Can someone post the drive-sig-1mb.bin file?

[jizay]

I was trying to perform the phat-hack and not until it didnt work and the drive stopped booting did I find out how important it is to have a copy of the drive-sig-1mb.bin file.

Well my phatbox now just says 'CD Check' when I try to access the hard drive. Can anyone post a valid drive-sig-1mb.bin file, or is there any other way to recover  or recreate the file, or reactive an original DMS?

I wish the hack page would have mentioned making a copy of this file. Oh well, any help would be great. Thanks.

[judb]

somone might post it but I wouldn't count on it.

you can borrow someone elses DMS to do the hack and then you can use the new drive without the sig area according to Sam... so you may be able to eek by without one.  

Other option, buy a used but working 10 gig DMS from someone.

[sparky3]

I was trying to perform the phat-hack and not until it didnt work and the drive stopped booting did I find out how important it is to have a copy of the drive-sig-1mb.bin file.

Well my phatbox now just says 'CD Check' when I try to access the hard drive. Can anyone post a valid drive-sig-1mb.bin file, or is there any other way to recover  or recreate the file, or reactive an original DMS?

I wish the hack page would have mentioned making a copy of this file. Oh well, any help would be great. Thanks.

I have the file but it says it's 0 kb in size.  I have 2 DMS cartridges that are legit (10 GB) and would be more than willing to help.  Email me - shawn@goldcomics.com and let me know what I can do to regenerate the file.

[sparky3]

Or, is this only for VW Phatboxes?  I have Kenwood Keg(s)...

[jizay]

My phatbox is for a BMW. Im not sure if that matters.

[judb]

any functional dms can have another phatbox code loaded on it and work for the hack CD.

[markbowen]

Wait a minute.  What makes you think you need that file?

Were you using the hack CD for this process?  Were you using a known working DMS on a known working Phatbox?  How far did you get?  

It is not so easy to wipe the signature from a drive.  An incomplete patching process on the Phatbox would also cause the symptoms you're experiencing.

[jizay]

I cannot find the file on my dms. I was using the hack cd with a known working DMS. I dont think the patching was complete, but I tried to redo it many times and tried the DMS Doctor on my drive. I started looking for info on this site and started seeing info on the drive sig file, and searched my DMS. It was no longer there. On the Phatnoise website it says to reformat the phtsys and phtdta partitions as a problem resolution, so I did that. Maybe I wiped the drive sig file, either way, my known working DMS is no longer working in the phatbox even though it works fine in the craddle on the computer.

[sbingner]

did you try rename ramdisk.sig to ramdisk.org and copying phatd.sig to ramdisk.sig?

[markbowen]

I cannot find the file on my dms. I was using the hack cd with a known working DMS.

The drive signature is not a visible file on the DMS -- if it were, Phatnoise would be spending a lot of time helping people who accidentally deleted it.  The signature is in the first 1MB of the DMS.  Older versions of the patch created a bin file from the signature, but the later versions do not.  You cannot find the file because it is not supposed to be there.

So, the problem is almost surely that the patch did not execute properly on the Phatbox.  Sam's ramdisk suggestion should do the trick.

[jizay]

I would agree that the patch did not work correctly. What I dont understand is why the file copy of the drive-sig is no longer on the newer versions of the hack, or why it's not mentioned as being extremely important to have/copy the file for cases where the hack does execute properly on the first try. It wasnt until the hack didnt work that I did research to find others that had the same issue as me, and find that the drive sig is necessary or the Phatbox will not recognize it without being hacked.

[sbingner]

I would agree that the patch did not work correctly. What I dont understand is why the file copy of the drive-sig is no longer on the newer versions of the hack, or why it's not mentioned as being extremely important to have/copy the file for cases where the hack does execute properly on the first try. It wasnt until the hack didnt work that I did research to find others that had the same issue as me, and find that the drive sig is necessary or the Phatbox will not recognize it without being hacked.

The signature is NOT REQUIRED with the new versions of the patch.  Any drive that would work without the patch would also work without the drive keys.

[jizay]

But that is if the patch is completed succesfully, correct? After my attempt didnt work, I started searching this forum, and it seems like there are many others who had similar issues. At this point I think I have to send my drive back to Phatnoise. It's a little upsetting thinking that I have to pay to have them fix the 20Gb drive when the 20Gb wasnt big enough to begin with. Thats how I got into this situation, to up size to the spare 40Gb I have.

Now, even when I try to use the repair cd everytime i put the original or the 40Gb in, the phatbox just keeps flashing and will not power down. I eject either drive and put it in the craddle and what was originally a partiotioned drive is now unpartitioned and unreadable. Any suggestions?

[sbingner]

Unless you overwrote the original drive or repartitioned it manually you should still be fine.  It takes alot of work to break it, but you should really just keep the old drive intact.  I doubt you have any problems related to those keys.  You probably need to corrupt the ramdisk.sig file, barring that you can just get the first 1MB of somebody else's drive and put that on your drive then reformat... but that would corrupt your drive permanently and never let it play on an unhacked box again.

[sbingner]

Are you saying the phatbox is corrupting your drive?  That should never happen...

[markbowen]

Jizay, if your partitions are unreadable, that's nothing to do with the drive signature.  Even without a signature you should still be able to access the partitions in Windows, or in Linux running the hack CD.  It is possible that there is a hardware problem with your phatbox or cradle, which is corrupting the partitions.

It's difficult to tell exactly what is going on, because it's not clear what you've done with both 20GB and 40GB drives so far.

You wrote that you reformatted the partitions on your DMS.  Was that the original DMS?  Were you careful to format using the FAT32 file system?  If you formatted in Windows XP default of NTFS, the drive will not work in the phatbox, and I think the hack CD also would not read it.  You didn't resize the partitions, did you?  

Let's stay focused on the original DMS.  Phatnoise is not going to repair it if there is any evidence that you tried to hack it.  Can you access it at all in Windows?  Can you transfer any files?