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Gamebox hard disk cloning


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Question

:cryHi

 

I'm new to this forum and I have found some good info. I have a GameBox 200 in 1 that uses a hard disk and the disk is starting to die!! Sometimes makes strange noises. I am trying to clone the hard disk but to no avail. I have tried Ghost, HDClone and Winhex softwares. I would also like to add a few more games to the hard drive. Anybody got some advice?

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Is the software not suitable or is the hdd too badly damaged for the software too read?

 

Not used it on a gamebox specifically but google for some 'dd' tutorials, it will clone anything. very easy too use, lots of guides around also. Grab yourself a knoppox boot disc and should be fine.

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For any Arcade-cloning I use Norton Ghost2K3 which runs in DOS mode (I boot it off a USB stick).

 

It has a 'forensic' mode (the '-ir' flag below) which performs an exact 1-1 duplication.

 

ghost2k3 -ir -clone,mode=copy,src=1,dst=2

 

However... be aware that it is possible to securely lock a HDD to a device a-la Xbox version 1 and a cloned disk will not have the same security code so may not work. This may have been done with some arcade gear..

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Generally the locking tends to only be with large volume manufacturers (like Microsoft for the Xbox), so I don't think we'll be seeing any non-cloneable HDD's soon.

 

If Ghost will not work, try DD as suggested earlier - otherwise it sounds like the drive is on the way out, too far gone to be cloned :(. What is the software based on - can you try and read off the roms/custom software and rebuild the Windows bit yourself?

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Many of the XXXX-in-1 manufacturers have simple anti-drive-cloning tools loaded with their systems. Most are a simple check of the hard disk serial number against a locally stored config file, which is enough to stop the system working on a cloned disk.

 

There are a number of AAers who've run into this problem, and so far nobody's been able to find a way around it.

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Might be a silly question, but if you removed the HDD circuit board and placed it on the exact same model drive along with the cloning would that work?

Or is the firmware stored internally? :unsure

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Might be a silly question, but if you removed the HDD circuit board and placed it on the exact same model drive along with the cloning would that work?

Or is the firmware stored internally? :unsure

 

Yes that would work, providing that the problem is not with the drive's PCB (most of the time the PCB is fine though).

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I have found this quote it might help...

"serial number or whatever is the four bytes at offset 0x01B8 in the Master Boot Record; you can change it with a disk editor."

 

So you might be able to get the code off the old drive and inset it into a new disk to work around the issue. This of I guess will only work if you can read the drive in the 1st place...

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Here's me waiting for someone to say "stick the HDD in the freezer".

 

damn!!!

 

u beat the rest of us to it! :lol

 

if that fails , remember you can hit it with one of these

 

http://www.minihelicopter.net/AH64Apache/AH-64%20Apache.jpg

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I have found this quote it might help...

 

"serial number or whatever is the four bytes at offset 0x01B8 in the Master Boot Record; you can change it with a disk editor."

 

So you might be able to get the code off the old drive and inset it into a new disk to work around the issue. This of I guess will only work if you can read the drive in the 1st place...

Red herring.

 

I've copied these disks with dd (UNIX program that does sector-for-sector copies at a hardware level). That will include EVERYTHING on the original disk, including the MBR and any sectors around it.

 

This still doesn't work. They're obviously using something that probes the physical hardware device ID and uses that as the key to run the software.

 

The final solution will be a hex-edit of the binary that runs the custom front-end (removing the check, or always providing a "true" response to the check), and not something you need to do at time of cloning.

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If it's in the disk firmware you might stand a chance, but only if you used an identical brand disk I'd assume (maybe not?).

 

Again, I think hacking the software is a better/safer option, as it's going to be a one-off solution that helps everyone. From there, you could build an image for people to use globally on all hardware.

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If it's in the disk firmware you might stand a chance, but only if you used an identical brand disk I'd assume (maybe not?).

 

Again, I think hacking the software is a better/safer option, as it's going to be a one-off solution that helps everyone. From there, you could build an image for people to use globally on all hardware.

 

Identical drives dont work either, its the serial number.

My bet would be to search all the config files for the serial number of the drive it was cloned from and change it to the drive its on.

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Identical drives dont work either, its the serial number.

My bet would be to search all the config files for the serial number of the drive it was cloned from and change it to the drive its on.

Sorry, I meant by "same drives" that you'd need to get two of the same brand, and copy the firmware from one to the other (or at least find the serial number from one, and copy/hack that to the other).

 

If it's just in a plain-text config file, that would be awesome. You could simply "grep" for it (assuming you know what it looks like, although device manager should assist there). Although if it was me hiding it, I'd put it somewhere binary/encrypted to make it that little bit harder.

 

If you had the time (and inclination), you could always sniff the IDE buss and look for where / what it's looking for I guess. You'd also have a bit of reading up on the ATA spec to do. Not a 10 minute job I suspect!

Agreed. Which ever way you tackle it (hardware, software or firmware), you're going to be spending a good whack of time at it, and it's not going to be a trivial affair.

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I doubt it would be in a binary, as different binaries would have to be compiled for each system. My bet is on an unecrypted file, but not in easy-to-read plaintext. I'm thinking something like a DAT file in C, or whatever.

 

Maybe some educated guessing and a hex editor is all it would take.

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I now have a red-box

Does the red box suffer from this as well??

It currently has a 10gig unit which I want to upgrade the size and replace the chinese windows with an english version of XP etc.

 

Most things can be patched to get around those hardware checks so that the image will work on any machine.

 

If someone has a non-working unit that I can borrow and also an image of a working unit then happy to waste my time on it to see if I can get it working.

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