Great job!! Can you please share with us how you removed the HD password. I might try this myself in the near feature. Thank you!

 

I tried lots of metods to remove the password.
I tried with mhdd and different password combinations. No success.
The HDD master password is changed and it won't work with 32 spaces as master password. Also the user password is not 046-259-1300 + 20 spaces like on GTR Hdd.
So i used AFF repair station from Repair Station. Overview to remove the hdd password without losing the data.
This solution will remove the hdd password but will not find the password. It just remove the password without even trying to find what the password is...
It require a native IDE connection to PC motherboard. So USB IDE enclosures won't work.
I used a IDE to mini IDE adapter to connect the HDD to an old PC that i had (i was thinking to trash that pc... now i'm happy i didn't)

Costed me 60 USD but is waaay less then a new AV unit...

My unit was freezing from time to time on navigation and was not responding to any commands. This happen 1-2 times a week and became more frequent lately.

While reading the image from old hdd, i found where the problem was. A file from ITM HDD4 partition required several tries to read. But linux dd command did the job after all.

I was afraid that the unit won't boot up with a unlocked HDD but it booted just fine.
Even faster than with OEM locked HDD
It may be because of HDD lock or because the new drive is faster...

 

Awesome work Elco!! Now I got a few questions:

1. Where can we host this image? (torrent?)
2. Does your car have Nav? if so not sure this image will work for others like me
3. What HDD did you replace with? Was it an SSD?
4. Any findings in the files? I'd love to poke around. I was surprised it was Fat32 partitions. I bet we can probably open some of the images with GIMP or some open format editor. I'm willing to give it a stab if you want to toss a folder up somewhere online.

Great work man!

 

+1 amazing work.

As dj mentioned, since it's FAT32, we can definitely poke around the image and see what's what and how certain things can be replaced / modified.

Torrent will definitely work, or you can also use something like mega upload. Maybe throw a pw on the file and only share it with people through pm (to avoid legal issues, etc ).

Nav option is also a good question - I'd be curious to see the differences in images between nav and non-nav units.

Also, dj, ssd is a solid state drive. If you aren't using one of these in your computer, you most definitely should.
** I cannot read worth a sh*t, apparently. Apologies for my ignorance.

 

I own a dedicated server. so sharing the image won't be a problem. I can upload the file to my server and give you a download link. I hope you have a fast internet connection...

YES
However, is a Europe version so it have the Europe maps on it.

HOWEVER, I bought a US sped AV unit off the E-bay.
I'm waiting to recieve it. Once i get it, i will get that HDD image too.
So stay tuned for US spec G37 HDD image

YES. I replace it with a Kingspec IDE SSD

No findings on the files... all files use some proprietary format and file extensions. Even linux can't open any of the files.

The system partition image can be downloaded from HERE

I'm archiving the full image (40GB) and i will upload it at the same place later.

Use linux reader to mount the image and copy files out of the image.

 

Woo Hoo!!!

Staying tuned for US version! Great work!

 

YEP!
That will solve all the AV unit freeze and reboot problems out there

btw... check the full HDD image archive on the link posted above.
14 Gb archive...

 

You are the man Elco!! Onto hacking now - can't wait to dive in! Thanks for all your effort!! Definitely going to do this mod just for the speed improvements!

 

Dang, Elco, nice upload speed. I'm bouncing between 7 and 10 MB/s..

 

BTW!!! when there is a problem with the HDD, the unit will boot into safe mode.
On safe mode only volume and climate command work, with a different display graphic.

 

Great discovery!

The image posted is from the EU maps rights?

Wouldn't this image in a different car be unreadable given somewhere the unlock key is stored, which is tied to the original car the image came from? I guess you'll find out more about this when you hook up the US navigation headunit.

What year car did this image come from? Likely different on later model cars?

 

OSFMount works well to mount all 4 volumes as well - very lightweight.

For now just trying to figure out how to open an RCL file. Does anyone have a decent winderz file analyzer utility? If I'm failing miserably at this, I'll dual boot into knoppix or something similar.

 

Tried Locate Opener with trID and Analyze It - identifying some files as media - mp3 - or ini or txt, but no luck opening anything with the software I have / know.

Will try some more tomorrow.

 

The image came from a 2010 G37x sedan.
The navigation have the 2014-2015 maps installed on them.
Anyway, i have the original DVD's and license key. so i can reinstall the navigation update anytime so the maps version is irrelevant

 

I told you they use custom file formats and extensions...