Unlock HDD without spending $50?

[ducatiboy]

If the drive is unlocked you can hook it through a hard drive to usb adapter and you will see 4 partitions (4 drives) as described here:
[url=http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728]http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728[/url]

I'm almost 100% sure that you can NOT unlock the drive using a USB adapter, you need a laptop to desktop ide adapter and hook it to the master of the secondary IDE channel to unlock the drive. Then you can use that other utility to disable the security. Once you unlock it you can use the USB adapter.

[Mossman]

Ok, I just gave it a shot, no luck on the unplugging the negative terminal.

Since the only thing we can do with it right now is just to change various screen pictures and icons, I guess I can wait a while. What I was hoping to do was to copy my music through my PC/laptop to the hard drive, or at least find a much faster way of doing it. Well, that's another free attempt to unlock the hard drive gone to the trash.

What's weird was that, while trying to hook up the locked hard drive to my PC using USB, both XP and vista would not stop searching for the drivers to properly hook up the drive. Then I tried restart the PC with the drive still hooked up on the USB port. First of all, it won't let me completely shutdown my PC until I unplugged the USB cable. While restarting, I tried hooking up the USB again and this time it won't even let me boot XP until I unplug it. Weird.

[ducatiboy]

It could be something weird with the USB adapter you are using. If you were going to try something like this, I would check by using a laptop to desktop IDE adapter. If it failed with that then it's definitely not working. While the USB ones usually work, I don't put a lot of faith in them for drive debugging.

[palacios]

DB,

I found this tutorial online for unlocking TiVo hard drives. Apparently, they work on the same principle as the Z1/Z2 drives. They are unlocked at start-up but relock on shutdown. If I remember correctly, it was you that inserted a different HDD into the Z1 and had it locked automatically, right? If this was you and you still have that same locked HDD, maybe you can try this and see if it will unlock it. I would do it but I don't have any laptop hard drives to try it on. Supposedly it will not affect the data on the drive but I really don't want to risk my Z1's HDD since I don't have a backup. I just thought since you had that locked drive maybe you could try it for us.

[b]Unlocking Hard Drives[/b]

Many early-model TiVo DVRs contain a mechanism that "locks" a hard drive once it has been installed in the TiVo. When a locked drive is connected to a PC, the drive capacity will report 0MB to 10MB, rather than its full capacity.

If your hard drive is locked, then you will not be able to use or diagnose the drive in your PC.

If you have a locked Maxtor drive, the company's Powermax utility will not test the drive properly. It will test only some small percentage of the drive (0-10MB) and will likely not find any error that may actually be present. Thus, if you have a drive that is not functioning properly in your TiVo, you will want to "unlock" the drive so that a drive utility will see the entire drive.

To unlock a drive, you must download and run one of several DOS-based. One of those programs, DiskUtil, is available for download below.

Creating DOS Boot Disk to Unlock a Drive

1) Create a floppy disk that boots into DOS. Click here for links to software that will create a DOS boot disk.

2) Download DiskUtil, unzip the file and copy the diskutil.exe file to your boot floppy.

3) Boot your PC with your locked drive attached.

4) Enter the following command at the DOS prompt:

If your TiVo drive is connected to the primary master IDE bus, enter:
diskutil /PermUnlock 0

If your TiVo drive is connected to the primary slave IDE bus, enter:
diskutil /PermUnlock 1

If your TiVo drive is connected to the secondary master IDE bus, enter:
diskutil /PermUnlock 2

If your TiVo drive is connected to the secondary slave IDE bus, enter:
diskutil /PermUnlock 3

NOTE: This command is case sensitive. (You must use a capital P and a capital U.)

5) Completely power down your PC (do not use CTRL-ALT-DELETE).

6) Now remove your DOS boot disk and restart your PC and confirm that the drive recognizes the proper capacity.

[Mossman]

Yes, after having those weird problem with connecting my drive to the USB, I decided to install it in the secondary IDE channel on a Vista machine. Although it showed that my drive was connected properly, it was not given a drive letter by Vista. I used the Disk Management Tool under Administrative tools and found that the drive is there, but I am not given the option to format it or add/change drive letters. I came to the conclusion that the drive was locked by the Z1 even though I tried to unplug the negative terminal while it was running.

Palacios' suggestion sounds promissing. Any chance you might be able to give it a shot, DucatiBoy? I would try it myself if I have any extra laptop hard drive sitting around. Does anyone else have other suggestions that we might be able to test out? Perhaps if someone else have an extra laptop hard drive sitting around, they would be willing to attempt the Hot Swap method described before, where you remove the hard drive while the Z1 is running. Or, if anyone is willing to sell me a cheap laptop hard drive, I'm willing to give the Hot Swap method a shot in my Z1.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys.

[ducatiboy]

Sorry, I did read this but it was long and glossed over it and didn't answer. I already ruined a desktop hard drive doing this. This only works with Maxtor hard drives. I tried this on a tivo drive (years ago) which was not a stock maxtor and ended up having to throw it out. Nothing else would fix it. Different drives use different unlocking utilities. If you use the wrong one you can brick your drive. Stuff like that is why spending the $50 doesn't bother me.

[palacios]

You were right. I tried this on a locked 3.5" Western Digital drive and it didn't unlock it. At least it didn't fry it though. Thanks anyways!

[side4]

if I had to guess your going to have to hot swap the drive like on the XBOX hacks where you use a adapter harness to feed power to the drive let the Z2 unlocks the drive boots up to a certain point , unplug the drive with it powered up! have your modded USB adapter plug it into your computer never loosing power to the drive as it locks if power is lost.

[Mossman]

That sounds like the most logical step to a free unlocking procedure. I think someone have mentioned in another thread that the hard drive cover needs to be on in order for the avic to boot up. It might be just a small switch under that plastic cover that you can hold down and keep holding while you remove the hard drive. Although this procedure sounds simple enough, I don't think anyone is brave enough to risk doing it due to the possibility of frying the hard drive. Besides, there aren't that many hacks or modifications you can do with the hard drive just yet to risk using step. Perhaps once someone figured out a way to play divx files or backup their dvd's into the hard drive or even just copying compressed music files into the drive directly from the PC, then it may be worth the risk. Right now, the only thing you can do is just change various images.