i can view the files on the z1 hd, landed up using an ide-laptop case usb 2.0 and plugging it into my mac. its has a bunch of files and folders but i cant make sence of anything.

jake said:

i can view the files on the z1 hd, landed up using an ide-laptop case usb 2.0 and plugging it into my mac. its has a bunch of files and folders but i cant make sence of anything.

Did you have anything in your library? MP3's? Can you find them? Any JPG's or something?

?? U can see FILES...

Are there any files that have a .aac extension (Pioneer tech told me they were encoded... mp4 specario)

Do you have a phone available.. I think either myself or ducati would definitely call u!!!

MAKE AN IMAGE OF THE DRIVE IMMEDIATELY BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE

jake said:

i can view the files on the z1 hd, landed up using an ide-laptop case usb 2.0 and plugging it into my mac. its has a bunch of files and folders but i cant make sence of anything.

I did the same thing except I connected it to a PC instead of a MAC. From what I've read this shouldn't have worked. ATA locking doesn't care what computer you connect it to. Sounds like you have an unlocked hard drive.

Did you by chance do this before you ever turned the z1 on for the first time? Because of how the z1 locked another drive of mine as soon as it was inserted and powered up perhaps the inital drives from Pioneer come unlocked and are locked on first boot. Sort of like how smart cards are married in satelite systems for those that know about that stuff too.

Pulp_Fiction said:

I did the same thing except I connected it to a PC instead of a MAC. From what I've read this shouldn't have worked. ATA locking doesn't care what computer you connect it to. Sounds like you have an unlocked hard drive.

Remember, the MAC is basically running Linux under the covers now... What size torx did you use to remove the hard drive cover?

ooh This is good news.

BigFloppy said:

Pulp_Fiction said:

I did the same thing except I connected it to a PC instead of a MAC. From what I've read this shouldn't have worked. ATA locking doesn't care what computer you connect it to. Sounds like you have an unlocked hard drive.

Remember, the MAC is basically running Linux under the covers now... What size torx did you use to remove the hard drive cover?

In the other thread I went into more detail but I also booted to Linux and had no luck. Again, its the ATA locking we need to get around and the OS doesn't matter, this is at the bios level of the drive. The drive ATA locking is setup so it will only accept a few commands. If he got into the drive then I'm thinking the drives come unlocked and get locked on initial bootup of the Z1. This would also lead me to believe the locking codes are going to be unique for each Z1. Pioneer probably has a master list of codes or an algorithm based on the Z1's serial number.

Torx size was very small. I'll look at lunch today if I still have the driver in the car.

Here is a quote from a PW recovery service on ATA hard drive locking:

HARD DISK LOCKS:
Some laptops provide a utility to lock a hard disk with a password. These passwords are not the same as BIOS passwords. Moving a locked hard disk to another machine will not unlock it, since the hard disk password is stored in the hard disk firmware and moves with the hard disk. Also, adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard disk to become locked. Also, note that hard disk lock passwords cannot be removed by reformatting the disk, fdisk or any other software procedure (since the disk will not allow and reads or writes to the disk, it cannot be reformatted.) Usually, the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords are set the same by a user and we can recover the BIOS password directly from the laptop security chip (after it is removed from the system board.) However, it is possible that the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords may be set different. In this case the BIOS password will not unlock the hard disk. You can test to determine if your hard disk is locked by attempting to access it in another laptop. Password Crackers, Inc. offers a service that can unlock most models of laptop hard disks. Detail are available on our hard disk page.

As promised it's a T8 torx bit.

its a mac mini running dual boot with xp, ebay ide usb adapter oh mac has the intel core duo chip if that matters

Pulp_Fiction said:

As promised it's a T8 torx bit.

THANKS! I'm on it!

Jake said:

its a mac mini running dual boot with xp, ebay ide usb adapter oh mac has the intel core duo chip if that matters

But did you ever power up the Z1 before trying to look at the HDD?

Well guys, none of my utilities can get access to the drive...

It gets recognized as a hard drive BUT then get I/O error.
I tried it as both Disk0 and Disk1 without any success. Like what was said in the other thread, it must be platter locked.

It's apparently NOT.. EXT2/EXT3/HPUX/NTFS anything that "MountEverything" (http://www.mount-everything.com/) can access anyways

BigFloppy said:

Well guys, none of my utilities can get access to the drive...

It gets recognized as a hard drive BUT then get I/O error.
I tried it as both Disk0 and Disk1 without any success. Like what was said in the other thread, it must be platter locked.

It's apparently NOT.. EXT2/EXT3/HPUX/NTFS anything that "MountEverything" (http://www.mount-everything.com/) can access anyways

You're repeating my earlier work, thx for the double check. :lol:

I'm thinking the best way to get around this is to get one drive unlocked, load all the data on another drive that does not support the drive lock commands and use it as the primary system drive. As long as the Z1 will use it we can get back into it with no problems.

Pulp_Fiction said:

You're repeating my earlier work, thx for the double check. :lol:

The onl other way I can think abotu doing it is to get the platters unlocked by screwing with the power connector...

2.5-3.5 Connector -> 3.5-2.5Connector(EXT power here)
PULL THE 44 WAY (leaving power to the drive)
PLUG drive into USB and drive from PC

(if you understand my thinking)

JAKE, did you remove the hd BEFORE you powered on the radio for the first time??

Can you also post a screenshot of the files/directories or cut/paste the file list to this post? We'd like to see....

BigFloppy said:

Pulp_Fiction said:

You're repeating my earlier work, thx for the double check. :lol:

The onl other way I can think abotu doing it is to get the platters unlocked by screwing with the power connector...

2.5-3.5 Connector -> 3.5-2.5Connector(EXT power here)
PULL THE 44 WAY (leaving power to the drive)
PLUG drive into USB and drive from PC

(if you understand my thinking)

Yep, had the same idea, see other thread.
To save you the trouble of digging through 5 pages here is what I proposed and think will work but don't want to try. I'm going to go the other route of unlocking and then reading the drive.

I speculate my laptop drive was issued the unlock command by the Z1 and then the lock command when I shut it down to remove it. I have a couple of guesses on how to get into this.

for the following the "test" drive is the one from my laptop that was locked by the Z1.

Connect the "test" drive to an ide channel on a nearby PC
Boot up the PC so it sees the drives bios config.
leave the PC running and unplug the drive
Run an extention cable out of the Z1 HDD bay
Use an external power source to power up the HDD.
Plug in the "test" drive to the extention cable coming out of the Z1
Power up the Z1, bypass the safety switch
leave the Z1 on and unplug the drive from data only
reconnect the drive to the PC
The drive will hopefully be unlocked
Hopefully I can now retrieve or change the password - Still working on this part.

let us know how it goes!

thanks.

23T

Well, I'm just wondering: doesn't Z1 has to unlock its HDD while using it? If so, what about cutting power off completely (like disconnecting from car's battery) while unit is reading HDD (lets say playind a recorded track) and then pulling the HDD out - will it remain unlocked?

The drive is brand new, i took it out of a unit at my friends shop in the back, didnt want to use mine :) just incase i messed it up, since the unit was untouched pioneer would still waranty it if it got screwed up :) What type of tools/files should i look for, im not really a computer savy guy, im located in north ca, so if someone is local and know alot they can take alook at the files, possibly copy then. I have to give the drive back as soon as the deck is sold to a customer so that can be any day.

Sevkatia said:

Well, I'm just wondering: doesn't Z1 has to unlock its HDD while using it? If so, what about cutting power off completely (like disconnecting from car's battery) while unit is reading HDD (lets say playind a recorded track) and then pulling the HDD out - will it remain unlocked?

No, the drive actually would need the power to the drive maintained. The drive denies all requests for data to the drive at startup until the password is entered. The drive will automatically be "relocked" when power is removed.

Jake said:

The drive is brand new, i took it out of a unit at my friends shop in the back, didnt want to use mine :) just incase i messed it up, since the unit was untouched pioneer would still waranty it if it got screwed up :) What type of tools/files should i look for, im not really a computer savy guy, im located in north ca, so if someone is local and know alot they can take alook at the files, possibly copy then. I have to give the drive back as soon as the deck is sold to a customer so that can be any day.

Well this confirms all the assumptions I was making.
To summarize:
The Z1 sends an unlock command to the drive at startup. This password is probably unique to each unit. This way the drive can be read by the Z1. The drives effectively auto-relock when power is removed.

On shutdown (or possibly on startup) the drive is sent the User drive lock password. This effectively locks the drive to the Z1 it was installed in. This only needs to be done once per drive unless somebody removes the lock. In the case of a removed lock the drive will be relocked on the next install and powerup.

If Pioneer needed to send out a replacement drive it would arrive unlocked and "marry" to the Z1 it was installed in. This is a good system for them to use.

Pioneer would have the formula to compute the passwords based on serial number so they can unlock each drive if needed for warranty service. <-- Total assumption but reasonable. Otherwise the Master password is set to something only Pioneer has in which case this would likely be the same for all units or revisions. My thought is the first case assumption.


Now for the stuff we really wanted to know as I don't think any of us were wanting access to the drive so we could "steal" Pioneers hard work. We just wanted to copy our music librarys quickly and easily.
The drive is "fdisked" in to 4 partitions. One for maps, one for user music and other stuff and 2 others that are small (.5 gig)
The music is layed out in a ton of folders. The base folder is called music, sub folder OPL01, sub folder OPL001 and inside this folder is the music from the disc you copied.
There are 10 folders at the first level: OPL01-OPL10
Each OPL01 - OPL10 has 100 sub folders so it looks like it's setup to let you copy 1000 cd's. NICE!
The bad news. The music format is not WMA or MP3. The file extention is .AT3 but the compression appears to be similar to 128 mp3 level by the file size.

I would upload one of the files here for you music guys to figure out the format but the smallest one I had ripped is closer to 3 meg and this board has a 2 meg limit. Besides I don't think the board host wants copyrighted music uploads here and I'm not looking to break laws just make this project possible.

Pioneer did a nice job of creating backup directories for all "our" stuff so we shouldn't experience file corruption.
There appear to be playlists created when the files are ripped to the HDD so without finding that format out I doubt copying will do anything. This is assuming we can put our music in a format this unit likes.

I found the current wallpaper in a folder. Big deal, can't we change this anyway???

I also found the clipart for assigning pictures to the address books. They are just jpegs.

Fun to dig through but back to the real questions.
Anybody want to direct me to a souce where I can figure out what type of file format the music is stored in?

So, did you get a ghost image backup of the actual drive?

If so, I'll send you ftp information (that everyone can use to d/l and "play" with)

Andy

BigFloppy said:

So, did you get a ghost image backup of the actual drive?

If so, I'll send you ftp information (that everyone can use to d/l and "play" with)

Andy

Didn't ghost yet but I did get a full copy. I'm looking for a drive that doesn't support the ATA lock and I plan to ghost to it and see what the Z1 does to it. I don't have the ability to "re-unlock" the drive so for now my Z1 is driveless.

PM the ftp info and I'll upload 2.

Yah, if we got an immage, we might be able to remove the hard drive that is locked and get a new hard drive and play with the new one or something. The solution might not be to unlock the original drive, but to load a working image on a new drive and use that new drive. Just a thought.