Pystar’s Hax4u a bit overpriced

Here we go again with the open computer scam mac clone. Ars has some more coverage, but what’s really interesting there are the comments imo.

Oh, and there’s some photos too, but the guy posting it might be someone from pystar, so beware.

So, the deal it’s this: you get more or less 200€ worth of hardware, with a copy of Leopard. You got osx already hacked and runing, but to reinstall it you need to re-hack it too (or download the hacked images you find floating on the net). In your Country the Apple eula might not be legally binding, so it could even be legal, but given the number of people installing osx everywhere (including on the eepc and on the OQO) you’re probably better off buying the pieces wherever you want and assemble your own mac clone.

Apple, P.A. Semi and the Alpha

Apple bought P.A. Semi, it’s making the rounds everywhere.
Why? Dunno, but even if wired has four credible reasons to explain the move, they did mention just in passing that behind an unknown chipmaker there’s Daniel Dobberpuhl, i.e.: one of the fathers of the ALPHA. (man, how I liked that architecture… pity it’s gone down the drain)

I doubt the chip is for the iphones, not Right Now^TM at least, but it’s a good excuse for Apple to build a blade server, or to bring back the Newton from the dead.

(many thanks CHIPNIT for the wired link)

Mac clones a moving target

Well, it seems the whole mac clone story is shadierthan I tought.
The guardian tracked down Pystar’s movements, both on the web and on the map.
Yep, on the map. Not only their website appeared out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago, but their physical address is moving around too, seems they’re changin it every few days.
Maybe it’s to escape the wrath of netkas, who claims pystar stole his v8 efi emulator.

Scam or no scam? Well, they promised Ars they’ll send them a unit for review, so we just have to sit back and wait.

Buy an already-hacked mac clone

There’s people buying apple hardware because it is quality stuff, people with a ton of hardware already around hacking macosx to run on their iron.

And then there’s people offering you a pre-hacked mac minitower for sale at 400 bucks, yep, that’s right. Those soon-to-be-sued-to-hell guys at psystar offer you a mac clone with osx already installed.

If you want it, do get it fast, this box is making the rounds on the net and I doubt it will be avaiable for long.

List of hard disk ata master passwords

Ferreted this out after some hours of web searching, guess I can spare you the same trouble

If you find this stuff useful, please do leave a comment, “hi, it worked” is enough.

(nb: see my previous post for unlocking instructions)

SEAGATE -> “Seagate” +25 spaces

MAXTOR
series N40P -> “Maxtor INIT SECURITY TEST STEP ” +1 or +2 spaces
series N40P -> “Maxtor INIT SECURITY TEST STEP F”
series 541DX -> “Maxtor” +24 spaces
series Athena (D541X model 2B) and diamondmax80 -> “Maxtor”

WESTERN DIGITAL -> “WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWD”

FUJITSU -> 32 spaces

SAMSUNG -> “ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt” (32 times t)

IBM
series DTTA -> “CED79IJUFNATIT” +18 spaces
series DJNA -> “VON89IJUFSUNAJ” +18 spaces
series DPTA -> “VON89IJUFSUNAJ” +18 spaces
series DTLA -> “RAM00IJUFOTSELET” +16 spaces
series DADA-26480 (6,4gb) -> “BEF89IJUF__AIDACA” +15 spaces

HITACHI series DK23AA, DK23BA and DK23CA -> 32 spaces

TOSHIBA -> 32 spaces

For xbox hdds try “XBOXSCENE” or “TEAMASSEMBLY” too

Air car on Earth

I always wanted an electrical car, they’ve got good torque, do not guzzle fuel like they’ve got an hole in the tank, and as a side note they do not pollute much.

Trouble is, while there are some great electric cars (like the Tesla Roadster), they all do have something in common: they’re way too pricey and, well, have you ever tried buying new batteries for a laptop? Just picture the cost (both for you and for whoever disposes of them) for the monsters powering up a car.

Then, surfing aimlessly, trying to find out what’s electric on the market today, I stumbled upon what’s aircompressed on the market today.

Yep, air compressed. Well, nothing so new or so groundbreaking, c.a. engines have been around for a bit. However, lately a lot of guys have come up (in parallel, it does seem) with some new engineering. Take for example EngineAir, an aussie company that makes rotary c.a. engines.

Yes, all this stuff seems limited to small flatbeds or similar junk. Uh, no wait, what’s tata motors got to do with it? Well, it seems one of those guys got an agreement with them to actually produce a c.a. car. Yep, a car, they’re producing it, Just Right Now^TM.
I want one.

They’re affordable, as green as you can get (and working in an over-polluted city sooner or later you do notice), and most importantly just beg to be modded like hell. Just add some solar panel film on the roof, some tubing to recharge it while you’re driving around and an electric air compressor and you’re good to go. Oh, and since the waste product is cool air you’ve solved air conditioning as well, just add some more tubing and a filter at the end.
It seems they’re coming to Europe and the states sooner or later. Good, I think I’ve found my next car. Now, to find some eolic/solar generator to recharge it…

other links:

http://www.aircarcatvolution.com/

Halt and Catch Fire

Got a disk for cheap off ebay, since the user forgot the ata password. Turned out the disk was 0xDEAD anyway, but I’ve learned a bit more about the ata/pata commands.
If you got a locked disk and do not care much for the contents read on.

First thing first: you really do want to go pay HddGuru a visit, they host some really great tools like mhdd (which lets you send ata commands directly to the disk), a forum, and of course the ATA/ATAPI-8 revision 2b — AT Attachment — 8 ATA/ATAPI Command Set (January 10, 2006). A not-in-any-way-dull list of all the stuff you can send to your disk, including HCF but sadly lacking RAISE_FROM_THE_DEAD.

Ok, let’s grab/burn our Ultimate boot CD (mhdd is under the diagnostic tools btw) and fire it up.
Select your locked disk (1 usually) and let’s ask IDENTIFY to the bugger. Yes, that’s way too much info.

The first thing to look for is the 8th bit in the 128th word, 0 is security=high, 1 is security=maximum.

If it’s zero we’re in luck, and we can either unlock the disk with the regular password (assuming you know it, I did not) or with the master password (you can find some of them on the net, just google for your model number). (edit: I’ve collected the passwords I’ve found here)

Let’s type UNLOCK, and reply 1 when asked [that means we’re using the master’s password], and enter our password.
If we do not get an error [ERR turns red on the top of the screen] we’re good to go, if we do there’s 4 more tries with the password before we need to powercycle the disk.
If we get the password right a DISPWD (followed by 1 and the password again) will stop all this locking nonsense for good.

Oh, right, there’s maximum security too.
Well, that’s more satisfacting if slow as a glacier.
Just send an ERASE PREPARE followed by an ERASE UNIT and after an hour or so you can go and DISPWD it for good. Yes that will erase it completely, told you it was more satisfacting.

list of interesting stuff from identify:

• bit 8 in word 128: security, 0=high 1=maximum
• word 92: if it’s 0xFFFE the master password is unchanged (and you could get lucky and find it on the net)
• words 89 and 90: how long will it take to ERASE the disk
• word 88: which kind of dma the disk supports
• byte 2 in word 53: wheter the fields in word 88 are valid or not (wtf?)

list of interesting links:

• Paragon’s website, everything you’ll need for hdd and laptop unlocking
• Techspots’ mobile computer forum, the aforementioned dude can be found here as well
• Mike’s page on unlocking dell laptops
• and something for toshibas as well

Happy disk hacking everyone

tags for the spiders: how-to howto unlock a password protected hard disk hdd