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DevoDave

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On site, one of two seats of BattleGear 4 Tuned has a dead HDD. Is cloning the working HDD a simple process or is there an ATA lock or some other security I need to worry about?
 
Easiest way to check for ATA lock is to attach the drive to a linux box and run just fdisk -l to list the partition table. If it's ata locked you will receive an input/output error.

If it reads it then cloning should be as simple as using dd commands to do a straight copy (or dd to a backup image file, then dd that to drives as needed)
 
There is No ata lock, You can only outright clone the drive, if the drive is in the same S/N range as the original, ( the replacement drive that is)

You -Can- Clone the working, drive However, you will need to edit a few things to make it work

these include, You need a decypted copy of the game, change the shell application of windows form launcher.exe, to the game.exe
you also need to make a E:/ Partion, thats one of the few games that require it. with out it the game wont boot,
 
There is No ata lock, You can only outright clone the drive, if the drive is in the same S/N range as the original, ( the replacement drive that is)

You -Can- Clone the working, drive However, you will need to edit a few things to make it work

these include, You need a decypted copy of the game, change the shell application of windows form launcher.exe, to the game.exe
you also need to make a E:/ Partion, thats one of the few games that require it. with out it the game wont boot,
Would spoofing the new drive's serial number to match the old one achieve a working result?

(Google is struggling to help find me a ia decrypted copy of the game)
 
Volume serial can be spoofed, but hdd physical serial no usually required special data recovery tools to change. Not sure with typex, but in my day to day work that's my understanding.

I would throw the dead drive in the freezer for a day then try to clone it if you still have it. Sometimes you can get one last good read off them.
 
There is No ata lock, You can only outright clone the drive, if the drive is in the same S/N range as the original, ( the replacement drive that is)

You -Can- Clone the working, drive However, you will need to edit a few things to make it work

these include, You need a decypted copy of the game, change the shell application of windows form launcher.exe, to the game.exe
you also need to make a E:/ Partion, thats one of the few games that require it. with out it the game wont boot,
Would spoofing the new drive's serial number to match the old one achieve a working result?
(Google is struggling to help find me a ia decrypted copy of the game)
If you buy the exact same type of harddrive of ebay, you can swap clone the drive, then swap the pcbs at the buttom and that will tech work
 
Hmmm... I have the drive out of the working seat to try and copy it and the bugger is ATA locked. It is set to MAX security too!

The drive may not be the original. The history of these seats is a guess at best.

I'm trying the MHDD file to deep dive and get the password....
 
My mistake. The PC I was using had a BIOS issue and said EVERY drive was ATA locked. The drive is *NOT* locked.

However the first partition cannot be mounted. It says it's an NTFS but I get no joy. The second partition has a bunch of .GST (Ghost?) files and some config info, and has a volume identity that is Kanji characters.

This is the working drive so something is amiss. Further investigation.....
 
My mistake. The PC I was using had a BIOS issue and said EVERY drive was ATA locked. The drive is *NOT* locked.

However the first partition cannot be mounted. It says it's an NTFS but I get no joy. The second partition has a bunch of .GST (Ghost?) files and some config info, and has a volume identity that is Kanji characters.

This is the working drive so something is amiss. Further investigation.....
Couldn't you just do a full raw disk image and then it doesn't matter that the partition can't be mounted?
 
My mistake. The PC I was using had a BIOS issue and said EVERY drive was ATA locked. The drive is *NOT* locked.

However the first partition cannot be mounted. It says it's an NTFS but I get no joy. The second partition has a bunch of .GST (Ghost?) files and some config info, and has a volume identity that is Kanji characters.

This is the working drive so something is amiss. Further investigation.....
A working legit drive should have
2 NTFS partitions @ 10gb each
then the rest of the drive will be unallocated
At least thats how every title I am aware of works

Teh drive is not Ata locked but they do have a boot sector, MBR check done via the bios, to prevent custom versions of windows booting.
 
A working legit drive should have
2 NTFS partitions @ 10gb each
then the rest of the drive will be unallocated
At least thats how every title I am aware of works

Teh drive is not Ata locked but they do have a boot sector, MBR check done via the bios, to prevent custom versions of windows booting.
The partitions are as you have described.

Couldn't you just do a full raw disk image and then it doesn't matter that the partition can't be mounted?
Yeah, but if I need to place an unencrypted version of the game program on the disk I'll need to be able to access it.
 
Yeah, but if I need to place an unencrypted version of the game program on the disk I'll need to be able to access it.
Oh, totally. I was thinking if you were just going to try and clone the one to repair the other.
 
My guess is you recreate that partition and reformat it to nfts and then install the (decrypted) game files. Key word is "guess," but you get the idea.
 
@DevoDave Can you show us a picture of your HDD ?
It's just a Western Digital WD400BB. Nothing special. I have four seats under my care at the moment and they are all using the same drive type.

I have imaged a working drive using linux dd command and used the image to create another drive. It boots, but comes up with a System Error Code 906.

Very much a job on the back-burner as other machines making more money require my attention before I get to work on this.
 
Last edited:
Hi to all! Did anyone knows how to fix problem with error 906?
It's about HDD data or rom?
 
I'm going to guess Error 906 is because the new HDD serial doesn't match the original drive.
 
I'm going to guess Error 906 is because the new HDD serial doesn't match the original drive.
Yeah. I think so too.
But general question how I can make cloned HDD work correctly without errors?
 
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