Nice! And thanks for taking the time to take pictures, I'm always interested in how things are put together!

What's the intention for this, replace with a bigger/faster HDD or possibly SSD?

Wonder what else is on it as standard before copying music etc - besides navigation stuff which seems to clock in around 20-25GB and maybe some preference files.

 

Thank you for your comment.

ATA 2.5" Harddrive's are quite old and I'm surprised they are still manufacturing them.

You can get ata to sata adapters that could take a larger and faster harddrive. But you would never be able to use the increase in space as the HDD would be cloned sector to sector. It would always be 80GB.

A SSD of 120GB size are cheap. Some SSD's need to support TRIM from the operating system to sustain performance. Even if the SSD has TRIM built in, I'm not sure how well it would get on. Needs investigating!

 

This is an amazing thread, please keep it going. I don't like the idea of a mechanical HDD in a car, it will expire at some point, and no doubt volvo will charge for a complete head unit.

I was going to have a go, but bottled out. Now I have seen this I will do it.

I was going to suggest DD to be honest, I hope windows has not written over the boot sector as well.

Please keep this updated and let us know how you get on.

You can get Solid State 44pin Pata drives for about £50 for 128gb, however these will do the job for a standard SSD - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/44-PIN-2-...N-2-5-IDE-PATA-HARD-DRIVE-HDD-TO-SATA-CONVERTER-ADAPTER-CONNECTOR-/231466156106 Although it would need your steer regarding internal space.

Thanks

 

This is an amazing thread, please keep it going. I don't like the idea of a mechanical HDD in a car, it will expire at some point, and no doubt volvo will charge for a complete head unit.

I was going to have a go, but bottled out. Now I have seen this I will do it.

I was going to suggest DD to be honest, I hope windows has not written over the boot sector as well.

Please keep this updated and let us know how you get on.

Thanks

Thank you for your kind comments. I will keep you updated chiptivo.

The HDD is back in the car and working fine. I didn't initialize the disk, which would likely cause a problem if anyone does.

If you get there sooner than me. Please keep me up to date.

Thank you

 

Is there a HDD like this one in every V40? Because I haven't found the copy to HDD menu yet althought it seems to be possible according to http://support.volvocars.com/uk/car...s-manual.aspx?mc=y555&my=2015&sw=14w20&article=d88d3db43fdc84edc0a801e801b7f477

I've got a D2 Ocean Race MY 2016 without Sensus if that is useful.

Great guide by the way!

 

Is there a HDD like this one in every V40? Because I haven't found the copy to HDD menu yet althought it seems to be possible according to http://support.volvocars.com/uk/car...s-manual.aspx?mc=y555&my=2015&sw=14w20&article=d88d3db43fdc84edc0a801e801b7f477

I've got a D2 Ocean Race MY 2016 without Sensus if that is useful.

Great guide by the way!

The versions of the IAM modules with the HDD are only fitted in vehicles that were specified with the High Performance Multimedia (IAM 2.1 Level 2) and High Performance Nav or Premium (IAM 2.1 Level 3) infotainment systems. The IAM module versions fitted for Performance (IAM 1) or High Performance (IAM 2.1 Level 1) infotainment do not have the HDD..

 

I found a spare 80GB PATA drive in my very old laptop today. (Yr 2003). Surprising an HITACHI as well. This would of been a good test to see if the clone worked.

Sorry to disappoint but the DD (Clone) was going to take 24 hours today. The drive trickles its data. Probably why maps take so long to update.

For the curious. Without the IAM installed, the screen switches on and the V40 logo appears. It starts NAV and then just spins at loading NAV as it cannot find the HDD.

I don't have the time to do this. Need my car in action. I have put the HDD back in and everything is back to normal.

If anyone does have the time to clone. Please let us know how you get on.

 

For others:

My IAM model from the circuit board is 007wwdul0728.

Google Translate will help a bit. Designed in 2011 http://www.tele.soumu.go.jp/giteki/SearchServlet?pageID=jg01_01&PC=007&TC=N&PK=1&FN=310ul&SN=%94F%8F%D8&LN=20&R1=*****&R2=*****

There appears to be a foam sticker over what I suspect is the CPU masking it's model number. The IAM has a sandwich of boards. I didn't go any deeper.

The PDF document Buzby found shows that it is an indeed a robust unit. If one was to go bad, hopefully Volvo will replace the harddrive if it's in their parts catalog.

 

I'm still curious why anyone would do this? If you're worried about stock reliability, wouldn't you just wait and if it did die, replace it yourself then?

Because their music player is so so limited in terms of formats it supports, and the navigation extremely primitive (in comparison to current portable players, smartphones etc), that I can't see why you would use it to expand music storage.

 

I'm still curious why anyone would do this? If you're worried about stock reliability, wouldn't you just wait and if it did die, replace it yourself then?

A valid point, but some people like doing things just to see if they can be done (I had my car for a couple of weeks before I started taking it apart to find out how things worked and were put together). Enquiring minds and all that:wink2:

Because their music player is so so limited in terms of formats it supports, and the navigation extremely primitive (in comparison to current portable players, smartphones etc), that I can't see why you would use it to expand music storage.

I think Vividspin was doing it just to try and replace the mechanical drive with an SSD (under the presumption that it would be as prone to fail as a standard consumer-grade one), not particularly to increase the storage space. If (as his initial findings are pointing towards) the drive uses a custom or encrypted file system then increasing the sizes of the partitions is pretty much off the cards anyway, but nobody will know if they don't try. I would probably have had a go myself (even though it would be a bit of a 'busman's holiday' for me) but I've only got High Performance infotainment, so there's no disk in my IAM 2.1 Level 1.

 

It would also be interesting to see if there was any performance increase, to see if the disk was the slowest part of the setup or not. Certainly speeding up spome startup processes would be good in my eyes.

As I said in my reply to the previous thread I'm reluctant to try anything whilst the car is under warranty - that and I've currently got a lot of house-related projects underway. Having recently moved it seems they are currently sucking up all of my evenings and weekends!

 

See the other thread re map updates

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

Hello you have try to make first a clone offline with original hdd end ssd????


Inviato dal mio SM-G950F utilizzando Tapatalk

 

Hi,

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I did gain access to the HDD some time ago and I'd like to contribute a few things:

• The HDD is protected by ATA-security, so the only way to gain access to its contents is to unlock it with the right password. While the drive is locked there's no way to create a backup with any tool, the drive's firmware will just respond with 0's to any read request.
• The drive is configured with both ATA passwords (user and master). Refer to the ATA-security specs to find out the differences.
• The user password is "siihakawhc2o6937" followed by 16 spaces (thus the total length is 32 byte. Ignore the quotes) and will allow full access to the drive but will not allow to modify the drive's security parameters. This should be safe for non ATA experts, but keep in mind you can still ruin the system by e.g. altering the partition table.
• I also found the master password which allows to modify the security parameters but, as you could really make a mess of the drive with this, I prefer to keep it to myself. Anyway, as we already know the user password this one is not that useful.
• Once unlocked, you have full access to the drive as in any other HDD, there are no other security measures in place.
• The disk contents are:
  
  
  

  • Partition 1: 28GB FAT32, label "SLOT0". Contains the map data and the firmware (more on this later).
  • Partition 2: 10GB FAT32, label "SLOT1": Contains the CDDB database.
  • Partition 3: 1GB FAT32, label "SLOT2" or "SLOT3" (not sure right now): contains a "_BKUP_" folder with a lot of *.OSG files and a VREC_TAG folder cotaining two binary files
  • Partition 4: 1GB FAT32, label "SLOT3" or "SLOT4": contains an empty "MM_DIAG" folder.
  • The rest of the drive (40GB) is unallocated space.
• It is possible to install another drive, even a SATA drive if you have an IDE<->SATA adapter (I did this with a 500GB SATA drive and a 5 € adapter), as long as the partition table remains the same the system seems to accept it. I did not try to resize any of the partitions, but I guess it'll be OK as long as they follow the FAT32 limits.
• It is also possible to install an unlocked drive (or to remove the drive's protection and reinstall it), but the OS will re-lock it again after bootup with the same passwords. This is why there's no point in messing with the master password.

As for the firmware:

• The first partition contains a copy of the firmware in a file named LOADING.KWI. As this is more or less a standard OEM navi unit there are lots of references to this file in other brands (Mitsubishi and Lexus seem to be the ones that dug deeper in these systems).
• In theory the unit checks this firmware for upgrades in every cold-boot, so an upgrade should be only a matter of subsituting this file. This is the way older units work, mainly those that require the maps DVD to be always inserted. I'm just guessing this works the same in this unit, I have no way to test it.
• After messing about with the cartography DVDs and the firmware, I believe it should be possible to apply firmware upgrades via the USB port also, in the same way the cartography is updated.
• Unfortunately, Volvo does not release firmware updates for these units with the cartography as it did with older systems, and it seems the present software update system via VIDA does not store a copy of the newer firmware in the HDD, so this file is only a backup of the firmware available when the car left the factory. This implies that any potential modification to the firmware would be based in a possibly outdated firmware version.
• Last but not least, those other brands I mentioned earlier and a few others have been trying to hack these firmwares for quite a few years and none have got any significant results.

 

• The HDD is protected by ATA-security, so the only way to gain access to its contents is to unlock it with the right password. While the drive is locked there's no way to create a backup with any tool, the drive's firmware will just respond with 0's to any read request.
• The drive is configured with both ATA passwords (user and master). Refer to the ATA-security specs to find out the differences.
• The user password is "siihakawhc2o6937" followed by 16 spaces (thus the total length is 32 byte. Ignore the quotes) and will allow full access to the drive but will not allow to modify the drive's security parameters. This should be safe for non ATA experts, but keep in mind you can still ruin the system by e.g. altering the partition table.
• I also found the master password which allows to modify the security parameters but, as you could really make a mess of the drive with this, I prefer to keep it to myself. Anyway, as we already know the user password this one is not that useful.
• Once unlocked, you have full access to the drive as in any other HDD, there are no other security measures in place.
• The disk contents are:
  
  ​
  • Partition 1: 28GB FAT32, label "SLOT0". Contains the map data and the firmware (more on this later).
  • Partition 2: 10GB FAT32, label "SLOT1": Contains the CDDB database.
  • Partition 3: 1GB FAT32, label "SLOT2" or "SLOT3" (not sure right now): contains a "BKUP" folder with a lot of *.OSG files and a VREC_TAG folder cotaining two binary files
  • Partition 4: 1GB FAT32, label "SLOT3" or "SLOT4": contains an empty "MM_DIAG" folder.
  • The rest of the drive (40GB) is unallocated space.
• It is possible to install another drive, even a SATA drive if you have an IDE<->SATA adapter (I did this with a 500GB SATA drive and a 5 € adapter), as long as the partition table remains the same the system seems to accept it. I did not try to resize any of the partitions, but I guess it'll be OK as long as they follow the FAT32 limits.
• It is also possible to install an unlocked drive (or to remove the drive's protection and reinstall it), but the OS will re-lock it again after bootup with the same passwords. This is why there's no point in messing with the master password.

Can confirm that all the 4 partition sizes can be up to 31GB (32GB should be max) in size and still work fine (on my SATA HDD connector at least), the drive locked automatically with the ATA password above once the unit has started.

 

Was there any progress on this? The HDD on my 2012 S60 has gone bad and I'm wondering if it can be replaced. Volvo wants $1300 to replace the whole unit...

 

The disk itself is a standard PATA drive, can be replaced with no problems. The problem will be to recover the software inside the original disk, for which you'll need access to the contents of the broken disk or find someone with your *exact* GPS specs (car model and year, RTI hardware revision) that is willing to let you hack their disk to be able to copy that.

Apart from the disassembling of the unit, the only thing that is preventing access to the disk is that it is protected with ATA password security (thus why any "brute" cloning will just result in an image full of NULLs). I did find the passwords for that and explain the process here (in spanish), but be warned that you can really brick the drive if you do something wrong. Also keep in mind that in that post I'm referring to an EU-spec RTI and, since you are talking dollars I guess yours would be an US or AU unit, so they could be completely different beasts.

Apart from that, assuming your drive is a Hitachi Endurastar (which seems to be the standard drive, although there are variantions in the drive's capacity) I'm surprised your drive has gone bad. Endurastars are specced to be really durable, thus the reason why they are the preferred drives for these systems.

 

Hi all, today I decided to open my Volvo V40 MY2015 (D2 R-Design) to check which kind of HDD is installed inside, becasuse my intention is to replace it with an SSD drive, since from the beginning it was noisy and I warried that his life will be very short.
I'm really surprised because it's a SATA device Toshiba TSD-MK2060GSC (100GB) drive.

 

Why does this surprise you?

Because it's a Sata drive I guess.

It is still on my list of jobs to do. Especially as 120gb SSD's can be had for less than £15


It is getting the data off the old drive which is the difficult one.

Shame the firmware doesn't build the drive automatically.

 

Hello, I'm resurrecting a bit this old thread in order to help others with the HDD replacement for Sensus Connect IHU units. I've successfully replaced my old HDD drive with modern SSD one. Since I'm usually traveling a lot the aim here was to rather remove the annoying whining noise of the build in HDD drive that can be heard especially when the engine is off and you are waiting in the car for something. The speed increase is really just a cosmetic benefit that is only affecting the maps browsing etc. I wasn't able to spot any boot up speed increase or similar performance benefit when controlling the unit. My IHU unit is Mitsubishi NR-1V.

In order to replace the HDD you of course have to remove the unit from the car completely. There are many tutorials on how to do that. Once you have the unit outside you can access the HDD at the bottom of the unit, unscrew screws that are holding it and replace it. Now comes the tricky part. As @Fasser mentioned here the HDD is password protected. To defeat that you can use variety of approaches from paid services that can retrieve the password up to a replacement with "keen-enough" drive that will tell you the password itself. Yes, you can straight replace the HDD drive with another even empty one and the unit will automatically lock it with pre-set password. My user password was:"²º³¼°ß¬¾±»¾ß²¼¾ß±ž‰–ߪŒšßßßßßßß". The partition table is quite similar to the one that Fasser posted here:

Here are some pictures of the replacement procedure I've done:

 

Wow...are you shure about this password "²º³¼°ß¬¾±»¾ß²¼¾ß±ž‰–ߪŒšßßßßßßß" ? How did you typed it? And..how did you found out the password?

 

Now, to replay to my post
Password in hexadecimal to unlock HDD from Volvo Sensus Connect, the one with the "globe" button on the right, like in @tarbik photo in the post above, is:
B2BAB3BCB0DFACBEB1BBBEDFB2BCBEDFB19E8996DFAA8C9A8DDFDFDFDFDFDFDF
I have used HDAT.exe program from DOS to unlock the HDD.

 

Goodafternoon Zoran,
I am Richard from the netherlands, where can i find HDAT.EXE i only can find HDAT2.exe.
many thanks.

 

I have made a back up image of mine (2016 Volvo Sensus Connect) thx for the password @Zoran .

Steps to reproduce if anyone is interested
Booted up Ubuntu Live USB on my desktop pc.
Connected the drive (sata is hotpluggable).

Found device id with command
sudo lsblk

Device id was sdc ... so /dev/sdc

Checked device status
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdc
confirmed its the device i was expecting and is locked

Unlock the device and then confirm its unlocked
sudo hdparm --security-unlock hex:B2BAB3BCB0DFACBEB1BBBEDFB2BCBEDFB19E8996DFAA8C9A8DDFDFDFDFDFDFDF /dev/sdc

to confirm
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdc

device is now unlocked, so i opened Ubuntus Disks utility and created image of entire drive, saved it to my NAS, so in case my hdd ever fails I can restore it.

It was simpler then expected... i tried first on windows but gave up. So i recomend making the backup from linux, all the tools were preinstalled, and the disk image/restore can be done in simple ui.

 

Hi Patok3,

My HDD is already bad, so I cannot copy the image to a new drive. My plan is to get a new re-imaged drive (SSD) and just replace it.
Would you be willing to share your drive image with me?

Jan

 

Here you go, here is the link of HDD backup:
3.75 GB file on MEGA
You need to make partitions like in Tarbik post #37.
When I was making a backup, second partition was damaged, so I didnt copy it, but you dont need it because it will be filled with data during map update...

 

A follow up... I succesfully replaced the faulty HDD with a new SSD. I used the drive image from patok3. Although my car is a V70 with sensus connect, it worked no problem. I used a Verbatim 128GB SATA III drive.

 

I wonder if you'd be kind enough to explain how you replaced your hdd. My one is no longer working
If I understand correctly I can replace the broken hdd by using a 128gb ssd and then using the image provided by patok3.
I then make a new drive using the image. Can all this be done on a windows laptop with the new hdd plugged into it?
And then just plug it into the car? Sorry for all the question, but not great at this stuff, but don't fancy paying Volvo to replace the hdd either lol.
Thank you in advance for your help with this

 

hi guys own A Volvo V60 cross country 2017 similar infotainment to the above. Requesting for the image so I can write it on SSD

 

Hi! have you found it? thanks.