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Can i replace a harddisk from a Area 51 cabinet?
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XNIF:
The selftest gives something like "harddisk not connected" so i think it's broke. Old harddrives are ticking timebombs. My question is how does this work?  Can i replace it with a normale harddisk and resize it like the original or something? Any thoughts on this anyone? Or maybe point me to the right direction...?
Dazz:
I believe that there is a way to use CHDMAN from MAME. You will need to have the Area 51 CHD file from a MAME collection.  I don't know if the hard drive has to be a specific brand/size in order for it to work though.

http://aarongiles.com/?cat=faqs


--- Quote ---Can I use chdman to put a CHD file back onto a hard disk?

Yes you can, at least under Windows. You have to be logged in as administrator, and you have to know which physical volume your target hard disk is mapped as. The easiest way to do that on Windows XP and later is to right click on My Computer and select Manage from the menu. In the Computer Management window, in the tree on the lefthand side, select Disk Management. That will show you a list of all the physical hard disks you have plugged in. They will be listed as "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Make a note of which disk number your target hard disk is.

Once you've done that, it's easy to "image" the CHD file onto the disk. Just use the following syntax:

    chdman -extract imagename.chd \\.\PHYSICALDRIVEn

where "imagename.chd" is the name of the CHD file, and the "n" next to PHYSICALDRIVE is the disk number you figured out above.

This technique has been used by several people to restore dead hard drives on arcade games. Note that you can also use chdman to create a backup of a hard disk image in much the same way:

    chdman -createhd \\.\PHYSICALDRIVEn imagename.chd

Which is how most of the CHD images have been created.
--- End quote ---

Perhaps this thread may be of better use...  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=94456.0
XNIF:
Thanks a lot for pointing this out! Too bad the guy in that thread did not keep us posted if he ever succeeded. So it seems that i have to keep in mind that the securitychip has to match. I wonder how this works, are there just a few securitychips, so i just need to test several CHD files, or is every pcb unique, and do i have to edit the imagefiles and hack the code in or something.
I lot of reading to do i guess...
bkenobi:
You can find drives on ebay for many games.  I suspect that these are made by people using chdman + the MAME set though.
XNIF:

--- Quote from: bkenobi on February 28, 2011, 12:17:05 pm ---You can find drives on ebay for many games.  I suspect that these are made by people using chdman + the MAME set though.

--- End quote ---

yes saw those....  kinda expensive considering it's not original. Compact Flash is the way to go i hope. I have ordered a IDE/PATA to CF converter and a 8gb card for 15 dollar together. Hope it works.
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