sucks... why must people continue to insist upon using it?

The CurrentSetup.xml thing must just be because vortech's tool didn't put the setting there when it loaded the firmware.  You could try loading the firmware again in PMM and it would fix it, if by some miracle PhatNoise's firmware server were online...

[chico]

In short, vista sucks... why must people continue to insist upon using it?

That's not a valid answer. As more and more people start moving away from XP, whether to Vista or the next version of Wndows, the hacked DMS will need to keep working if they're going to be worth anything. Ignoring a problem isn't the same as solving it.

The CurrentSetup.xml thing must just be because vortech's tool didn't put the setting there when it loaded the firmware.  You could try loading the firmware again in PMM and it would fix it, if by some miracle PhatNoise's firmware server were online...

I've tried uploading the firmware through PMM, but as you've alluded to, Phatnoise's servers are rarely up (and weren't over the weekend). I think I'll try running the older versions of the hack tools that are posted in the Windows based DMS thread.

[chico]

Okay, now I've run into a larger, much more significant problem than any I've had before. I tried to use the command prompt method with newdms.bat to try to get the DMS made that way. Now the partitions on the disk itself are bad. I've tried to use partition magic in Windows XP to delete the partitions to start over with the drive. However, partition magic gives me the error "Init failed: Error 100  Partition table is bad". Can this be fixed? If so, how? Have I permanently damaged the drive?

[sbingner]

I would agrtee that it is not a valid answer if there were actually any advantages to Vista.  Vista is just XP with more bloat.  There is not software or hardware that requires vista.

Can't windows disk management remove your partitions?  Worst case, you can just overwrite your partition tables with zeros.  (dd zeros to first 512 bytes of drive) As long as it doesn't say you have bad sectors I wouldn't worry about it too much ... None of the hack tools modify that xml file besides possibly VorTechS's windows tool.  Your best bet on that is probably just editing it yourself as you have in the past.  The errors reading could be Vista being Vista, or it could be bad sectors... like I said, see if it works well on XP.

[chico]

I got the problem with the drive fixed by using some utilities I downloaded from Western Digital. The current plan of attack is to see if I can get the DMS working in XP and go from there. I've used the backup tools to make a copy of the PHTSYS files from my original, working DMS. I'm planning on just creating the PHTSYS and PHTDTA partitions on the new drive and copying the PHTSYS files from the original DMS to the new one. Is there any reason that that wouldn't be a good idea?

[chico]

Okay. That still didn't work, though PMM 1.87 is recognizing it as a valid DMS with the correct firmware now. I ran DMS doctor, and it failed the systems files check and the profile & playlists check. The error message I got for the system files check was 'Could not find system file p:\<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-' where "p" is the drive letter for the PHTSYS partition. I just got a 'No M3U Playlists Found' error for the profile & playlists check, which is not terribly surprising since I haven't actually transferred any music to the DMS.

I've run across some posts where it is recommended to use the "genesis method" as the last resort. However, the wiki page strongly advises against using that method anymore. Any thoughts or suggestions on any of this stuff is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[jlv]

Ignore the system files check in DMS doctor; it's useless (see http://forum.phathack.com/index.php/topic,989.0.html)

[VorTechS]

CurrentSetup.xml is required by PMM for some stupid reason and it's a mirror image of the firmware XML fragment taken from what used to be firmware.xml on the PhatNoise site.  Unfortunately before the site went down we didn't think to take a backup of this file so the file that the tools generate is from our own version of the file which does not mirror the same format.

I do have some original files that I could use to work from, but it's going to take time to modify the existing XML file into the same format which I'll do once I've dealt with other things and then hopefully PMM will behave itself a bit better afterwards.

[sbingner]

I'm planning on just creating the PHTSYS and PHTDTA partitions on the new drive and copying the PHTSYS files from the original DMS to the new one. Is there any reason that that wouldn't be a good idea?

That should be fine, so long as the drive is <= 127GB -- but sometimes the firmware loader has issues loading the kernel if it's not at the beginning of the drive.  Best bet would be to back up your old partitions then copy linux, linux.sig, ramdisk, and ramdisk.sig FIRST... then copy over the rest of the files.

[chico]

Thanks for all the help guys. I tried the wholesale copying of my old PHTSYS partition to the new one last night and that still didn't work. I'll try copying the 4 files first and then the rest. I'll also try it with the "new" and old versions of CurrentSetup.xml.

[chico]

Okay, so I've tried copying just the first 4 files and then the rest. I then opened PMM 1.87 and ejected the DMS so that PMM would create the default playlists. When I tried the DMS in my car, I got the "no CD" error message on the headunit. Should I try a different version of PMM to generate the default playlists? The only other version of PMM I have is 3.92 which has its own set of issues with a hacked DMS. Is there a PMM 3.xx version that doesn't cause problems with a hacked DMS?

[VorTechS]

You know the more I read back on this post, bearing in mind other posts elsewhere - I'm beginning to think this drive you are using is duff.  For starters, IIRC you couldn't get Vista to recognise the drive without drivers - which is just stupid as I think I mentioned at the time.  Drives shouldn't require drivers irrelevant of manufacturer or O/S.

I think you should give up with this one and try another drive.....

[chico]

Vista recognized the drive and installed the drivers. It's just that it takes a while for the partitioned drives to show up in Windows Explorer. Maybe that's the same thing though. If that's the case, I'll just contact WD and get a replacement.

[chico]

I disassembled the DMS cartridge and put the original drive back in it. Everything seemed to be run fine in Windows with it, so I don't think that there's a problem with the drive to pin adapter in the cartridge. Windows XP also identifies the DMS with no problem (as does PMM 1.87 in XP, though PMM 3.92 does not). I used the 'newdms.bat' method to create the DMS partitions and manually downloaded and installed the firmware files from the wiki. I installed the 4 files first and then the rest. I then added my old CurrentSetup.xml file, as there was none in the PHTSYS partition at that point. I opened PMM 1.87 to create the default playlists and ejected the DMS. I put the DMS in the Phatbox and still get the No CD error message. The green light comes on for a bit, goes off, blinks twice, blinks again once after a pause and the phatbox shuts off. I don't know if that helps or not.

With all that I've tried so far, is there anything you can think of that I haven't done right? If not, it looks like the time has come to contact WD and get a replacement drive. It would seem odd that the drive is the problem though since it seems to work fine everywhere except in the phatbox.

I do think that before I contact WD about a new drive, I'll put the original 10 GB drive that came in the cartridge back in and try to create a new DMS with it to see if that works. That would rule out there being errors in the VW 7.02 firmware files. I guess that brings up another good question. Has anyone recently made a new DMS with the VW 7.02 firmware that worked? If those files are corrupt, is it possible to roll my firmware back to VW 7.0? What are the disadvantages of 7.0 vs 7.02?

Sorry for the long post and scatterbrain nature of it. I'm just trying to make sure I have everything covered before getting a different drive.

[judb]

DO NOT RUN DMS HACK SCRIPTS ON YOUR ORIGINAL DMS, this is A VERY BAD IDEA!!!!!

you'll ruin it.  it will never be stock again if you dont do exactly the right things and if your computer doesn't behave exactly as the scripts expect.

you've been warned

[chico]

Sorry for the confusion on that. The 10 GB hard drive is the original drive from the DMS I'm hacking. It is not the original drive from my phatbox. That one is a 20 GB drive that is still in the DMS cartridge. I won't be messing with the 20 GB drive.

[chico]

After further testing, I am 90+% sure that the problem is with the VW 7.02 firmware files. I made a new DMS with the 10 GB drive and it didn't work. I opened both DMS cartridges and swapped in the hard drive pin adapter from the working cartridge. After ruling out the 120 GB drive as being the problem (or at least the sole problem) with the 10 GB drive and ruling out the pin adapter as the problem, the only logical conclusion is that the problem lies in the file system itself. I also ran the hack procedure again with my original 20 GB DMS and got the message that the box was already hacked, so I've ruled out that problem as well.

Has anyone actually created a VW 7.02 DMS successfully since the Phatbox firmware servers have been down? It seems that I sure can't. I have contacted Phatnoise about getting the 7.02 firmware files, but I don't expect a response any time soon from them.

Is it possible to roll back the firmware to VW 7.0? If so, what problems were fixed with the 7.02 firmware?

[judb]

the only way to know if you've really hacked the box is to look at the log files and make sure its properly applied all the hacks.  frequently problems pop up where the phtsys data is out of whack and wont boot... you may have a weird situation like that.  you should be able to get prior version of the software from phatnoise or downloads.phathack.com

[chico]

I sent the log files to VorTechS when I initially did the hack, and he confirmed that the hack was successful. If the DMS thinks the box is hacked when it really isn't, is there a way to force the hack to run again or is it a matter of running the hack procedure a number of times until it works?