Hacked DMS Quit. Now Original DMS Dead too?

[macgyver70]

Hey all.
 I have a kenwood keg I hacked a few years ago with a larger drive and put the original drive away for safe keeping. Until recently it was working great. Then my head unit (kenwood) would sometimes loose contact with the keg. I would have to unplug keg from head unit and it would light up red then also green with green flashing then they both were off. now it worked again...this went on for a few weeks having to redo this 1 or so a week. Then it just quit.. It would show up as CD changer and then eject on head unit. so I took hacked DMS in to see if drive had failed. It seemed ok and when put back in keg was nothing.. I thought well it must have been corrupted somehow so I brought out the original DMS and tried it too with no luck.. all then same at keg. So I downloaded new DMS hack software 2.12 and ran hack on original DMS again and put in keg and plugged it in turned on head unit.. it found it as hdd and played some dms hack stuff and it said hack complete then started to play my music, so turned off and brought inside and all patches ok in hack wizard.. so i proceeded to re make my hacked DMS with DMS hack tools create new dms, it failed 4 times trying to partition and format the drive then it finally worked. it made a 64mb phtsys and like 76 gb for the phtdta (80 gb drive) then I went to phatnoise music manager to add a few songs to try it... well the keg don't like it.. it just would have red on solid and flash green forever... and head unit shows cd changer for a second then changes to aux ext.. I also tried turning off head unit and unpluging keg and pluging in and same results. So I put back in the original dms to see if it still worked and it too says aux ext and it has a soild red light and green flashes once then no more... tried to run hack wizard again and still no luck.. also no log to post since hack never ran this time arround... I am sorry this is so long.. just trying to give all the steps i tried here.. Not sure what to do next...
 Thanks

[VorTechS]

The fact the partitioning/formatting failed suggests the drive is having a few issues as the formatting uses a full format approach.  If you had the Keg hacked already there is no need to run the hack again... but when installing the firmware (or using the Create New DMS) you need to ensure the option 'Install non-hacked firmware' is unchecked.

Most obvious things would be to check the cabling and just make sure it's not loose at the head unit end, and that it's not been caught somewhere and therefore damaged.  Also try doing a search about the common 'ribbon cable' issue as this could be another reason your Keg is not playing ball.

[macgyver70]

VorTechS

 I opened the keg and all seems ok, no loose connections. The cable from keg goes through an aux splitter with a aux input and  2 changer jacks. 1 has my sirius rx and the other the keg. I tried to unplug all then plug in 1 at a time still nothing with keg the siruis rx had no audio when keg plugged in. (don't know if that means anything) but without keg the aux input and the siruis work fine.
 On another note the hacked dms drive would format only if I use an external USB adapter instead of opening the dms and using the usb 1.1 cradle but phathack tools would fail on the "Create new DMS" partitioned and formatted with partition magic. This drive must have a developing problem. So this is why I went back to the original DMS drive.

[VorTechS]

Did you try taking the splitter out of the equation and having the cable run straight from the head unit to the Keg?

[macgyver70]

I just took out head unit and plugged keg directly into head unit without splitter and siruis rx. 1 green flash when the keg first gets plugged in, then just solid red forever. Head unit displays cd changer when source is selected then quickly changes to aux ext. what does solid red mean?

[markbowen]

Solid red just means the Keg is getting power.

I don't know which DMS you are tryng now, but from your previous posts it seems quite likely that your hacked DMS drive is failing.  When you have problems in the car and on the computer that is usually the case.

Also, Kenwood head units sometimes need to be reset to work properly with the Keg.  Try that with the original DMS, since that drive should still be working.

[VorTechS]

It's also worth checking that the original drive is okay by checking for the PHTSYS and PHTDTA partitions and that the system files are on PHTSYS, and there is at least something on PHTDTA.

[macgyver70]

The original DMS has data on both partitions. Yes I believe the hacked DMS must be half dead.. I use medai manager on original DMS and it seems ok..able to play and add music and it ejects fine.. How would I reset head unit.. I have held in source button till all lights out and have pulled the main modular plug, all that did was made it loose presets and clock. Is there a reset button somewhere or a button sequence to reset the head unit?

[markbowen]

I don't know what Kenwood you have, but on most of them there should be a tiny little button somewhere on the faceplate, which can only be pressed with a pen tip.  Check your manual if you still have it, or most manuals can be downloaded from Kenwood.  However, if you pulled the power on it that also should have done it. 

Sometimes a simple disconnect/reconnect of the cable at the Keg does the trick as well, or even a very slight nudge of the DMS into the Keg.  If you do all that and the head unit still shows "eject," something is not right with the drive.  That could be a physical defect or some system files are missing.

[macgyver70]

I got it working! after resetting the head unit it went from AUX EXT to EXT HDD and started to play the phatnoise hack sounds then it started to play my music on the DMS.. So I guess the hacked DMS drive died and caused some sort of corruption of the data. The original DMS works just fine. Now I just need to wait for replacement drive to come, so I can have a hacked drive running not original. I want to thank all who helped me get it going!