Bigblue709
Enthusiast
Here's how I diverted my 320GB HDDs from my Taito Type X4's for normal use. I have successfully performed this on two different units. That said, this procedure (obviously) comes with NO GUARANTEE and you follow it AT YOUR OWN RISK. I assume NO LIABILITY if these instructions fry your hardware. What worked for me might not work for you!
PARTS LIST
- One Taito Type X4 with original HDD -- cannot be from a different X4.
- One PC with a free SATA cable and a BIOS that supports SATA Hotplug
- One Ubuntu Live USB stick
- One keyboard
- One mouse
PC SETUP
Free up a SATA cable on your PC and make sure it can reach the drive bay on your X4.
Check your PC's BIOS to make sure that SATA Hotplug / Hotswap is enabled on your SATA port.
Boot into your Live USB and open the Terminal and Disks applications from the menu.
X4 SETUP
Open the X4's drive bay and position the drive within reach of the PC's SATA cable.
Boot the X4 and hold CTRL-ALT-F9 to enter BIOS setup.
Go to Advanced > Boot Feature > Taito Boot Mode and choose Operation Mode.
Go to Advanced > SATA Configuration > SATA Frozen and choose Disabled.
Save changes and exit. The X4 will reboot.
HOTSWAP
Once the X4 has rebooted, unplug the SATA cable from the HDD.
DO NOT REMOVE THE LARGER POWER CABLE FROM THE HDD. JUST THE SMALLER SATA CABLE.
Insert the SATA cable from your Live USB PC into the HDD. The HDD will still draw power from the X4.
You should see the X4's HDD appear in the Disks application on your Live USB PC.
Highlight the HDD, then find the device name in the right hand panel, e.g. /dev/sdb or /dev/sdb1.
Make note of this device name, "sdb" or "sdb1" etc, and substitute it for X in the steps below.
SECURE ERASE
These instructions are taken from, and explained in depth at, this link.
Enter the following command in the Terminal application on your Live USB PC.
Change X to the name of your device, e.g. sdb or sdb1.
The results should hopefully indicate that the drive is NOT FROZEN:
Set a new secure password, 'Eins':
Again, X should be your drive name such as sdb, sdb1.
Make sure it succeeded:
The results should say:
Execute the secure erase:
There's our password, 'Eins' again. This will be removed during the erase process.
It took more than an hour for me to securely erase a 320GB HDD. Once the process has completed, check the results:
The output should look something like this:
NOTES
That's it. You may still need to reinitialize the drive after this procedure -- I did so with the OS X Disk Utility tool, but any suitable utility should do the job. Please share stories of success or failure below!
PARTS LIST
- One Taito Type X4 with original HDD -- cannot be from a different X4.
- One PC with a free SATA cable and a BIOS that supports SATA Hotplug
- One Ubuntu Live USB stick
- One keyboard
- One mouse
PC SETUP
Free up a SATA cable on your PC and make sure it can reach the drive bay on your X4.
Check your PC's BIOS to make sure that SATA Hotplug / Hotswap is enabled on your SATA port.
Boot into your Live USB and open the Terminal and Disks applications from the menu.
X4 SETUP
Open the X4's drive bay and position the drive within reach of the PC's SATA cable.
Boot the X4 and hold CTRL-ALT-F9 to enter BIOS setup.
Go to Advanced > Boot Feature > Taito Boot Mode and choose Operation Mode.
Go to Advanced > SATA Configuration > SATA Frozen and choose Disabled.
Save changes and exit. The X4 will reboot.
HOTSWAP
Once the X4 has rebooted, unplug the SATA cable from the HDD.
DO NOT REMOVE THE LARGER POWER CABLE FROM THE HDD. JUST THE SMALLER SATA CABLE.
Insert the SATA cable from your Live USB PC into the HDD. The HDD will still draw power from the X4.
You should see the X4's HDD appear in the Disks application on your Live USB PC.
Highlight the HDD, then find the device name in the right hand panel, e.g. /dev/sdb or /dev/sdb1.
Make note of this device name, "sdb" or "sdb1" etc, and substitute it for X in the steps below.
SECURE ERASE
These instructions are taken from, and explained in depth at, this link.
Enter the following command in the Terminal application on your Live USB PC.
sudo hdparm -I /dev/X
Change X to the name of your device, e.g. sdb or sdb1.
The results should hopefully indicate that the drive is NOT FROZEN:
Security:
...
not frozenSet a new secure password, 'Eins':
sudo hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass Eins /dev/XAgain, X should be your drive name such as sdb, sdb1.
Make sure it succeeded:
sudo hdparm -I /dev/XThe results should say:
Security:
...
enabled
...
not frozenExecute the secure erase:
sudo time hdparm --user-master u --security-erase Eins /dev/XThere's our password, 'Eins' again. This will be removed during the erase process.
It took more than an hour for me to securely erase a 320GB HDD. Once the process has completed, check the results:
sudo hdparm -I /dev/XThe output should look something like this:
Security:
...
not enabled
not locked
not frozenNOTES
That's it. You may still need to reinitialize the drive after this procedure -- I did so with the OS X Disk Utility tool, but any suitable utility should do the job. Please share stories of success or failure below!