DMS issue #4,654,007 (Running out of things to try)

[Fooped]

Hey everyone,


First off thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge and expertise on this board. As you all know trying to find definitive solutions for the Phatnoise system is not easy.

Here's my sad story:


I have two Phatnoise systems in two seperate vehicles. One in a Corvette (which is the Kenwood Music Keg) and another in my 2004 VW Touraeg. I have been using the VW system with no issues for about two years now, and the Vette system works fine as well (although I very rarely drive the car).

About a month ago, the VW (Non-nav) head unit started with the "No-CD" gig, and I started a long (and still continuing) trouble shooting process. I inserted the DMS (from here on I will call it DMS #1 as there's three total in this debacle) and the software locks up completely! Neither XP or PMM can see the drive and I have to do a whole bunch of Ctrl-Alt-Delete and End Task malarky to get the PC back to a steady state. This happens without fail every time I try inserting the DMS. For what it's worth, I am using the Kenwood cradle as the VW crapped out about a year ago. From everything I've researched, the two cradles are identical but I figured I'd mention it.

So I downloaded PMM 3.92 and tried again. Same ugly lockup and C.A.D. process with neither XP or PMM recognizing the drive.

Just for grins, I tried the Vette Kenwood DMS (DMS #2 from here on) and the cradle and PMM worked perfectly: PMM sees the DMS, XP sees it with both partitions, I can load songs and it plays fine in the Vette Kenwood system.

This tells me that DMS #2, the cradle and the PMM are all in working order.

As we all also know, finding "spare" DMS drives is a huge pain, and I've lost auction after auction on Ebay trying to secure one. Enter one of my local VW dealers who has a PN system that he couldn't get to work, so he gives me his DMS! I'm thinkin' "Sweet, this thing's from a VW system, I should be good to go!"

No such luck.

When I insert the new VW DMS (DMS #3) I don't get the nasty software crash, but neither XP nor PMM sees the drive! What are the odds?!?!


AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

Oddly enough, if I look in Device Manager in Control Panel, I can see DMS #3 clear as a bell. Not sure what to make of that.

So I figure that since I don't drive the Vette very much, I figure I'll try the Vette DMS in the VW PB. The PB and HU recognize the DMS, and a audio track starts playing but no audio is heard and I cannot switch to different playlists or genres.

I downloaded some instructions on how to supposedly get the VW PB to recognize the Kenwood DMS, but could not get it to work.

I saw that in PMM there's a utility that allows you to configure the DMS for a specific headunit, but that utility is no longer viable as it was driven off the website which is no longer functional.

Now I start taking the DMS drives apart and experiment with removing the IDE adapters to see if it's a hardware issue. The same results occur in all configurations.


I've done a fair amount of searching on this board and the 'net in general), and short of trying to hack the box (which seems utterly terrifying to me) or wrangling another VW DMS, I'm out of ideas.

I've seen in multiple posts that there's a utility that "repairs" bad DMS drives. Do you all think that either DMS #1 (which crashes the software) or DMS #3 (which cannot be seen by PMM or XP except in Device Manager) are candidates for this process?

The last thing I want to do is ruin my only working DMS for the Vette, but I'm willing to be brave and tinker if someone could assist me.


I'm willing to pay someone to "make" me a drive, or I'm willing to listen to any advice you all may have that can help get some tunes going again!


Thanks very much for all your time and attention!

[sbingner]

Well once it's working you NEED TO HACK IT - otherwise you'll never be able to replace your hard drive when it fails and eventually you'll run out of ways to get a new DMS.

Anyway, before you start messing with it I would reccomend you make sure the Vette is working with its original DMS, and apply the hack to the Vette - that way if you manage to screw up the DMS somehow you won't be SOL.

Then, you can load the correct firmware on whichever DMS you want to use to get your VW working using the tool available from http://forum.phathack.com/index.php/topic,1291.0.html - make sure you don't do create DMS, just update firmware.  Once you have the correct firmware on the DMS, you should be able to get it working and playing music in the VW, at which point you will want to apply the hack to the VW as well.

[Fooped]

Thanks for your help!

Unfortunately I'm still dead in the water. I downloaded and installed the PhatHack DMS tools and printed out the directions. I went to the section labeled "Updating a DMS with newer/older firmware" and attempted to update DMS #3. When I put the DMS in the cradle, the red and green lights stay on permanently and the PhatHack program hangs. Once I remove the DMS from the cradle, the program returns to a steady state. It seems to me that if all I want to do is repair DMS #3, I don't need to mess around with the Vette DMS or PB, correct?

DMS #1 also does the same thing, but without the whirring and clicking noises. I think that drive is completely fubar.

Just to make sure I understand, does the PhatHack tools program allow a user to put a bad DMS into the cradle and "repair" it so that it works again in a stock PB WITHOUT hacking or having another good stock DMS? It seems that's the point of the "Updating a DMS with newer/older firmware" portion of the program.

I really don't want to hack or modify the Vette system in any way, as I'm going to trade the car in this year, and I just want to keep it working.

Does the fact that the lights stay lit constantly mean that the DMS is physically bad? I can hear all kinds of whirring and clicking coming from the drive, so something's happening but I'm not sure what.

What next?

[VorTechS]

Whirring and clicking is a sure sign of the disk dying/being dead.

The PhatHack DMS Tools will allow you to re-install the firmware on a DMS where some form of file corruption takes place.

In _theory_, you could use the Create New DMS process with a stock DMS and unhacked PhatBox to re-partition and repair dodgy partitions, as it doesn't touch the important first 1MB of the disk that an unhacked PhatBox looks for.

At this point, I look to sbingner to confirm this theory.

It really sounds like both disks are gone.  I would use the last remaining good DMS to hack all the boxes while you can, and then replace the drives.  Even if you are selling any of the boxes, a plus selling point in terms of the PhatBox would be the fact that the new owner can upgrade the disk as they see fit.

You can use the update firmware procedure to apply the correct firmware for the other boxes in order to hack them.  (Do it in the order, apply firmware, check it works in the appropriate box, then run the hack)

[sbingner]

It should be perfectly safe on stock DMS -- but there's no good reason to run it unless your partitions are completely screwed.

VorTechS, you could add another option "ReFormat DMS" that just formats the partitions... that would be completely transparent, and should just involve doing a subset of "Create DMS"

[VorTechS]

Yea, good call, I'll do that on Monday.  I'll chage the label on the first toolbar button to 'DMS Tools' or something too, and move the order of them to something more logical.  Ie.  Update Firmware, Repair DMS (=format) and lastly Create New DMS.

[judb]

I would try using the old phatnoise unix boot cd to rebuild the dms from scratch.

DO NOT USE ANY PARTITIONING TOOLS on your own..  This is the easy way to ruin a DMS if you have unhacked phatboxes.

I don't remember if we have a copy of that disc posted online or not.. if we don't we should post it.  it used to be hosted at unix.phatnoise.com but that server isn't working like it used to.

if you can't find that the other simple-ish way is to read this:

changing the firmware of a DMS to work with a different head unit is easy.  I would suggest that you backup the files in the phtsys partition and then format phtsys as a fat32 file system.

download the files for the type of head unit you want to run the drive with from http://downloads.phathack.com/firmware/ (all for zip files for that head unit).  Then extract the files directly into phtsys.  remove the files forceupdate and forcesettings if they exist in phtsys.

make sure you run a chkdsk on phtdta before ejecting the DMS and then put it in the keg or the phatbox and see if it plays.  that is all it SHOULD take and is the safest manual way to make sure it will work.

I can't stress enough DO NOT repartition the drive on an original DMS unless you are using the phatnoise boot CD or the modified boot CD that I published.