Can't locate DMS on either windows 7 or XP

[TDI Smoke]

I bought a complete phatbox system for my 2003 Jetta minus the software. I have tried to install various software from here and from other sites managed by the same people as here. I am not able to see my DMS. My cradle is a USB2. I have tried on my laptop with windows 7 and on my desktop with XP. Neither machine will see the cartidge. To my knowledge this has never been hacked. I bought it several months ago and I am just now getting around to installing it as my available time has been tight.

Does someone have some thoughts on what I need to do to get this thing to be seen by either computer. I would prefer the laptop as I am never at the desktop, but at this point I just want to get it running. After I am able to get it working I would like to hack it, but that will be a different topic as that looks like it can be interesting as well.

[VorTechS]

With XP you shouldn't have too much of a problem, with Windows 7 unfortunately there are driver issues which makes life extremely difficult.

When you plug the cradle into the Windows XP machine, with a DMS inserted, if you open up Windows Explorer do you see two new disks?  One labelled PHTSYS and one PHTDTA?

[TDI Smoke]

I do not see any new disks. Do I need to have software installed for it to see the drives? I have been messing around mostly with my widows 7 computer as it is easier for me to access. I will try more on the XP machine. Is there anything I should know before I attack it again with the XP machine?

[VorTechS]

Windows 7 has driver issues, it will try to install drivers for the cradle/drive and fail (you'll see under Device Manager, there's an exclamation against either a Disk Drive entry, or a USB Mass Storage Device).

If you un-install the driver for the affected entry, the device will be re-detected and suddenly magicly start working as you'd expect.
On other occasions, it can take over an hour (based on my 250GB test drive) for the DMS to be recognised - as I think the O/S does a complete scan of the disk for some reason.

If on Windows XP, when you plug the DMS into the cradle, the PHTSYS and PHTDTA partitions are not showing up first try the cradle in another USB port.  If it's still not showing up, then there may be two likely reasons:

1) The switch that activates the power to the cradle may be damaged.  If you look into the cradle, one one side of the connector the DMS plugs into there is a switch.  It's possible you are either not getting a good connection with this switch - or it's in someway faulty.  If you are good with electronics, or know someone that is ... you may be able to repair this or swap this bit out entirely as others have done in the past

2) There may be a fault with the cradle.  When you plug the DMS into the cradle do you see the red/green light illuminate at any point?

[TDI Smoke]

I got it working yesterday. I installed new updates and restarted my computer and plugged the DMS back in and it started working. I think it had to do with the restart. Either way all is good now. After my road trip is over I will try to hack my box and look for a bigger drive. I will have to do more reading to see how I will need to accomplish this.

Thank you guys for the advice.

Vortech, I will try what you had suggested with my win7 machine.

[Terry_Kennedy]

Windows 7 has driver issues, it will try to install drivers for the cradle/drive and fail (you'll see under Device Manager, there's an exclamation against either a Disk Drive entry, or a USB Mass Storage Device).

If you un-install the driver for the affected entry, the device will be re-detected and suddenly magicly start working as you'd expect.
On other occasions, it can take over an hour (based on my 250GB test drive) for the DMS to be recognised - as I think the O/S does a complete scan of the disk for some reason.

By the way, the reason for this isn't a disc scan - the PhatNoise USB 2.0 cradles have an independent implementation of the USB Mass Storage Device function which reports a device class that Windows thinks it has a driver for. Unfortunately, there are bugs in the code that runs on the chip in the cradle which don't show up under XP or earlier. Since the PhatBox was de-supported long before Windows 7, neither PhatNoise nor Microsoft did any testing of that hardware on 7. There are some timing issues which can be exposed (causing the problems you see) with various combinations of disk drives in the DMS (taking different lengths of time to ACK commands), USB chipset in the PC, and PC speed. In my case, the Fujitsu 60GB drives used by PhatNoise (and other ones purchased elsewhere) work fine, but the Western Digital 250GB drive will always report an error installing drivers.

The solution to this is to use a USB-IDE bridge that doesn't require external code to work, and which is popular enough that Microsoft tests it for compatibility when they update their end of things. That's what the forthcoming PhatHack cradle replacement board uses.

[liv2wtrski]

When do you think the phathack cradle drivers will be ready for use?

Thanks,

Kevin