DMS hack for VW - a couple of questions

[paulbart]

Hi -

I've seen the "DMS Hack Disk - Image Heavy" thread, and would like to try it on my Phatbox (VW version).

I've also seen various threads making reference to a 'problem' when applying the hack on a VW, but I haven't found a real description of the problem.  What exactly goes wrong on the VW?  And, is it recoverable?

I saw a thread that had some additional instructions for the VW.  Does this still apply, or does the "DMS Hack Disk" .iso now include support for the VW?

I have one more question from the original "DMS Hack Disk" thread:

Put the DMS into your phatbox or keg.  You should hear a message say you have completed the patch process when its done. (I havent tested this, so dont count on it.)  Let the system play its startup sound and change to playlist 2 (disc two on your head unit.) at this point the patch is complete or should be.  Turn off your stereo and remove the DMS.

It says "Let the system play its startup sound and change to playlist 2 ...".  Does this mean it'll play the sound, and the Phatbox will change to playlist 2 by itself/automatically, or are those instructions for me to manually switch it to playlist 2?


Thanks in advance for your reply.

Regards,

- Paul

[Anton]

Paul,

The hack disc ISO, from what I understand, does not have the VW support built in.

I just tried this on my VW phatbox, and I am still having a few problems.  See my other threads.

Basically, I was confused as to when to apply the special fix for VW phatboxes.  I think it should be done after the whole process with the Hack disc is finished.  Then, if it is not working, Do the VW fix (see VW thread in this forum)  This will involve swaping the HDD in the DMS another time.

I was using a Hitachi travelstar 60GB for the new DMS.

There was no special "patch" sound when I patched the phatbox.  I just heard my startupsound, and then it started playing a song.

Also having some problems with PMM, but I will wait to get the new drive working before I tackle that.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Anton

[paulbart]

Anton -

I haven't tried this hack yet - partially because of fear of making my Phatbox unusable.

You said that you've had some problems.  Is it only with the 'new' hard drive, or does it also have problems with the original DMS hard drive?

I'd hate to 'break' my Phatbox.  If I try this hack and it won't work with a new/bigger hard drive, that's fine - as long as I can still use the original drive.  (Of course, I'd have to 'restore' that original drive to its original condition - getting rid of the 'install hack' software).

I'm interested to hear whether/not your Phatbox still works.

Thanks,

- Paul

[Anton]

Paul,

The original DMS still works great.  This is what I have been using, since my problem with the new HDD has not been resolved.  The only issue was with PMM software.  There was a problem Ejecting the original DMS from the cradle after the hack.  Music would copy to the DMS, and It could be saved, but PMM would not eject the disc.  I ended up closing PMM, and using the Safely remove hardware Icon in the tasktray.

This issue seems to have been resolved, as it was discussed in another thread in this forum.  Using the Sync feature is what resolves the issue.

Anton

[impossible]

I was in the same boat; I had read the forums a few times to find nuggets of information for us VW phatbox owners.

My mp3 collection eventually broke 20 gig, so I decided to take action.

I proceeded with the following.

Used powerquest drive image (disc backup software, like ghost. Infact symantec have bought them out!) And copied the entire original DMS to my hard disk (as a backup) I did not copy the two individual partitions, I made a backup of the entire original DMS (deleted my mp3s from it before I started) which made a image of around 32MB

I then swapped the original DMS cart with my new (slightly) larger 40gig disk, using drive image I copied the backup original image to the new disk. I had to alter the first partition slightly (from around 256mb to 266mb) and alter the second partition (where are music lives) to the maximum remaining size of the drive.

(Side note - at this point I tried the new hd in my UN-HACKED phatbox, and it didn’t work)

Swapping back to my original DMS I continued to hack the firmware on my phatbox (to run un assigned drives)

I then obtained the DMS hack disk (ver1.5 - http://downloads.phathack.com/judb/DMS-Hack-or-Repair-v1_5.iso )

Using my second machine I attached the cradle and inserted the bootdisk and followed these instructions
 http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1122424315

I proceeded to the step where I used the hacked original DMS to flash the phatbox with the hacked firmware, using this hacked original DMS I inserted it into my phatbox. After a minute or two (with the phatbox selected as the audio source, and pressing no other track select buttons) I received a voice guide telling me that my phatbox had been hacked.

I then swapped the DMS to the new drive, and reinserted it back into my phatbox, selected it as a sound source, and was greeted by the system sound!

Removed the drive, inserted my cradle into my main machine and copied some music across. Reinserted my new larger non original drive into my phatbox resulted in the music being played!

=)

Wonder how long 40 gig is going to last me?

Hope this helps us VW owners.

Imp

[paulbart]

I had to alter the first partition slightly (from around 256mb to 266mb) and alter the second partition (where are music lives) to the maximum remaining size of the drive.

Thanks for the reply/detailed info.

Can you tell me: why did you have to change the first partition size?  What made you choose "266mb"?  Is this just because of how the partitioning software divided-up the drive (you couldn't leave the first partition as "256mb", because the partitioning software didn't allow it), or was there some other reason that you chose this size?

I also have PowerQuest drive image, but have never used it to 'restore' from an image (only to make backups).  When you do the 'restore' to a different drive size, I assume it lets you repartition to the new size at this point?  (and that's what you're talking about above)?

Thanks again,

- Paul B.

[impossible]

Your reply to my walk though is correct.

When restoring the image onto the larger disk, drive image allows you to resize the partions before imagining it. Due to the increased size, the application would make the initial partion slightly larger. Specifying the actual original size would cause the app to "increase it to the nearest cluster" hence 266mb.

The detailed post was to try and conglomerate all the relivent info into one post, to help others =)

Imp

[judb]

drive image should not be required.. in fact the newest hack CD really only needs you to make the correct fat32 partitions which you can't do in windows due to the 32gig fat32 format limit that MS imposed.  

I would think that you most likley don't have disable write caching checked for your new drive in device manager.

You have to have write caching disabled (it may say something like optimize for quick removal) and that may be why you can't eject with PMM.  Have you checked that?

[mariom]

I'd like to start off by saying that this thread (and in fact the whole forum) has been really useful to me in the past two months, where I have gone from discovering that the Phatbox exists, to actually finding one, to hacking it - I'm now the proud owner of a 160Gb DMS that's almost loaded to the max, hidden in my Passat's first-aid cubby  

I used Drive Image to clone the contents of the drive too, and although I had a couple of hiccups with the hack disk I eventually got the new drive working. However, Drive Image only stretched the PHTDTA partition up to 127Gb, and the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP tells me that there's 20Gb left. Can anyone suggest a way of merging that 20Gb into the PHTDTA partition to give me 147Gb? If there's a way of doing it without scrubbing all the music so much the better. I'm going to start messing around with Linux bootable rescue discs and Partition Magic soon... wish me luck (I'll post back with results).

M

[S80_UK]

Hi, If you can get hold of it, Paragon's Hard Disk Manager is a pretty good tool, and may allow you to modify the partition size to take advantage of the full 160GB.  I have used it in the past to change cluster sizes and the like without having to rebuild the disk.  Worth a look, I would say.

[judb]

partition magic will do it.. but its not free.. theres supposedly some free tools (try downloading the Ultimate Boot CD) that will expand fat32 partitions.  YMMV though.

[impossible]

I'd like to start off by saying that this thread (and in fact the whole forum) has been really useful to me in the past two months, where I have gone from discovering that the Phatbox exists, to actually finding one, to hacking it - I'm now the proud owner of a 160Gb DMS that's almost loaded to the max, hidden in my Passat's first-aid cubby  

I used Drive Image to clone the contents of the drive too, and although I had a couple of hiccups with the hack disk I eventually got the new drive working. However, Drive Image only stretched the PHTDTA partition up to 127Gb, and the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP tells me that there's 20Gb left. Can anyone suggest a way of merging that 20Gb into the PHTDTA partition to give me 147Gb? If there's a way of doing it without scrubbing all the music so much the better. I'm going to start messing around with Linux bootable rescue discs and Partition Magic soon... wish me luck (I'll post back with results).

M

Glad to know its helped!

Imp

[Anton]

Ok, I'm going to give this a try, since I'm having trouble with my Hacked DMS.  Do you think since the I've used my original DMS to patch the box, and have reformatted the phtsys partition it will still be alright to use an image from this?  Or would I need an image from an untouched DMS?  Currently the box is patched.

[paulbart]

Hi -

I've just followed the instructions, booted the CD, and loaded the original DMS cartridge with the re-flashing software (I get to the point where you'd type "YES" to continue - and I *don't* type "YES" (I remove the cartridge, per the instructions))

When I put this DMS into my VW Passat's Phatbox, and turn on my stereo/switch the audio to the Phatbox, it just plays music (the song it was playing before I started this process).  I never hear anything about the patch being complete.

Am I doing something wrong?  Do I have some 'setting' that tells the Phatbox to resume playing where it left off (and other users don't have this enabled)?

If I get to the point where I 'give up' on this, do I need to do anything to restore my original DMS back to how it was before the hack software was installed?  It seems to be operating normally, so I'm guessing the answer is "no", but I thought I should ask.  Of course, I hope I don't need to give up - I really want the extra storage of a new (100GB) drive.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

- Paul

[paulbart]

Still having problems...

I ran the Phatbox Music Manager, and changed the setting so it *won't* resume playback where it left off the last time.

I put the DMS into my Phatbox, and after several seconds of silence, heard the message telling me that my phatbox had been updated.

I then continued with the instructions (put my 100GB drive into the DMS cartridge, put that in the PC, typed "YES" after the drive was recognized, etc.).  I then plugged the DMS into my Phatbox in the car, turned on the Phatbox, chose the CD changer via my head unit, and waited.

Several seconds (maybe 30?) went by, and then my head unit said that there wasn't any cartridge installed.  I tried this several times - same results.

Since I had run the Phatbox Music Manager on a DMS that had the re-flashing software on it, I thought that maybe the music manager un-did some of the important changes (so, maybe it didn't really reflash, even though it played the sound on next insertion).  So, I re-booted from the DMS hack CD, and started over from scratch.  Same results (except, this time, when I put the original DMS into my Phatbox, it played the message telling me that it had been updated (I didn't need to use Phatbox Music Manager in the process)).

I ran the "Phatnoise DMS Doctor" on the new 100GB drive.  It tells me that "aadec.sig" is invalid.  I assume that this is a result of me re-running the same original DMS through the process twice (so, the second time through, when the DMS hacking software grabbed a copy of PHTSYS, it grabbed the one with the modified "aadec" file).  I thought that maybe this error is what is causing my Phatbox to fail to detect the cartridge.

I had previously made a complete backup of the entire original DMS (before I started anything).  So, I copied the original PHTSYS partition files onto the 100GB PHTSYS partition.  I put this into my Phatbox - same problem (not recognized).

Does anyone have any ideas why this is failing?  Any suggestions on what I can try to get this to work??

Oh, and if there are any log/config/etc files that I can provide (to help diagnose the problem), please let me know what/where they are.

Thanks.

- Paul

[Anton]

Paul,
I'm having the same issues.  At first it was aadec.sig, now something else.  I've a VW also.

First try this method:
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1123119033

I'll be working on this today, and keep you updated.

-Anton

[paulbart]

Paul,
I'm having the same issues.  At first it was aadec.sig, now something else.  I've a VW also.

First try this method:
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1123119033

I'll be working on this today, and keep you updated.

-Anton

Anton -

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the above method, but when I rebooted my Windows PC/inserted the new DMS, it didn't appear as two drive letters anymore.  Only one drive letter (F:) showed up.  When I tried to "dir f:" from a DOS prompt, it gave me an error message (something about invalid filesystem, I think).  Because of this, I didn't bother putting the DMS into my Phatbox.

I'm now trying to do a full image restore of the original 20GB drive (I backed it up before starting this process) onto the 100GB drive.  I'll try using this 'as is' (with 20GB partition layout) in the Phatbox.  I'll then try re-sizing the partitions to use the entire 100GB and see if that works.

Crossing my fingers...

I'll update this thread with results later.

- Paul

[paulbart]

Update:

I restored the original 20GB raw DMS image onto my 100GB drive.  I put it into my Phatbox, and it started playing music!  This must mean that the patch was applied correctly (right?).

I then went to re-size the partition(s), to make it use the full 100GB.  All I have handy here is Powerquest Partition Magic 8.  When I start it up, it complains with:

Disk 2 (95393MB 12161c 255h 63s) appears to have partitions created using a different drive geometry (64h 32s).  This serious problem can lead to data loss.  No partition manupulations should be made to this disk using this product or the operating system's products.  You should back up the data on this disk, delete all partitions, create new partitions under the new drive geometry, and then restore your data using the backup.

So, I'm obviously NOT going to try to resize the partitions with Partition Magic.

I think that if I use the patch CD to recreate the partitions, I'll run into the same problems I did before.

I'm not exactly sure what step I'll take next.  I'll have to think about it some more before doing more experimentation.  I have to start doing some actual work now, so probably won't get back to this until later today/tonight.

I'll keep this thread updated with my results.

- Paul

[judb]

nothing the patch cd's repartition feature does would break a working DMS.  

If you don't follow the instructions or don't put the firmware on the dms properly after the repartition and reformat then it isn't the CD's fault.

as a reminder, remove the forceupdate / forcesettings files in phtsys after you load the firmware after you repartition them.

[paulbart]

nothing the patch cd's repartition feature does would break a working DMS.  

If you don't follow the instructions or don't put the firmware on the dms properly after the repartition and reformat then it isn't the CD's fault.

as a reminder, remove the forceupdate / forcesettings files in phtsys after you load the firmware after you repartition them.

Nothing broke the original DMS - I just couldn't get the 100GB replacement drive working.

As for following instructions, I followed what I could find.  Advice for VW Phatbox owners seems to be strewn across multiple threads - I may not have followed every single link that was referenced.


Things seem to be working for me now.

I used "Acronis TrueImage 9.0" to 'clone' my 20GB (original DMS) drive to my new 100GB drive - telling Acronis to re-size the partitions to fit the new drive.  Once finished, I put the 100GB drive into my Phatbox, and it started playing music.  I haven't tried loading more music onto it yet, but I expect that to work.

- Paul