Script for learning a HDD key without formatting it!!!

[The Wizard]

Come on people its been more than 25 years.

I am tring to recover a game save on hdd without the key. I just bought a usbadapter that came in today. no problem.

I then went to download something to view the unique file structure. I had to pay $25!

Now it turns out that I still need the HDD key. I tried both the generic ones for Western Digital and Seagate with no success.

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I HAVE TO MAKE AN ENTIRE PROGRAM JUST TO UNLOCK MY HARD DRIVE AND KEEP MY GAME SAVES.

ARRRRGGGHHH. YOU NERDS USED TO BE ON POINT.

Whatever dude.

[dtomcat]

Nope.  Which drive do you have?   Are you looking to unlock the drive or the actual hard drive key. (Key ard password are two different things)

[The Wizard]

Thank you for the quick reply. I only wanted to unlock the hdd with the actual key off a retail console just so I can copy game saves that were on it. This gives a error 6 so i think it belongs somewhere else, I just don't know where. I tried both the Western digital and seagate drives with the generic key and neither of them work. I wanted to write a script and try to brute force the key but from what I understand you need to power cycle if there are to many attempts in a row. I remember reading something about this and that becomes unplausible so I just have to accept the loss. Thank you though.

[The Wizard]

4 hours ago, dtomcat said:

Which drive do you have?

Both seagate and western digital. Stock. I cannot believe how much trouble it is to unlock the retail drive and preserve something as simple as a game save. This has a Star Wars KOTOR secret side mission (I think) and no nerf hearders believe me.

[dtomcat]

Seagates… all you need is serial adapter. USB to TTL.   A Few serial commands and you have your password.   Western digital is a bit harder … you need a PC with IDE ports.  
 

tools exists though.  A modchip with prometheOS is able to be passwords of both drives.   My tool (picoPromSD) can get the passwords of seagates.    If you still have original Xbox… my tool can also grab the eeprom backup which can be used for unlocking both drives. 
 

 

[NokSueCow]

Before giving up, I would try removing the dvd power cable to see if it forces an error 12, instead of 06. If so, it's now unlocked until the hdd loses power. While keeping the molex power connected to the hdd, swap ribbon cables from the xbox to a pc and use FatX to copy your u/data folder. If you initially power the hdd via an external source, the xbox is no longer needed after the swap, and can be turned off. The hdd will lock itself back when powered down.

[KaosEngineer]

8 hours ago, The Wizard said:

Thank you for the quick reply. I only wanted to unlock the hdd with the actual key off a retail console just so I can copy game saves that were on it. This gives a error 6 so i think it belongs somewhere else, I just don't know where. I tried both the Western digital and seagate drives with the generic key and neither of them work. I wanted to write a script and try to brute force the key but from what I understand you need to power cycle if there are to many attempts in a row. I remember reading something about this and that becomes unplausible so I just have to accept the loss. Thank you though.

The HDDKey is not saved on the hard drive.  It is stored in an 8-pin serial EEPROM on the motherboard.  There are several methods available to read the data from this chip.

1. Arduino and one of several sketches available on github.com
2. Raspberry Pi and PiPROM software
3. PC with a 9-pin serial port, DIY Xbox EEPROM reader/write cable and PonyProg software

just to name a few methods.

 

Each unmodded Xbox console's HDDKey value is unique to it.  And, the password used to lock the hard drive is computed using it along with the hard drives model and serial number which makes the password unique for each different hard drive too. 

 

Edit: If you have the eeprom.bin backup from the Xbox, you can use FATXplorer 3.0 beta or XBOXHDM23USB Beta  3 to unlock the hard drive.

[The Wizard]

16 hours ago, dtomcat said:

Seagates… all you need is serial adapter. USB to TTL.   A Few serial commands and you have your password.
 

 

Could you send me a link. i have a seagate and I cannot find anything doing searches. I also have an open xenium and honestly I think I will destroy the motherboard. AND ALL I AM TRYING TO DO IS PRESEVRE OLD GAME SAVES. ARGHH!

[The Wizard]

I tried to follow the instructions on this tutorial: Seagate Serial Talk | OS/2 Museum (os2museum.com) I cannot get putty to communicate at all, even though it is using a different model.I am going to try open xenium and if that does not work i give up

[dtomcat]

Which model of seagate? 

[dtomcat]

If you have rubber jacket… there are different commands

[dtomcat]

[The Wizard]

56 minutes ago, dtomcat said:

Which model of seagate? 

ST310014ACE

Honestly I just give up at this point. I connected it correctly the way that you showed in the picture ( the seagate plastic is black on the molex connecter displayed on the bottom, don't know if that matters). Putty opens a black screen new window that says nothing. For some reason every time I plug in the usb to TTL while connected to the hard drive my display goes dead and immediately restarts without restarting the computer. I am trying to get a secret side mission on the first KOTOR but at this point I just give up. All of you thank you for the 

Edited April 12 by The Wizard
bad typing