Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Xbox ST310014ACE Unlocker - Serial Programmer Circuit Design

My silly project continues. I call it that because of the extraordinary amount of time I'm spending on it just to unlock an Xbox Seagate ST310014ACE 10 gig hard drive.  This was one of about a dozen drives given to me which either had problems or were too small to be of practical use in a modern computer.  Well, for those who know me, I don't have any modern computers and this size would be quite nice for me.

During my search for a solution, I found the following information at Llamma.Com: "The Xbox uses a hard drive password locking mechanism, each password is unique, if you do not know the password you cannot even format a locked drive by normal means. The motherboard that hard drive came with knows the password but if the board is no longer available a hardware/software means of forcing the drive to unlock is necessary to make the drive useful again."

Later on that page is a link to Unlocking Tutorial Seagate ST310014ACE v0.1 by cyd0g which provides a diagram for building a serial programmer circuit to access the drive and instructions for chatting with the drive via Hyperterminal. I really, really want to try that but the main ingredient in cyd0g's recipe is a Max232 integrated circuit chip which I don't have and cannot obtain locally. Further research on my part seems to indicate that the MC 1488 and MC 1489 chips have similar line drivers and receivers respectively. They are functionally equivalent to the GD75188 and GD75189A chips which can be found on many old RS-232 (serial) cards and I happen to have more than one of those cards.

Here then is step two of my silly project in which I've laid out the circuit design that I think will do the same thing as cyd0g's original:


If you happen to be reading this and are actually interested in my design, be sure to right-click the image and select "Save Picture As..." so you can have a copy for later reference. Also, anyone who wishes to host this image on their site may do so as long as it is in unaltered form. Be sure to include a reference link to cyd0g's tutorial because it has the instructions for how to use the serial programmer circuit.

Additionally, do note that I've not built and tested it yet but will be doing so in the future.

EDIT - 10/08/2011 @ 01:47 am.

I've now built and tested the circut, see this post. And the one after it when I get around to writing it.

5 comments:

Alice said...

Hi there, my love. :)

How are you? I'm glad your project is going well.
Oh and I have catch my sleep too.. so, I think I'm going to try to be in our room tonight at 4am or even 5am... I miss you!<3

I hope you're having a nice day, mine wasn't that bad.. heheh and now I'm prolly going to bed. I love you!<3 <3 <3
*Hugs and long lingering kisses.*

Alice said...

Hi there, honey. :)

Whats up? Have a nice day?

Well, I had a nice day.. tho turning a bit emotional in the evening cause of my cousin's departure... yep, I miss him already, but I'm happy for him still. I'm quite tired right now so, I might just go to bed after this comment. ;)

I'll try to be in our room later at 4 - 5am. See you then, maybe. Take care, I love you!<3 <3 <3 :)

Jessie said...

Hi darling. :)

I've been in our room from 5 to 7 am your time. If you came in earlier, I missed you. I'm sorry. I hope you have a good day at school.

*Hugs and kisses.* I love you too! <3 <3 <3

Alice said...

Hi my love. :)

Its ok don't worry, actually I've stayed up a bit late and so I couldn't get up at 4.. But I'll go to bed earlier tonight so, I'll prolly be on at 4:10 am or so. Oh and I've had a good day, thank you.
I hope yours is going well too.

Now, I'm going to eat.. pasta for tonight, yay! :p See you later.
I love you!<<3 <3 <3

cyd0g said...

great work :-)