Assistance req from any computer geeks

[Drunkenclam]

I'm trying to access a hard drive from a mobile device, Its the same as a laptop ide hard drive labelled Hitachi DK23FA-20N Corrected to the motherboard by a special cable, that plugs into the secondary of ide port of the motherboard and one of the power leads.
The key on the drive say master if no jumpers. and its the only drive on that port. I have used it in the past to remove files from a broken laptop (different hard disc)

Ok still with me.

So now plugged in the drive and start up Pc, Enter bios and it shows hard drive attached.
Boots up windows XP, Click on "my computer" and drive isn't listed.
Go to device manager and select discs and its listed there, Check drivers ok.
Return to desktop and right click "my computer" and seelect "manage"
Select disc managment, to assign drive letter. but the hard disc isn't there either.

Also tried deleting drivers and re-installing, But no luck alonmg with, turn off and one, Swap ide ports etc,

Has anyone got any thoughs as what to try next

[Ikaria]

Right click 'My Computer' > go to 'Manage...' > click 'Disk Management' on the left-side pane
on the right side pane, look for your drive to see if it has a drive letter assigned to it like the other drives...if not, right click on it and assign it a new drive letter.

If that doesn't work,

Go to Start > Run
Type in regedit

Then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies

Do you have a 'No Drive' value? If so make sure it's 0

Good luck!

[Drunkenclam]

Tried the disc management again, But the drive isn't there,so can not assign a letter to it.

Went to regedit to policies.

Name: Default,
Type: REG_SZ
Data: 0

there is also a sub folder labelled explorer, But I left that well alone
Didn't seem to make any difference

[daverob]

What is the 'mobile device' you're talking about. It might not have a windows compatible file format on it.

If it's not formatted in FAT or NTFS then windows is not going to pick it up and allow you to assign a drive letter to it. Quite a lot of stuff that includes hard drives have them formatted in Linux file systems, and you'll need special drivers to be able to read them on a windows machine.

If this is the case, you could also boot up with a linux 'live CD' and copy the contents over to your regular hard drive that way.

[Drunkenclam]

Its a kenwood navigation unit. the unit its self is faulty because it can never find a signal, But the hard disc is fine as you can browse the maps and enter location etc etc but it never finds its the signal.
I want to see if I can get the maps off of it for use in my older kenwood dvd-rom version.

Even if I can't get the maps to work, Its worth a try Especially as kenwood haven't done any map upgraddes for my model for over 4 years

Do you think its worth trying a windows linex utility like Ext2 Installable File System For Windows

[luckydog]

I've tried using old tivo hard drives with a computer and had the same problem

[daverob]

Do you think its worth trying a windows linex utility like Ext2 Installable File System For Windows

It might be worth a try, at that kind of age if it is Linux it'll most probably be EXT2, but there are quite a few other file systems out there, and most of them don't have windows drivers available. I would try a Linux live-CD as that would auto-detect the file system and mount it without needing any drivers. But if you're a windows person and never used Linux before it might be easier to try a windows driver first, as you'll be more familiar with the file copying and DVD burning software.

[Drunkenclam]

Will do, Is there a linux live cd you recommend, other web forums seem to point towards using ubuntu.
I'll try after I get home from work today

[daverob]

While I use Ubuntu on most of my machines, the user interface has changed recently and may be unfamiliar to someone who is used to using windows. I'd recommend trying Linux Mint, as everything there should be roughly where you expect it to be.

[Drunkenclam]

I downloaded Linux Mint and burnt to cd then booted up from cd, but no effect, Or should I say, That didn't find or assign the hard disc either, I guess it uses a different OS

[daverob]

Shame, apart from looking at the Master Boot Record (MBR) sectors on the drive with a hex editor and decoding them by hand to see if it's a recognised format, all the other things I can think of are very risky and could result in you losing your data if you press the wrong key.

Least risky is to disconnect all other hard drives in the PC and boot up the linux live cd and then run 'fdisk -l /dev/sda' from a terminal, this may (or may not!) give you some information about the drive format (even if it's just to confirm that it's unrecognised).

You could also try windows XP's fdisk command, but it's unlikely to give you any useful information as it only works on windows compatible file systems. It would also be a lot more risky as you would need to leave your windows boot hard disk connected, and a wrong command or keypress could wipe it.

[Drunkenclam]

Apparently it is an OS called naviem made by toshiba and denso and have hdd units fitted to a wide range of cars. Buick, Ford, Lexus etc

[Drunkenclam]

Went back to Linux Mint and typed in command , But just replies Cannot open /dev/sda

Its odd because the older DVD rom version can be read by windows and all the files viewed

[Drunkenclam]

I'm not sure if this is any help. Does putting an x box Hdd in a pc have the same effect, I found a note on a mitsubishi forum about someone who unlocked the navi hadd disk in a lancer

http://mitsubishiforum.com/forum/mit...success-22994/

Although mine is a different unit, It might be a sort of answer, Although I don't have access to an oscilloscope.

I'll download HDLOCK.EXE and see if that see's the drive. Although without the password, Its may not be much help

[daverob]

That would explain it, if the drive is locked at the hardware level (ie the ATA interface) then you wouldn't be able to read the partition table on any operating system until it's received the right password and unlocked itself.

Getting the password out could be done in the same way as on that forum, but you'd need some serious electronics kit to do it. BTW, what they used is not an oscilloscope, it's actually a logic analyzer. If it could be done on a 'scope, then I'd be willing to give it a go (as I've got a couple of them here) but I don't have a logic analyzer (or anything I could hack to use in it's place!), so I don't think I could be a lot of help.

Without being able to 'read' the password using a logic analyzer or similar kit, the only other approach I can think of is to power up the hard drive on the original device until it's unlocked, and then transfer the connections to a computer, while keeping the drive powered and ensuring the ATA interface is not reset. The drive should then remain unlocked and the contents could be dumped. Though I'm probably overlooking something, and I wouldn't be surprised if the drive has some kind of extra protection to stop you from getting at the contents like this.

I'd keep looking on the net. Chances are, if it's possible to hack, then someone will have already tried it and there may be an obscure web page with the password or a drive dump on it.


BTW the reason you can read the DVD disk on windows, is that all DVDs are the same format (it's part of the DVD spec), so any drive can read them.

[Drunkenclam]

I hadn't forgotten about this, But was trying things in the background

But as I type this, I'm making a backup of the hard disk 120mins to go
I had to source a 3 way 44pin ide lead from China (used on Amigas and such like) Then between the Motherboard end and slave drive connector, Swap each pair of wires, 1-23, 2-24, 3-25 etc. By cutting and solering back together. Then fit a male 2 male adaptor into the motherboard end.
Chopped off the master drive plug and solder on the 4 pin Hard drive power connector to the first 4 pins.

Plug the lead into the sat nav and the hard disk, Plug the power lead into a spare power lead on the PC. Also fit a 40 - 44 pin hard drive adaptor into the spare IDE port.
Boot up the sat nav and pc. I've also got a small screen plugged into the V-out of the sat nav so know when its finished booting up.
When ready, disconnected the lead from the satnav and plug it into the hard drive adaptor.

Ran add hardware program, and it finds 2 generic drives., Now shown in My Computer as Drive E and F.
Now making back ups so I can upgrade map and POI files, The copy back to the drive.

Or

Do what the guys at Mitsubishi do it for and install a larger hard drive, As this one stores music on it to be called up my the head unit.
Seeing as my Headunit is now in the wifes mini connected to her ipod, in a hiding place, Makes sense for me to stick in a larger drive to store my music on.


Oh does anyone want to buy a Jaguar

[Card Shark]

Still haven't sold the Jag??? I love mine, it would be very hard for me to part with.

[MrGneiss]

I have no clue what you are doing, but I'm glad you got it figured out!!

[KimbaWLion]

Native hardware coding and software is BEAR to deal with! Glad you worked it out!

[Drunkenclam]

Accessing the drive was only the start of it now to play with the files