[Spatch]

Hi,

I am hoping someone can give a bit of advice.

I think the HDD in my NBT (Business) headunit is failing. I am seeing issues with the satnav not booting up and hearing a tell tale clicking from around the CD/DVD player.

The problem is intermittent but becoming more frequent. The car is late 2013 3.0D so I am a bit surprised I am seeing problems this soon, and sadly the used car warranty I had on it had just run out!

I have been looking on some other websites and it appears the HDD in the NBT is locked which makes cloning it very difficult.

The HDD is relatively accessible, I believe, so I would prefer to replace it myself, either with another HDD or an SSD (although these appear to have issues in this application).

Can anyone confirm if the HDD can be cloned or is it a nightmare and just easier to 'take it on the chin' and take it to a dealership?


Many thanks

[Peter_R]

Originally Posted by Spatch

Hi,

I am hoping someone can give a bit of advice.

I think the HDD in my NBT (Business) headunit is failing. I am seeing issues with the satnav not booting up and hearing a tell tale clicking from around the CD/DVD player.

The problem is intermittent but becoming more frequent. The car is late 2013 3.0D so I am a bit surprised I am seeing problems this soon, and sadly the used car warranty I had on it had just run out!

I have been looking on some other websites and it appears the HDD in the NBT is locked which makes cloning it very difficult.

The HDD is relatively accessible, I believe, so I would prefer to replace it myself, either with another HDD or an SSD (although these appear to have issues in this application).

Can anyone confirm if the HDD can be cloned or is it a nightmare and just easier to 'take it on the chin' and take it to a dealership?


Many thanks

My car is also a late 3.0D.
By cloning do you mean copying all the music off it or all the SATNAV routing information? You can copy all the music off it for the Professional unit, so I would expect the same for yours. Instructions in the manual.

[Spatch]

Originally Posted by Peter_R

My car is also a late 3.0D.
By cloning do you mean copying all the music off it or all the SATNAV routing information? You can copy all the music off it for the Professional unit, so I would expect the same for yours. Instructions in the manual.

I mean to duplicate the whole drive, in its entirety. The idea being that I can take the old problematic drive out, duplicate it onto the new drive and install the new drive as an exact replacement. That way it should work as before.

By the way, mine is a Professional system, not Business as per my first post.

[Peter_R]

Originally Posted by Spatch

I mean to duplicate the whole drive, in its entirety. The idea being that I can take the old problematic drive out, duplicate it onto the new drive and install the new drive as an exact replacement. That way it should work as before.

By the way, mine is a Professional system, not Business as per my first post.

Some sort of bit copier. Similar to the Norton Ghost? Surely worth a try as a last resort.

[Spatch]

Originally Posted by Peter_R

Some sort of bit copier. Similar to the Norton Ghost? Surely worth a try as a last resort.

According to the other forums, the HDD's are locked which means that they cannot be accessed or copied by Windows. If this is the case then unless someone has a method of unlocking it then I am stumped.

I was hoping someone on here may have some more up-to-date information on this.

What I may do is take the drive out anyway and see if Windows, by chance, can access it.

[Peter_R]

Originally Posted by Spatch

According to the other forums, the HDD's are locked which means that they cannot be accessed or copied by Windows. If this is the case then unless someone has a method of unlocking it then I am stumped.

I was hoping someone on here may have some more up-to-date information on this.

What I may do is take the drive out anyway and see if Windows, by chance, can access it.

With the dos version of Ghost, you do not go to Windows. In fact you disconnect the windows boot disk, and then boot from a 3.5 bootable floppy or bootable USB stick with Win98 or dos boot files that has bit copy software on it.

First disconnect all drives from their respective interfaces. You connect the failing idrive HD to one SATA interface, and the new HD to another HD interface. Boot up machine (PC) and ensure both are recognised by the BIOS. Then restart PC with boot disk in 3.5" drive or bootable USB and with the software contained on the floppy or USB, you copy bit by bit. It does not matter what is on it, because it copies bit by bit. It can copy anything. An exact clone to be precise.

I cannot remember if I have the stuff at home anymore (on hols in Punta Cana), so you would need to google it. It is quite simple really. I used to do it quite regularly years ago when I was an IT consultant.

[gullyg]

Originally Posted by Peter_R

With the dos version of Ghost, you do not go to Windows. In fact you disconnect the windows boot disk, and then boot from a 3.5 bootable floppy or bootable USB stick with Win98 or dos boot files that has bit copy software on it.

First disconnect all drives from their respective interfaces. You connect the failing idrive HD to one SATA interface, and the new HD to another HD interface. Boot up machine (PC) and ensure both are recognised by the BIOS. Then restart PC with boot disk in 3.5" drive or bootable USB and with the software contained on the floppy or USB, you copy bit by bit. It does not matter what is on it, because it copies bit by bit. It can copy anything. An exact clone to be precise.

I cannot remember if I have the stuff at home anymore (on hols in Punta Cana), so you would need to google it. It is quite simple really. I used to do it quite regularly years ago when I was an IT consultant.

Any Linux live cd with dd will do the same if you don't have ghost. However I have a suspicion the firmware of the drive will be locked to the idrive controller or some such.

Because these are closed systems they don't have to be standards compliant.

[edit]
Looking as google it appears it may be possible
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=841458

[Spatch]

Originally Posted by gullyg

Any Linux live cd with dd will do the same if you don't have ghost. However I have a suspicion the firmware of the drive will be locked to the idrive controller or some such.

Because these are closed systems they don't have to be standards compliant.

[edit]
Looking as google it appears it may be possible
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=841458

Unfortunately, that relates to the CIC, not NBT. There is a post, also on Bimmerfest (http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=787230), regarding the NBT which discovered that the hard drive is locked, and this is the problem.

I was hoping someone on here may have discovered a more straightforward method to copy the locked drive.

[Spatch]

Originally Posted by Peter_R

With the dos version of Ghost, you do not go to Windows. In fact you disconnect the windows boot disk, and then boot from a 3.5 bootable floppy or bootable USB stick with Win98 or dos boot files that has bit copy software on it.

First disconnect all drives from their respective interfaces. You connect the failing idrive HD to one SATA interface, and the new HD to another HD interface. Boot up machine (PC) and ensure both are recognised by the BIOS. Then restart PC with boot disk in 3.5" drive or bootable USB and with the software contained on the floppy or USB, you copy bit by bit. It does not matter what is on it, because it copies bit by bit. It can copy anything. An exact clone to be precise.

I cannot remember if I have the stuff at home anymore (on hols in Punta Cana), so you would need to google it. It is quite simple really. I used to do it quite regularly years ago when I was an IT consultant.

Thanks.

Yes, I am familiar with Ghost and other similar programs but the issue is that the drive is apparently locked on the NBT. It needs to be unlocked before it can be copied.

The thread I refer to above (for NBT) describes a VERY convoluted method to unlock which is well beyond my IT abilities.