dms cartridge dead

[modstation]

my dms cartridge started playing up and eventually died on inspection i found it had water inside, most probably condensation (just got back from alps) due to being very cold then very hot. trouble is i have no clue what to do now i have posted to buy a new one but is there anything i can do to swap the hdd (have a spare lappy drive) using some sort of formatting tool. reading the posts it seems i have to have a working cartridge, is there any other way. any help appreciated. i am in essex if anyone can help with a hacked drive willing to pay

[judb]

I assume you mean that you haven't previously done the hack on your phatbox?  if not you will need a working phatnoise DMS to hack the box in order to create a replacement drive.

[modstation]

yes i think i mentioned if anyone could prepare a drive for me locally i would be willing to pay for the help. thats if there is absolutely nothing i can do

[sbingner]

They can't prepare a drive for you -- the drive needs nothing done to it, it's your phatbox that needs to be modified

But yea, you'll probably need to find somebody local with a valid DMS

[sbingner]

Oh, and it's not entirely true that there's NOTHING you can do... if you feel like opening it up and soldering on a serial port you can apply the hack that way.

[modstation]

any instructions on serial port add on for phatbox and how to prepare drive once its done. i am pretty handy with electronics so wouldnt be a problem soldering etc.

[Beamer]

I found this by searching today might be what u need

http://wiki.phathack.com/Access_Serial_Port

[modstation]

is there anywhere on the net that has an easy to follow step by step procedure to hack firmware on phatbox to accept any hdd. or a copy of a hacked firmware that i can look at so i can modify the chip on mine. which chip holds the info that looks for drive signature and how easy is it to hex edit the firmware to disable this feature

[sbingner]

All that info is in the phatpatch utility -- see http://downloads.phathack.com/sbingner and look at the various phatpatch.c files

[judb]

is there anywhere on the net that has an easy to follow step by step procedure to hack firmware on phatbox to accept any hdd.

or a copy of a hacked firmware that i can look at so i can modify the chip on mine.

which chip holds the info that looks for drive signature and how easy is it to hex edit the firmware to disable this feature

http://forum.phathack.com/index.php/topic,981.0.html (should answer the first question.)

http://downloads.phathack.com/sbingner/phatpatch/phatpatch-0.8.c (should answer the second question, thats what we modify.  We do not have a full copy of the flash based boot loader (firmware is a bad term for it really) available for download due to copyright issues it could create.)

http://wiki.phathack.com/Hardware_FAQ (should help you with the board layout.) 

You will not likely be doing hex editing of your flashrom outside of the method that we are using.  You'll either have to attach a flash programmer to the chip while its on the board still, or remove the chip from the board, and flash it then reattach it.  This is a fairly complex process with a high degree of risk involved and if you are not used to doing it I don't suggest exploring that option.  Buying / borrowing a working original DMS to run the hack code we've created is a simple process and safe.  I'd focus on that option.

[VorTechS]

Woah!  If all you need is a new drive, and you are in the UK, then PM me and I'll sort you one out.  PM/mail me and we'll go from there.

Seems you are going a bit excessive to replace a dead drive.