Disk problem

[seifer]

Hey

i cant hack cause my drive is corrupt, is there any other way to get the drive signature so i can put in on a new drive

[snoggle]

It would be helpful if you were more specific about what is wrong with the drive you have.

If the signature has been overwritten, you will need to find another working DMS.

I have suceeded in getting a signature off of a DMS drive with disk mechanism problems that redered it unusable as a DMS. The sectors with the signature were readable using the dd command string specified in the manual hack.

You will need a functioning DMS to patch the phatbox, as well as provide the signature.

You might want to go check with your local VW dealer. A VW phatbox, at a good price (mine was $132), will set you up with the DMS you need, and a USB 2.0 cradle as well, which is a nice accessory worth ~$70 itself.

[seifer]

well the problem is that it keeps on reading the disk after i put it in the cradle, keeps on blinking "green" and nothing happens in windows... and running the "hack" through cd-image... keeps telling me that the partion "" and "" has not the right names... and halts, well i haven't yet tried the manual hack along with the "dd command" but it seems somehow the drive might be corrupt to me... i mean it shouldn't hang or be unreadable, the partions... trying to repair the partions using the option 4 says that the partions are corrupt and it needs reformatting, and an error code are shown and should be held back to the dealer... problem is that the dealer are on the opposite side of this globe :-( and i just need the signature cause i have a new drive and if i just could get it to the new drive i would be fine... why not a signature generator of some kind cause to me it seems everbody can rip it off of any dms... so if readable why not writeable wouldn't be so hard i mean... well anything is cracked so far, why not the drive signature

[Firefox]

well the problem is that it keeps on reading the disk after i put it in the cradle, keeps on blinking "green" and nothing happens in windows... and running the "hack" through cd-image... keeps telling me that the partion "" and "" has not the right names... and halts, well i haven't yet tried the manual hack along with the "dd command" but it seems somehow the drive might be corrupt to me... i mean it shouldn't hang or be unreadable, the partions... trying to repair the partions using the option 4 says that the partions are corrupt and it needs reformatting, and an error code are shown and should be held back to the dealer... problem is that the dealer are on the opposite side of this globe :-( and i just need the signature cause i have a new drive and if i just could get it to the new drive i would be fine... why not a signature generator of some kind cause to me it seems everbody can rip it off of any dms... so if readable why not writeable wouldn't be so hard i mean... well anything is cracked so far, why not the drive signature

wow - long sentence!

A few ideas...

1) re: running the "hack" through cd-image... keeps telling me that the partion "" and "" has not the right names...
I got that problem when the built in slots for SD/CompactFlash/MMC/MC and USB2 on front of PC were enabled in BIOS. It also meant the DMS and cradle was picked up by the boot cd as "sdb" i.e. second scsi drive.
My fix was to reduce the number of USB ports in Bios from 8 down to 4, which seemed to disable the front devices. The boot cd seems to need "sda" when it does the check for valid DMS

2) In windows if you open an explorer widow can you see 2 drive letter with labels "PHTSYS" and "PHTDTA" ?

3) if you can, try running a "chkdsk /f" command on the PHTSYS drive letter i.e.
- Click "Start" button... then "Run..." then type in "cmd" and hit enter to get a DOS prompt.
- change to PHTSYS drive letter e.g. if PHTSYS is "J" in Explorer then key in "J:" and hit enter
- then key in "chkdsk /f" and hit enter to repair broken files

Hope that helps. If your DMS is really wiped because you reformatted it with a non-Phatnoise/Phathack tool then you are out of luck and will need to source a valid DMS from somewhere in order to patch the box before you can use a new drive.

[seifer]

ok here's my results... sorry for the long sentence last, had alot on my mind needed to get out... lol

1) yeah disabling some usbports indeed seems to increase the chances of recognizing the dms drive... that works for the cradle and drive for sure but no luck in getting the "" and "" partions working

2) i have managed before to get 2 drives shown up in explorer G and H where one was PHTSYS and the other PHTDTA running scandisc or chkdsk /f on either one of them results in faulty errors in the programs themselves thus hanging up the whole computer... either command will not finish and thus leaves my drive still not working

3) the same as above with chkdsk /f... chkdsk made a faulty error and needs to close... standard windows error box

i cannit believe a drive can get this fucked up... if its not mechanical error then thus rendering it useless... well i still cling on to hope as i only need the crazy drive signature... patching the box will not be as hard as this one

thanx alot so far for all help and suggestions... your gods, any more help is always welcome... or others with the same problems

[sbingner]

Unfortunately tht is how hard drives usually fail... they just start showing bad sectors everywhere.   You could try a full format on the phatsys partition and see if it works, it will mark all the bad sectors during the format....  then, you can put the 'firmware' back on and the dms should work for a little while.  That is of course assuming there's enough space left after it marks all the bad sectors