PhatHack

I ran the hack CD on my original, working 10GB DMS.  I had a 100GB DMS standing by ready to go, so I ran all the way through to hack the new disk as well.  Everything was done in a few minutes.  I thought wow, that was almost too easy.

I put the orignal DMS in my Kenwood Keg to do the patch.  It cues up the first playlist and reads "LOAD" for about 30 seconds, then "EJECT."  And that's about it.  Nothing happens, no announcement that the Keg has been patched.  Nothing.

I've tried running the hack on the orignal DMS a few more times.  Each time it appears successful but when I put it in the Keg I just get the "LOAD" and "EJECT" messages.

Out of curiousity I checked in PMM and I noticed that the first playlist was not being replaced as per the DMS hack instructions.  I even deleted all my playlists and ran the hack again, now there is still no playlist.

What can be the problem?  I've seen some mention of the ramdisk.sig file and aadec, but to be honest I don't understand what I should try.

In the worst case, can anyone explain what I should do just to get things working again with the original DMS until this is sorted out?

Thanks in advance.

The updated hack disc uses the startup sound setting in the profile.ini ...

I don't understand if you are saying the original DMS does not work (is not booting up and applying the patch) or if the new DMS does not work.  Please be more specific.

Also, what does the patch log say?

Sorry, I'll try to be more precise:

When I put the original DMS into the keg to apply the patch, my head unit reads "LOAD" followed after 30 seconds by "EJECT."

So, as far as I can tell it is not booting up and applying the patch.  Since it seems not to have patched, I haven't even tried the new DMS.

The patch.log reads only : No such file or directory

now that is strange.

Try reloading the firmware to the phtsys partition.  it sounds like there are files missing from your drive.  before you reload the firmware though, you should run a check disk on the DMS partitions to make sure theres no filesystem issues.

Then verify that your DMS boots up and works.  Then try the hack disc again.

If the DMS does not work before you re run the hack disc, try corrupting the ramdisk.sig by renaming it and making a copy of the phatd.sig as ramdisk.sig and see if it boots that way.

also post the contents of your bootload.log if you have one.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Meanwhile, I've also tried an unhacked known working 20GB DMS in the keg and I get the same "load"-"eject" sequence.  So I assume the patch flashed the keg part way and left it stuck in this mode somehow.

By reloading the firmare to the DMS, I assume you mean I should also force an update?  I hope that gets the keg back to square one.

Strange.  The 10GB DMS has been working fine until now.  I'll run checkdisk on it and see what happens.  I won't be able to try anything with the keg until tomorrow, but I'll post back after that.

You need to corrupt the ramdisk.sig on the original DMS and let it rerun the patch as the box hung part way through and thats why its failing.  or should be.

OK, will try the ramdisk thing on the 10GB DMS.  

Should that fail I will try to use the unhacked 20GB DMS to force a firmware update back to the original.  Stop me if you think that's a bad idea!

The firmware and the patch are two totally seperate things.  We are patching the bootloader which is stored in FLASH as opposed to the Firmware which is loaded into another chip so theres no way to really undo what we change in the bootloader.

if the 10 gig dms doesnt work the 20 shouldn't either unless something happened to the signature on the 10 gig drive.

OK, I ran checkdisk on the 10GB DMS and found no problems.  So then I reloaded the orignal Kenwood firmware on the DMS, and ran a check with DMS Doctor which reported no problems.  So the DMS was more or less returned to its original state, I guess.  (I deleted forceupdate and forcesettings so as not to needlessly update the Keg.)

I re-ran the hack disk on the DMS and everything appeared to go smoothly.  Before trying it again in the Keg I ran DMS Doctor and it was succesful except under system files it reports:  
FAIL: MD5 checksum failed for M:\aadec.sig

Is that normal?  As far as I can tell the aadec.sig file on which it is reporting is a patched file.

The patch.log still reads: No such file or directory

My Keg is being transplanted today into a new car so I will try it later, I'm just wondering if this aadec message is already indicating a potential problem.

ONE MORE THING:  I saw in an earlier post that at least at one point the hack CD didn't work with the USB 1.1 cradle.  That is what I have been using.  Is that the problem?  And if so, what is my way out?

I have a USB 2 cradle but the bloody flimsy metal power switch broke on it after a couple of uses, haven't been able to fix it yet.  I have also used a USB 2 drive enclosure to transfer songs in PMM and it works fine.  Could that be an option to work with the CD?

Anyone out there?

I've checked what is on the 10GB DMS against what should occur according to the manual patch process in the wiki, and clearly the patch is not properly decompressing on my DMS now.

The only playlists in my PHTDTA\Profiles\Default folder are my own.  The patch playlist is not copying over.

So judb is right, the first time I ran the patch on the keg it was there but didn't finish it.  After the first try I wiped all my playlists and music and reloaded just a few artists and two playlists.  Since re-running the hack on the DMS for some reason it isn't decompressing, so when I start up the keg it is trying to finish but finding only my music playlists and crapping out.  At least I hope it's that simple.

So now I assume (and hope) the way to at least finish patching the keg is the manual method.  Comments?  Suggestions?

yes the aadec.sig check should fail...

It sounds like it should be working now, otherwise please post:

1.  Logfiles from the hack
2.  fdisk print-out of your partition table on the hacked dms

You can just use a generic phatnoise rescue CD to regenerate the partitions on the non-original DMS if you prefer to try that...  you can of course remove the forceupdate file after reapplying firmware to the second DMS... no need to have it reprogram your 8051

QuoteI've checked what is on the 10GB DMS against what should occur according to the manual patch process in the wiki

The manual patch method is different than the Hack CD. AFAIK the manual method still uses a playlist. The hack CD uses the startup sound.  So the disk contents won't be the same.

QuoteYou need to corrupt the ramdisk.sig on the original DMS and let it rerun the patch

You really should try what judb suggested.

Stand by everyone -- just had the Keg transplanted into a new car over the weekend, and I think they forgot to plug the cable into the back of the head unit!  Definitely not getting any power.  Will get it sorted out in a few days and then hopefully post news of a successful flash.

You might have the problem that I had with my Keg - i.e. a different flash chip.

See http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1129910028

AFAIK the current boot cd doesn't use the latest phatpatch version (which allows for both types of flash unlock command). So you'll need to copy the latest phatpatch to [PHTSYS]/backup folder before running the patch.
Get it here http://downloads.phathack.com/sbingner/phatpatch-0.5.gz

Once you get that right the whole flash patching process only takes a few seconds before the confirmation mesage plays.

EDIT: Fixed URL for phatpatch

Finally had the music keg properly installed -- very nicely in the drawer under the pasenger seat, so it's getting power now.

But when I try to boot up the keg now, I get a constant red light and a flashing green light.  The head unit doesn't properly recognize the keg either, it first flashes "disc changer" and then "aux ext."  When working properly it will say "hdd" and then switch to the playlists.

I turned everything off and the light on the keg stayed red and flashing green.  I left it alone for an hour and came back and it was still doing the same thing.  I didn't see any way out other than to disconnect the keg from the cable.

I'm ready to try everybody's previous suggestions but I'm concerned by that endless red and flashing green lights.  Do I have a bigger problem now?

(FYI I got so frustrated I pulled the drawer out and stuck in my spare nonflashed Audi/VW Phatbox, which is big enough to sit firmly under the seat, and it works fine.  I'm certainly willing to try flashing that one as well but I see there have been some issues with flashing the VW boxes, so.....)

Sounds like it's stuck in some sort of firmware-flash loop... I'd reccomend reloading the firmware on your DMS using PMM

You may want to enable debug logging also

I appreciate everyone's suggestions, I look forward to sorting this out soon.  But this will be on hold for a week or so over Christmas, as I'm far away from my car.

And hey, happy holidays everyone.

OK, I am back in action and have tried sbinger's suggestion of reloading the firmware -- doesn't help.

I re-ran the hack disk and tried Firefox's suggestion of copying the most recent phatpatch to the backup folder -- no luck.

No matter what I do, when I hook up the keg it just goes into an endless green light flashing thing, occasionally stopping and then starting back up again.  The only way to get it to stop is to disconnect the cable.

I've got no logs to post.  There is no patch log.

I have only the boot log, which says:
BOOT0-0: OK
BOOT0-1: OK
BOOT0: Successful
BOOT9: Successful
BOOTB: Successful
BOOTF: Successful
BOOT*-X: Failed

I note again that as far as I can tell, when I run the hack disk on the original DMS, it does not seem to be copying all files over correctly.  The patch playlist files get copied only to the backup folder on phtsys, not to the Profiles\Default folder on phtdta.  I have tried coping them over manually, which makes no difference.

Now what?  Is my keg hosed?

need to know how many times the green led flashes - that's a diagnostic code.

have you corrupted your ramdisk.sig by overwriting it with say, linux.sig yet?

oh, and actually hosing the keg is practically impossible so don't worry too much about that.... I've done some pretty scary stuff to mine and it still works ;)

of course that's also not license to do strange things to it.... I'm sure there IS a way to fry it

I've just posted a thread aout my DMS not playing in the car.  Interestingly It seems I had the same problem as mine was also spending hours going through loops of flashing green light.

Quick for a while, then slower, then off.  and round it went.

I inserted the old 20GB DMS to update the update the firmware but when I tried the (re-hacked) 100GB I get the problem I have now.

Could this be an issue with 100GB Disks?  Everyone else seems to use 80 or 120's?

I've used a 100 gig disk with no issues.. that shouldn't be the problem.

Look through the logs on the 20 gig after applying the hack and make sure it did hack properly and check the bootload.log on the new one and see if its able to see the drive etc..

I'll have to stare at it to see if it is actually giving any diagnostic flashes.  What it mainly seems to be doing is a steady fast blinking, as it would when updating firmware -- which is why the theory about it being in a firmware-flash loop made sense.  

And oops, no, I haven't corrupted ramdisk.sig.  Will try that next.

But still. any idea why the patch doesn't seem to be applying itself correctly across the DMS?

(And AudiS4, this isn't about the 100GB disks, I am still stuck on the original 10GB DMS.)

It's not applying the hack to the DMS, the hack applies to the firmware on your actual PhatBox... without a logfile I can't say how,  you can load a debug-10 logfile using the rc-files from http://downloads.phathack.com/bushing/rc_pairs.zip  ... if you have a partially applied patch and you need to corrupt your ramdisk you would get rapid flashing, followed by it turning itself off.   After power was disconnected from the phatbox it would take MUCH longer before it turned itself off, so the rapid flashing would count off the diagnostic code... pause, then repeat

Sbinger, I understand that it is not applying the patch to the DMS.  

But when the patch files are copied to the original DMS from the hack CD, shouldn't the playlist files (p0.*) be getting copied into my PHTDTA\Profiles\Default directory?  That's what the hack CD says:  "The playlist will replace the first playlist on the drive.  When this playlist is selected..."

My point is that IF those p0.* files are supposed to end up in my Default directory as part of the hacked DMS creation process, the files are not getting there.  Those files remain in the backup directory and my playlists are untouched.  If those files are where they belong, I can rule out one more possible cause of the patch failure.

And sorry -- how to I use the files you have mentioned to load a debug-10 logfile?  Where should I put those files?

I hate trying to do this over a forum, can you just come to #phathack on irc.freenode.net and I'll try to figure out your problem

Okay, now maybe I'm getting somewhere.  I finally corrupted the ramdisk.sig on the original DMS, and now it boots and plays as normal.

But I'm at a loss what to do next.  I'm not sure if my keg is patched or not.  Do I need to re-run the hack CD on the original DMS for any reason?

If it matters, this is my bootlload log now:
BOOT0-0: OK
BOOT0-1: OK
BOOT0: Successful
BOOT9: Successful
BOOTB: Successful
BOOTF: Successful
BOOT*: Successful

This is my PatchVerify log:
Starting Patch Process
‹Õÿ,,Cphatpatch-0.5Ìý
: No such file or directory
U™?Ÿ: No such file or directory
/dos/backup/phatpatch: /É4¶·m±pA+¹Å «L!HW¢NK: No such file or directory
NK: No such file or directory
/dos/backup/phatpatch: 3: Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string

The other patch logs are very long and equally confusing.  Any advice much appreciated, as always.

[size=24]YOU NEED TO REAPPLY THE PATCH SO IT WILL COMPLETE[/size]

Yay!  The keg is patched, or so it would seem.  I ran the patch again (it only works with ramdisk.sig corrupted), and made it to the phathack "unlocked" message.

BUT I'm having quirky behavior with the newly built 100GB DMS.  When I first booted it up my Kenwood head unit read "load" for about 30 seconds, followed by "eject."  I could even hear the DMS spin down in the keg.  So then I cycled through the sources and back to the HDD.  It read "load" for another 15 seconds or so, but then it started playing.

The problem is that it does this load-eject things every time I turn the car on.  I have to cycle through the sources to get it to work.  Once I've done that it seems to work normally.  But what is the problem?  Did the patch not fully complete?  Do I need to corrupt any of the .sig files on the new DMS?

Before using the new DMS I did reload the Kenwood firmware to it (deleting the forceupdate and forcesettings files), and I've got no plugin folder on the DMS, so I don't know what the problem might be.  Suggestions??

is that a 7200 rpm drive you put in the DMS?

Quoteis that a 7200 rpm drive you put in the DMS?

No.  It's a 5400rpm Hitachi drive.

Do you live in a cold area? Maybe it's a temperature issue.
Also, running a scandisk with a surface scan on it wouldn't hurt.

QuoteDo you live in a cold area? Maybe it's a temperature issue.
Also, running a scandisk with a surface scan on it wouldn't hurt.

I do live in a cold area but the car is warm when I try this.  Also, reading through on the temp issue that seems to mainly apply when the disk itself is cold after sitting in the cold car.  In this case, the disk hasn't been sitting in the car.

The disk is fine according to scandisk.

Would it hurt to run the patch a few more times?  I've also seen one post of a similar problem, where the person resolved it by corrupting aadec.sig on the new drive.

you can run the patch as many times as you like, it can't hurt...  do you have the link to where he corrupted aadec.sig to fix it on the new drive?  That doesn't really make much sense to me...

Doesn't make sense to me either but I believe that is what this person did:
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1127854480/12#11

Triumphboy says he corrupted ramdisk.sig and aadec.sign on the original DMS, then when he couldn't get the new DMS to work he did the same thing on the new one, and it worked.

But I tried corrupting the aadec.sig on mine and it makes no difference.

I've also run the patch three more times on the keg.  Safe to say, that sucker is patched.

I also rebuilt the new DMS using the hack CD, and reloaded the Kenwood firmware to the new DMS.  No luck.

I now think that the drive itself is the problem.  I ran a forum search on "Hitachi" and found two postings of other people using Hitachi drives having similar issues:
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1126587522/
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1123209631'

I didn't find that the issues had been successfully resolved.  Not that the drives are defective, they are just made to work a certain way.  Looking at the Hitachi web site I think the problem might be the way their drives work.  They use something called "load/unload" technology to access the disk, as opposed to most other drives using "contact-start-stop."  

It's very technical, but as I understand it, other drives have heads that come to rest on the disk when it stops, so when it starts spinning, as it would when one starts up the keg/PB, the heads are right there where they left off and the music starts.  Hitachi drive heads lift off the disk surface and don't come down again until the disk is spinning fast enough.  I would guess it's taking too long the first time and the keg is timing out.  Make sense?

The information from Hitachi is here:  http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/library/whitepap/load/load.htm

I don't know if anyone is following this thread anymore, but just in case someone else has similar problems:

For the sake of it, I reformatted partitions on the new DMS and loaded music using Media Manager 3.76, instead of Music Manager 2.30 that I've been using until now.  I also let it save in the old database format on the DMS, as is recommended.

This solves the problem of it failing to start up at first after starting the car.  It starts up and plays fine now.  But it creates a whole new problem:  Now the disk random function doesn't work.  When I enable it, it spins through the playlists, then I get "eject" on the head unit once again.  And nothing will make it work -- if I cycle through the sources on the head unit, all it will do is start the track that had been playing.  As a further side effect, if disk random is enabled, I cannot fast forward or rewind within a track.

I use disk random almost exclusively, so I will probably have to go back to Music Manager (probably have to reformat too) and put up with the first problem.

I'm still thinking this is a Hitachi disk issue, but I'd sure welcome further suggestions.

Now it sounds like with the old PMM it was taking too long to read the info on all your songs off the new cartridge and timing out.... the new PMM uses a database format, so it should load faster.   Why dont you try it with less songs in your playlists and see if that helps?   Of course that's not a proper solution but it may at least tell us where the problem lies

Sbingner, I tried your suggestion.  Just for good measure I cleaned the drive, reformatted, etc.

Nine playlists on the DMS.  First playlist is "Welcome to Phatnoise."  The other eight lists have an average of 15 songs each, the biggest with 33.  Now it doesn't time out, but it still doesn't solve the problem.  Maybe it does clarify things, though:

Enabling disk random at any point and then pressing fast forward sends the disk into the random spin for a second, then it goes to the first playlist.  Doesn't matter where it starts, it will only do the first playlist.

I know what you're thinking, and all the playlists are enabled for magazine random.  Now what?

(And on a somewhat related note, I've tried to hack my Audi box (already updated to a Keg) with the same hack disk that eventually worked on the Keg, and it won't work on the Audi box.  Any suggestions?)

 ;DHALLELUJAH IT WORKS!!!! ;D

I'm not even exactly sure why, but now it works perfectly.  Starts right up and plays random.  It never times out or acts weird in any way.

I abandoned Media Manager and went back to Music Manager 2.30.  Reformatted the partitions (again!) on the new DMS.  Reloaded the firmware (again!) on the new DMS.  I cued up about 45GB worth of music sorted into about 300 playlists, and saved without ejecting to let it transfer the files.  I tweaked some of the playlists, then saved again without ejecting.  Finally, I rebuilt the DMS database.  Then I saved and ejected.

I don't know if it works now because of the multiple saves, the database rebuild, or maybe even because it's a half full disk (as opposed to not more than one-fifth on previous tries), but it does work.  Fingers crossed as I fill up the rest of the disk.

THANKS to everyone at phathack, and for everyone's suggestions.  (And apologies, I guess, to Hitachi.)

I am experiencing a similar issue with the hacking of my phatnoise,
I have a Kenwood 915DVD and my phatnoise is now showing up as CD-CHANGE (after i tried to hack it using the Windows tools) as opposed to "External".

I have reformatted my original 9gb phatnoise using the cd as the "revert" tool failed to do anything to the phatnoise.  It is also showing AUX, I saw a post a while back where someone had a similar problem, howebver nobody posted on how they got their "ch-chang" to go back to "Ext-drv"

as it is right now, my box is farked, ive tried putting the latest kenwood firmware back on the drive and it copies just fine, ive even gone the extent of corrupting the ramdisk.sig with no luck.

any help would be appreciated.

um, logfiles would be helpful.. post your bootload.log and the patch log too.

cant use my dms after the patch, the original DMS looks okay when i run a chkdsk and such, however my headunit shows up as CD-chang, does anyone have a backup of the original dms they can get to me? gho. .iso .zip or whatever format? i cant even get it to revert now after a full format of the original dms using the repair cd.

dude, post a bootload.log or we wont be able to help you identify what the problem is.  you should be able to find how to do that real easy around here.  or at least tell us what the lights on the box do.  otherwise I'll just tell you, buy / borrow a working DMS and hack your box to make any drive work.

Immediately after hacking a Kenwood Keg (certainly CX-910), I've found that Kenwood Head Units won't recognise the Keg as it is meant to, but as a CD Changer.

This is easy to fix.

1. Turn the Head Unit OFF
2. Disconnect your Keg from the Head Unit by disconnecting the cable from the back of the Keg.  Leave disconnected for about a minute.
3. Reconnect the Keg, leave for about a minute.
4. Turn on the Head Unit, switch SRC to the Keg.

I've hacked my box about 5 times now, and the result above has always been the same.

I haven't had that problem but it may depend on what head unit you have.. my XXV-01d seems to work with no disconnecting of the keg but I can see how resetting the link may be of use.

Perhaps we should get a list of Head Units together that are known to display this problem?

Nuked the original DMS using the repair dms utility, will try this disconnect trick and hopefully it will work...

i have both a 710 and a 910 i believe...

the 910 is in the basement, 710 in the car (smaller footprint)

i tried the disconnect/reconnect trick with the keg, however it is just showing up as cd-cnag still, im running a kenwood 915-dvd headunit.

im going to try the other keg unit i have later tonight to see if i have any luck, but i think i screwed the pooch on my original dms.

does the repair utility bring the cartridge back to an oem state after a format/wipe? I went and recreated it and tried it, it didnt work, so i hooked it up and dropped the latest firmware on it, it still isnt working..

the red light is solid, and the green light is going nuts, ive had it on for hours as well.

It isn't at all clear what you have done and in what order.

Firstly, Kenwood head units often need to be reset when first connected to the Phatbox/Keg.  Have you tried resetting?

If you tried to apply the patch and it did not execute all the way, and then you tried to put the Kenwood firmware on the DMS and put it in your box, it is stuck in a patch-firmware update loop.  That is why your box is flashing and not stopping.  You have to finish applying the patch.  (I think I had all these problems and it should be covered earlier in this post.)

Not sure what all you have done to the DMS, but unless you have repartitioned the drive, it should still be good for patching your box.  Prepare it by running the hack/repair CD again, repair it first if you have to.  Before putting it back in the car, boot into Windows and look for the file on the phtsys partition of the DMS called ramdisk.sig.  Rename that file ramdisk.bak.  Then copy any other file (such as phatd.sig) to your desktop, rename it ramdisk.sig and copy it back to the phtsys.  Check if the file "forceupdate" is on the phtsys and if it is, delete it.  Pop the DMS back into your car and with luck the patch will complete.  If it works your box will work with any drive.  If you intend to use the original DMS, run patchclean.bat from the Windows DMS utilities.

How would one reset the headunit? i have disconnected the battery to the car just to make sure all power was off.

steps that i have taken.

1. downloaded the iso for the cd-repair/hack
2. burned iso off
3. booted up, applied hack
4. waited close to 40 minutes with the stereo on, no hack complete audio.
5. removed disk, restarted system (pulled power lead from battery)
6. Screen showing cd-chang instead of ext-hdd
7. took drive inside, re applied standard firmware, went to car, after an hour no change
8. removed interface cable to phatnoise, powered car on.
9. used dms hack/repair cd to totally reformat and repartition oem phatnoise disk.
10 inserted disk and still having ch-chang and solid red light with green light blinking quickly.
11. hooked the drive up inside again and sent down the firmware for the kenwood unit, no dice, still dead in the water. drive passes all chkdsk and disk utilities.

no bootlog is available as it has been wiped. the system has totally been rebooted.

I have my oem cartridge and my 120gb one, however i have been using my oem disk for the hack *of course*


what am i doing wrong?
do i need to borrow another oem disk to fix this? all i get is cd-chang and AUX since the attempt.

If it will boot and play music, it will apply the hack... 

You could try replacing ALL your players with the "flacplay" and "flacplay.sig" for old versions or "patcher" and "patcher.sig" for the new ones... ie rcopy them over "nmp3" and "nmp3.sig"

okay, figured out the first part...

i replaced my 710x unit with the 910x unit and the hack took, for some odd reason, the 710x unit will not allow me to apply the hack *i can screw with later, however just letting you all know*

it sees my 120gb drive now with about 40gb worth of tunes, however the voice prompts are on, and its not actually playing the music, im suspecting the database is borked and im re-indexing now.

looking forward to having vast amounts of tuneage for those long drives to other states :)

btw, the hack and repair cd worked great to reformat my original 9gb drive, i didnt have to rely on picking up another OEM disk from Phatnoise at a lovely expense of about $60.00 for another 10gb.

will let you know my findings, this ability to reverse engineer these units rock, and i count my blessings your here.

-cp

finally got it working, synched up all my music and im rocking down the road...

still, i think the problem was with the 710x....

ill mess with it later, but the 9xx is working beautifuly.

Glad to hear it's working for you... so you know... I've got a 910, a 710, and an Audi box... the patch worked fine on all of them