I finally got some time to work on the method I posted in the "OEM CarPuter - Data Logging and Pi: conceptual discussion" thread (the drive swap method). I didn't seem to want to work though, whether I swapped or just plugged in the drive, it still would show up as un-initialized in disk management. The drive does indeed have an ata password on it. Being a Hitachi though, there isn't much out there on a master password. The only one I could find of 32 spaces did not work. I might see if there is a way to brute force the password or try to use a logic analyzer on it. A couple interesting things I noticed is that the radio will still function without the drive, however in a "Fault detected, please see dealership" message and no real gui, and that if I just plugged in a random 2.5 44 pin IDE drive, the radio will sit at the Hello screen for a while before going to fault detected, almost like it was trying to read the data off the drive. I will try to keep this updated as I go, I am sorry if this is in the wrong section, I have no idea where else to put it!
-Nick
EDIT:
So here is what I have come up with. Using a 44 pin IDE extension cable [
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280504781985?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT] You can separate four of the pins that provide power to the drive. This would be on the male side. I used a straight blade, like you would find in a scraper. I lined it up and hit it with a hammer hard enough to split the connector. From here, I also snipped the reset line, as this would send the reset signal to the drive every time I would plug it in, effectively re-locking the drive. At this point, you need something you can plug a 44 pin ide cable into, in my case it was an old Dell D600. You'll only need to plug in the part of the connector that was separated (the 4 pin piece) into whatever you are using, whether it be an old laptop, or some sort of adapter such as a 2.5->usb. From here, you can plug the other part of the connector into the stock head unit. The easiest way to do this is to remove the head unit from the car, remove the mounts on both sides and remove the front cover. Also, go ahead and remove the hard drive. Now from the front of the head unit, you will see the connect circuit board that the drive plugs into. Remove the phillips screws on both sides, and bend down the metal at the bottom so that the board will pop out. Now go ahead and plug the head unit back into the car and all the cables on the back. Now get ready to unlock the drive. Get yourself setup so that whatever you are using to power the drive is close to the head unit, and plug the data cable into the connector board you just popped out. The easiest way to think about it is how the OEM drive slid in and plugged in, and basically picture how it would be plugged in as you flip up the connector to be able to plug in. Now keep in mind that the cable was cut, so you need to count the 4 pins that were separated (When I say 4 pins, I mean two on the top and two on the bottom, like a box) and make sure to plug in the cable so that those four are empty. At this point, you will need to power on your means of power then the head unit. Go ahead and play a song from the harddrive (or go ahead and rip one if you don't have any) while it is playing or ripping a track, unplug the data cable and plug it into your adapter (NOTE: you may have to power it with the head unit and swap the data connector to your adapter, I didn't get to test with my 2.5->usb as it broke before I could use it) and from here, you will have access to 4 partitions each formatted FAT32.
Upon some further investigation, even though the OEM drive is locked, you can replace it with a non-locked drive. This is what I did: I made a Ghost (Norton Ghost) image of the OEM drive while unlocked. When the image was done, I swapped into my D600 another 2.5 drive, this one was also a Hitachi (only because it was the only one I had on hand). Now the OEM drive is 40GB, the hitachi I tested with was 30GB. So from here, I used Ghost to restore the image to my 30GB drive (Ghost is nice since it will auto resize, I have no idea if it is possible with CloneZilla). When it was finished, I popped it into the headunit, and it worked just fine! I was able to play the one track I ripped and load maps just fine. So you should be able to take any 2.5 IDE (NOTE the IDE) drive, image it, and toss it in. This is great for a few reasons. 1: If your drive is toast, now you can replace it. 2: You might be able to get a larger drive, image it and have more room to rip cd's. 3: You can probably get a better drive (the stock drive is 4260 RPM) so you might be able to get a 7200RPM drive and have the system be faster overall. 4: You might also be able to get a 2.5->SOMETHING (such as to flash, or even sata) and have it work. And 4: If someone figures out what to do with the image, it would be easily modifiable for anyone to put it on a drive and pop it in instead of going through the whole unlocking ordeal.
CloneZilla Set:
The 9 part set is finished uploading. It is a set of 9 .7z's that extracts to a main .7z The 9->1 is about 8.5 GB, and the 1->final extract is about 37GB. The final extract is the complete disk image made with CloneZilla, however I recently finished using Ghost to create an image if anyone ends up needing it in a different format
Link 1Link 2Link 3Link 4Link 5Link 6Link 7Link 8Link 9Ghost Set:
Set of 13 Ghost files, 12 are 2GB, one is 137MB. This is the set I used to restore to a different drive.
Link 1Link 2Link 3Link 4Link 5Link 6Link 7Link 8Link 9Link 10Link 11Link 12Link 13VHD Set:
This is a set of 9 .7z files, which will extract to a single VHD file
Link 1Link 2Link 3Link 4Link 5Link 6Link 7Link 8Link 9
