Repair DMS(FULL) + general troubleshooting

[littleboy]

Complete PhatBox beginner here, with a specific question and then a general question.

Am I correct to understand that the "Repair DMS(FULL)" feature in DMS Tools 2.12 is safe for use on a stock DMS cartridge destined to go into a stock PhatBox?  I want to wipe a DMS cartridge clean and then use it to reset a (possibly damaged) PhatBox to (hopefully) working condition. 

That's the specific question.  The general question involves a sob story:

A few weeks ago the battery died in my wife's 2004 VW Golf (with the Monsoon Premium VI radio and a contemporaneous PhatBox unit).  Since the battery was replaced the PhatBox has behaved sporadically -- working in the morning on the drive to work, and then failing to work in the afternoon on the drive home, for example.  It's also exhibited some erratic behavior for a long time, even before the battery failure, so I reckon the way to go is to repair the system in a stock configuration before I try to hack and upgrade a DMS cartridge. 

My first attempt -- wiping the DMS clean via PhatNoise Music Manger and then manually replacing the firmware on the PHTSYS partition with the firmware in the PhatHack downloads area -- didn't seem to work.  The lights on the PhatBox unit blinked the way they're supposed to for a firmware installation, but when they had finished and we turned on the radio, the PhatBox didn't seem to respond to the buttons we pushed, so we couldn't complete the configuration step where we tell the PhatBox what kind of radio it needs to talk to.  (I did back up the files that were on the PHTSYS partition to begin with, so I have things like the old "CurrentSetup.xml" file, in case I need it, but I figure it should be possible to get a fresh start without resorting to that step.  Hence the specific question above.)

So now we have a PhatBox that doesn't work, not with the 20GB DMS I fiddled with or the 40GB DMS that I left alone because it has all my wife's favorite stuff on it.  (Although it might work with the latter in the morning?  Who knows?)

So I guess the general question here is:  does this general situation sound familiar to anyone?  Any knee-jerk reactions along the lines of, "The dude totally needs to do X?"  Or "It's a bad idea to swap back and forth between multiple DMS cartridges?"

Thanks.

[VorTechS]

God forbid you touch the wife's 40GB working DMS, I wouldn't for love nor money...
So let's concentrate on getting the other one working.

Yes, using v2.12 of the tools and the Repair DMS (Full) should enable you to get the DMS back to stock.
So that I can get more and more people aware of what it does, it re-formats both PHTSYS and PHTDTA (with bad block checks), puts on the selected firmware (in a specific file order) and then creates a single playlist which should render the DMS usable immediately in the PhatBox.  As you have the original CurrentSetup.xml from what used to be a working DMS... open it up, and check the version number of the firmware in there...and use the tools to apply the same firmware.  You then do not need to use the 'Reflash box' option... but if your box is unhacked make sure the option 'Install non-hacked firmware' is checked.

If you have concerns, make sure you perform a DD backup of the first 1MB of the disk so that you don't lose any existing partitions or the drive signature, the latter being the most critical part to a non-hacked PhatBox.

As it stands though it sounds like you have a more generic issue with your PhatBox rather than the DMS, as if your wife's DMS has been untouched the PhatBox should be working.  So the obvious thing would be to check the cabling between the HU and PhatBox to ensure there's no damage etc.  Also, it might be worth checking the internal ribbons cables by opening up the PhatBox to see if there's an issue there.

[littleboy]

God forbid you touch the wife's 40GB working DMS, I wouldn't for love nor money...

It's so nice to be understood....! 

Preliminary results from the DMSTool's full repair process for non-hacked firmware are good.  \0/  Thank you!!

Now I'm waiting to see if over the next few days the fixed cartridge exhibits the same erratic behavior as the unfixed cartridge. 

[littleboy]

Let's see, after several days we still have erratic behavior from the freshly fixed DMS cartridge.  Maybe it's the hardware and not the software.  When we first put the cartridge in, the PB took about 15 seconds to boot up, after which everything worked fine.  This doesn't always happen though...sometimes the PB starts playing music right away, but the buttons on the HU don't work.  Sometimes the buttons will begin to work after several minutes, and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes some buttons work and not others.  (But these buttons all perform normally when playing a regular CD,  cassette, or the radio.)

And my wife says that when she tries to reconfigure the PB by telling it what kind of radio it's connected to, the system doesn't give her the old list of radio types she's accustomed to hearing.  Instead it lists "A, B, C, D" and so on.  Strange.

[sbingner]

I seem to recall similar issues being caused by too new or too old firmware versions on VW head units..
Should be able to find the answers by searching the forum...