Hi, I have a Toshiba MK4036GAC 40GB PATA 2.5" HDD from a car Bose infotainment system from 2009. Accessing the stored music would cause the automotive system to freeze and over a few weeks it stopped entirely.

I wanted to create an image and extract as much information from the drive as possible and replace the drive (perhaps with a SSD) although I also purchased a refurbished MK4036GAC too.

I have a USD-IDE converter and when plugged into either Windows 10, Linux Mint or even Clonezilla boot CD the drive showed 100% unallocated space. A search for lost partitions found nothing either. However searching for lost files found some MP3 and WAV files (the infotainment system stores CDs to the drive). No other navigation, OS or other files. I suspect the OS is running Windows CE 2.0 and the file system is FAT32. This OS information comes from an update CD I have for the system and reading some of the files in that. Bose use the same drive in their home entertainment system where the 40GB drive is partitioned into FAT32 30GB for storage and FAT32 10GB for system files. I was expecting to see similar in the car.

I suspected the drive is locked so brought out an old 2003 Dell with native PATA IDE 3.5" and bought a 2.5" to 3.5" converter. I created a FreeDOS USB drive running from that USB stick made the Toshiba HDD primary and ran zu.exe /P. I also have MHDD and set the security from High, Off to no security. Zu ran for 2h and when I rebooted the system said the drive have no password.

I go back to Windows and the USB-IDE connection and still no lost partitions just unallocated space yet in hex viewer I can see LOTs of information and bits of what look like navigation map data for the GPS (lots of place names).

Can I have suggestions/guidance please on creating an image or file recovery. I'm now at a loss as what to try next.

To ad further information:

1. Zu.exe's results are inconsistent. I only have a primary master drive on the computer installed (everything else is empty) - this is the TOSHIBA drive. PC BIOS obviously confirms this as well (Primary, Master). I boot into the USB FreeDOS. If I run zu.exe /P for a short period of time so it says "TIME ELAPSED XX:XX" CTRL-C then MHDD and EID and then exit and go back to zu.exe /P then zu outputs that there is no password for the TOSHIBA drive. If I reboot and run zu.exe /P after FreeDOS boots it will begin "TIME ELAPSED" and endlessly run. I have been running it overnight and it's at 17h+ and still ticking away.

2. For the raw image copy I am viewing in Hex I used Active@ Partition Recovery in Windows 10 with an IDE-USB connector.

3. While there is some MBR information there is no partition information, I wonder:
A. Is this because the MBR is corrupted?
B. I suspect the infotainment system runs on Windows CE or QNX (former based on official system upgrade discs making a reference to it in system files and would fit with Bose's home systems; QNX as the same update CDs use U-Boot images and Bose has hired QNX devs in the past).

Questions:
1. Can I manually recreate the MBR without any other information (other than the HEX of the entire drive)?
2. Could that fact I used USB-IDE to get this raw image be impacting on seeing the 'real'/full MBR?
3. Perhaps someone knows - but I read that the Toyota Lancer (different make/model of car) will reinstall the necessary files on a fresh HDD from on-board ROM. As the U-Boot includes flash updates could this be flashing a ROM (I initially thought it was just updating files on the HDD). NB I've never run the updgrade discs as my car system died - hence why I took out the HDD.

This is the HEX of the MBR:


Offset | 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F | ASCII
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
000000000 | 70 6A 66 73 5F 76 31 5F 62 65 00 00 00 00 00 00 | pjfs_v1_be......
000000010 | 01 08 08 04 40 40 40 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 80 | ....@@@.........
000000020 | 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 80 | ................
000000030 | 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 09 50 A6 | ..............P.
000000040 | 00 09 50 A6 00 00 00 01 00 09 50 A6 00 09 50 A5 | ..P.......P...P.
000000050 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 | ................
000000060 | 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 03 | ................
000000070 | 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 01 | ................
000000080 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000090 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000A0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000B0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000C0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000D0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000E0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000000F0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000100 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000110 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000120 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000130 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000140 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000150 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000160 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000170 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000180 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
000000190 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001A0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001B0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1A 8E 0D 0F 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001C0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001D0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001E0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ................
0000001F0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA | ..............U.
000000200 | 00 | .

Clone the drive, sector by sector, using a tool such as HDDSuperClone or ddrescue.

http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone

BTW, ZU should unlock a password protected drive in seconds, not hours.

Can you show us sector 0 in a hex editor, eg DMDE?

https://dmde.com

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

ISTM that "pjfs_v1_be" is a signature denoting the type of file system, ie PJ File System. Therefore it makes no sense to treat it like a Microsoft file system.

In fact it may already be that Microsoft has dropped a little t*rd on sector 0 (1A 8E 0D 0F at offset 0x1B8).

PJFS (Partitioning, Journaling File System): For Embedded Systems:
https://www.hurray.isep.ipp.pt/activities/AE2006/pdfs/Tuesday/Vendor_Sessions/greenhills.pdf

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I have been extremely fortunate and been able to get another drive with the same system from another car (his HDD has bad sectors in the middle of the drive but his system boots but freezes on certain stored music - I assume where the bad sectors are) and this is a screenshot (I think you are correct about Microsoft corrupting the first block based on the below - this drive has no such content)!

LBA:0 block: 0
000000000: 70 6A 66 73 5F 76 31 5F 62 65 00 00 00 00 00 00 pjfs_v1_be......
000000010: 01 08 08 04 40 40 40 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 80 ....@@@........€
000000020: 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 80 ...............€
000000030: 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 09 50 A6 ..............P¦
000000040: 00 09 50 A6 00 00 00 01 00 09 50 A6 00 09 50 A5 ..P¦......P¦..P¥
000000050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 ................
000000060: 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 03 ................
000000070: 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 01 ................
000000080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000000190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000001F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

I suspect that Microsoft's changes are benign. I would still clone the drive as is. If you then want to undo Microsoft's changes, use a disc editor such as DMDE.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I will manually edit those MS additions out. Thank you.

Have you any idea how I might go about mounting PJFS file system in Winows or Linux? Even if it's an educated guess. It seems a custom made file system and I would imagine requires special software but if there is a hint of hope I'd appreciate it. The car system has 2 system updates on CDs which I can see all the files in Windows or Linux. There's a U-Boot image and .tar and a load of .bin and .vow files. I really want to see inside this image but assume I need some kind of PJFS driver.

I have never heard of PJFS. In fact how can we be sure that's what it is?

Try contacting Green Hills and ask if they have a file system driver for Linux or Windows.

https://www.ghs.com/
https://www.ghs.com/products/filesystems.html

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

In the update CDs I've found references to green hills:
stoplogstartloglogmask=Debug (INDRT)Copyright 1991-2004 by Green Hills Software, Inc.

I will ask them but from what I read it's commercial and proprietary so I very much doubt they will release anything.

If you can access the "Bose infotainment system" OS, perhaps via Telnet, then perhaps you could extract the file system driver, and then implement it in a more accessible platform. Or you could copy the data to another storage device supported by the infotainment system (eg SD card ?).

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.