I have a better idea .... software only !
The concept is not new, i did try this already over the years.
There are 2 main things that you do need to target.
1 - RS-232/COM protocol over TCP (there are already sollutions for that)
2 - ATA over TCP.
I did some testing many years ago with another guy from this forum and there are comercial sollutions available for the first.
Idea would be for some drives like old ST-10 seagates you would plug your ttl adaptor to the drive and run a software that would allow over TCP to "tunnel" the data to my PC-3000, SeDiv, HRT, whatever .... On my end i would be running something that would "emulate" a real open COM port but on that port the data would go to the tunnel connected to your computer on the other side of the world an i would get data from your TTL adaptor. With this i could for example unlock, backup firmware, load from loader, etc and i wouldn't need to use teamviewer as it have a big limitation, you can see what i'm doing even if i try to shut your screen down as it can be bypassed. Also i could use already available firmware tools and would just tunnel the data. I wouldn't need to know the terminal commands myself.
Again i did test this concept and it did work.
2nd concept is the same but for ATA.
You would run a low level driver (kernel) like the ones used by wdmarvel, sediv, etc and that driver would pick up your drive and allow tunneling of ATA commands over TCP-IP.
At my end i would have some sort of ATA terminal that would issue the commands over TCP to your machine.
This have a real value for unlocking !
Concept is not new as well. There were in the past people doing unlocking this way.
There is a big advantage, you will NOT SEE what i'm doing and the commands used unless you do set some sort of sniffing method and majority of clients will not do that.
I do find this to be very useful for unlocking services like this :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATA-Password-U ... 2674077475Not many people do have unlocking services like you can see here :
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... d&_sacat=0As far as i know i'm the only one with eBay unlocking service but this have a huge problem .... If you are international user you have to ship drives to me and if you are outside europe you have customs taxes and delays not to mention that sometimes drives are returned back.
I opted to accept mainly clients inside the EU for that reason. Now i did start testing with some concepts for some drives.
Assume that i do want to unlock your Toshiba drive. All that i takes is 2 VSCs. I issue the super on and the command to regenerate "S" and i'm done.
I decided to do that over TeamViewer and apart from the fact that some people ended up not paying (this is another issue but not related to this) you do need to either run a script or HRT terminal on the client computer using for example teamviewer and the person will see the VSCs that you will use to do the job meaning they will end up to know how to unlock drives as well.
To prevent that you can use HRT scripts that you would run with HRT_Demo and that would erase the script at the end. I did set a script to delete the *.ini with the script but even so someone might still run data recovery software and get the VSCs,
If you do have ATA over TCP even if it's just for very simple cases like unlocking you can make the client run your little software/driver and pick the drive. Then you will issue the ATA commands at your end and you can unlock drives at the client end. You can even use something like a TeamViewer VPN if you need to encrypt data over TCP so that people on the way to your client will not sniff your ATA commands, etc ...
Limitation would be that you do need to know the VSCs.
Of course there are variations as you could code a virtual ATA port so that you would send data from your SeDiv to a specific port and that port would be "virtual" and the data would be tunneled to your client low level driver connected to a phisical port with the drive you need to test.
This would be impossible to do with products like HRT and PC-3000 as they send VSCs to the CARD ports.
For example on HRT i can only use the tools on drives conneceted to the HRT card itself, i can't send the data/ATA commands to a random system port so at my end i would have to emulate a HRT port and the software wouldn't work as the license is on the card, etc .... But for SeDiv would work just fine. You would scan the ports it would pick up the virtual port created by the driver and you would use that port as if it were a normal system port with a drive on it.
Again Unlocking stations (on-line) did use the same concept. Also at some end RapidSpar can get VSCs over the "cloud" and use them on the drives plugged to the rapidspar unit. It have some advantges ...
Even so i do like to have the drives with me ....
Even if i can unlock over the net, etc ... for me i do love to have the drive phisicaly with me even more when repairing ....
If the drive is just fine and all that it's need is unlocking i would say that remote unlocking or remote changing ID, passport, etc it's ok .... If you are fixing a drive with firmware issues you do need to listen to it, see how it behaves, if it's scratching, power it on/off at will, etc ...
Software virtual drivers would save on hardware as well.
End user / client would not buy Banna-Pi boards, etc as it would take time to set them up ... For end user / client makes more sense for you to provide simple software that the client will run to grant you access to his drive for you to fix.
You can't controll power, etc but it's still usefull in cases that you do need to do simple firmware fixes over the net.
Regards.
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