Having trouble hacking a Phatbox in a 1999.5 MkIV VW Jetta

[Steveo369]

I've done some searching, and haven't found a definitive answer to this issue, but I suspect it's similar and related to the long standing issue of hacking *some* of the VW firmware boxes.

Setup:
1999.5 VW Jetta MK IV, Radio Type E, non-monsoon. 20gb.  PB purchased in 2004, has been working flawlessly since. 
I also own a 2000 Audi A4 with a 20gb PB.  I started the afternoon by running DMS HackTools on the Audi DMS and successfully applying the hack to that vehicle. 
When completely stock, either vehicle could play either DMS, with no problems.  Handy when I'd take the wife's car on a longer drive or vice versa.

After completely running the hack on the Audi, and testing the new drive/DMS, I installed the original drive back to the Audi DMS.  I attempted all hacks on the VW using the cartridge/drive which I had hacked the Audi with.  I DID NOT want to touch the VW DMS at all (wife's car/music, wanted to retain everything just in case).

I then reset the DMS HackTools Wizard, and re-started the process to load the DMS with the hacktools.  All went fine, reached step 6 of 8, ejected and placed the hack DMS into the car, turned the ignition on and started the radio.

This is when things got a bit weird. 
The radio at first indicated the last playing track, but then would give me the "CHK MAGAZIN" error on the display.  This would happen for about a minute, and then I would get "NO MAGAZIN".  Shortly after that, the radio would revert to FM.  I would press the CD key as directed and immediately get the CHK MAGAZIN and NO MAGAZIN  errors.  I thought perhaps the PB was rebooting, so I continued pressing the CD key to change the source about 20 times for 15 minutes.  No Hack complete message or anything; the radio never indicated playing music again, always only the MAGAZIN errors.

So, I then unhooked the cord from the back of the PB as instructed.  Reattach cord, insert HACK DMS and turn on ignition and radio.  At this  point, I would get a "NO CHANGER" display on the radio.

General behavior of the PB LED's would be as follows:
Both lights would come on.
Green would blink slowly.  Then after 20-30 seconds, it would blink quickly. 
When the display went to "NO MAGAZIN" the green light would turn off, and then both lights would turn off when the radio switched to FM.  This would repeat over and over.

I put the DMS back in the cradle and continued the wizard.  Sure enough, PhatHackTools reported that the hack did not take on my box.

I then put everything back, and attempted to use the original VW (unhacked DMS).  Luckily it still worked just fine.

So that's where I'm stuck now.  I've still got a working PB, but it's stock/non hacked.  I've attached a copy of the logfile.txt from the PhatHackTools directory as instructed by the HackTools.

If anyone has any ideas on how to get this to work, I'd be grateful.  As of now, I can't use my new larger hacked DMS in this car.  I'd like to get both of my cars hacked so I can swap DMS's as well as run a hacked drive if the drive in this car fails.

[VorTechS]

From what I can see in the logs, everything is firing off as it should be.  It looks like the box plays the startup sound, then plays the intro. message and then runs the hack, but that is then immediately cut off (not a clean shut down).  I don't know if leaving the box on for any further period of time than this log was from will yield any more information - but as far as it looks (assuming the log point is not at a 'hanging point') the box is doing what it should be.

To clarify your procedures, from what I understand, you are taking a 'stock' DMS and then applying the hack with nothing else in between? 

If so, it's possible that whilst the Audi/VW firmware is generally similar - you may need to apply VW specific firmware to hack the VW box. 

It's a long shot, and I can't really justify why I suggest doing this if a stock 'audi' DMS is working in the VW box... but I can't really see what else could be causing issues when the hack is applied.  However, it would also be good to see all of the logs in the hack wizard log directory (My documents\PhatHack Media Manager\Logs) too in case there's anything in one of these files that might help.

[Steveo369]

Thanks for the reply VortechS.  I had meant to followup, but forgot.

A week after my original post, I did some serious troubleshooting and hack attempts.  My main original goal was to leave one of my original DMS's completely virgin, and not run any hack software on it, so I had been trying to do the 2nd hack on the Jetta with the same DMS I had run the hack with on the Audi.

I ended up taking the un-hackable PB out of the Jetta and installing it in the Audi, updating firmware and trying the hack.  No Dice.
Tried rebuilding the DMS, Nothing.
Tried a whole heck of a lot of other combinations in both the Jetta and the Audi with power down/power off, and even let the hack run with the car on a battery charger overnight. 

The hack would absolutely NOT take on the Jetta's PB.

Until I finally gave up and said f-it.  I went ahead and hacked the other DMS (the original one that had been primarily used in the Jetta).

The hack 'took' the very first time, running on the Jetta PB installed in the Audi.

All that being said, I don't know exactly what the problem was.  Everything I've read seems to indicate that an original DMS should be able to hack multiple PB's.  It should have been as simple as resetting the DMSTools wizard on that DMS, and popping it into the 2nd PB.  But it did NOT work for me.

Either way, it's all done now, I'm running a 100gb cartridge in my audi, and one of the original 20gb DMS in the Jetta and both PB's are sucessfully hacked.  The original Jetta PB is back in the Jetta and the Audi PB is in the Audi.  They are identical units.

I don't really have any additional logs or anything to explain why the 2nd hack wouldn't work, but was 'lucky' I had a 2nd original DMS to hack with (glad I didn't wait until one of them went bad before hacking.)