File For Drive Emulation Must Be In One
Florio Bessinger
I forgot my WD Passport Ultra disk's hardware encryption password and I am having a Delphi software being programmed for finding this password using brute force method. Original WD Security software will be used for password entries, but WD Security software locks itself at every 5 wrong password entries. Then the drive needs to be physically ejected and plugged in to reset this counter.
Therefore the software being programmed must emulate safely removing and plugging in of an external USB hard disk drive on Windows on software level, as this is necessary for resetting the wrong password counter of WD Security software.
Finding out the storage location of this counter information would be very helpful. When the counter is at 4, safely removing the drive and plugging in to another computer resets the counter. This made me guess that the counter is stored on the USB drive and it is reset by drive's firmware during plugging in process.
This page -sieber.de/drivetools.html contains the best collection of tools related to USB drive handling I know. It provides commandline tools which you could execute from your program. Unfortunately this page is german, so I give you a hint to the most relevant tools:
Your chances are not too good, but with these tools you have all possibilities to first test whether you have a chance to do what you want at all and if this works with the Tools I would recommend not to program this functionality, but to call these commandline programs from you brute force code.
Whether you prefer SIO2SD or SDriveMax also depends on whether you prefer buttons (SIO2SD) or a touchscreen (SDriveMax). Be aware that the touchscreen is not the type found on your typical smartphone, more of a "push screen"like on a Palm and easier to use with a stylus than with your fingers.
SDriveMax is easier to build yourself as it requires minimal soldering, especially if you use Chinese clone parts and use it as the only device on the SIO bus, obviating the need for the extra chip and resistors.
SIO2SD is a bit cheaper to buy, especially if you take the "bare" version and make a case yourself. The larger screen on SDriveMax certainly makes operation a bit more intuitive than the "forward/back/shift" concept of SIO2SD.
Well, there are two main stand-alone devices and they have already been mentioned; the SIO2SD and the S-Drive Max. I personally prefer the SIO2SD, but they are both excellent devices and you really can't go wrong with either. If you have a PC close, there's also the SIO2PC-USB that you can use to connect your 800XL to your PC and access disk image files stored there, basically turning your PC into a giant drive emulator. Any of the three would fulfill your basic needs of Atari disk drive emulation. You just need to look at all the other available features of each, as well as the pros and cons of each, and decide which is right for you.
For stand alone I'd probably think about the MAX but in terms of keeping it a little cheaper and not bothered about super fancy screens the the SD would be fine...In terms of drive emulation I believe they are all very good..
The advantage of APE or RespeQt as a drive emulator is the power of a Windows PC. (I'm not sure about Mac use with RespeQt, but APE is Windows only.) Scrolling and clicking a mouse instead of pressing buttons to scroll on an itty-bitty LCD or a bunch of key presses is a great benefit to me. Of course, not for everyone, but certainly offers easy navigation of images plus other features such as printer emulation, easy transfer to/from a PC. Need not be a huge screen; an old, small laptop with a 486 running Windows 95 should work fine with APE. I've personally run APE on a Pentium 50 MHz with Win 97 on a 5" laptop. (It is more useful on something like a 10" laptop since you have more room on the screen.)
Yes, ATI All-in-Wonder graphics & capture card. This is the best system I've found for using the Atari and PC. But newer versions were aimed primarily as TV display and used a video buffer that destroyed the usefulness with computer/gaming systems.
One of the highest criteria for me re the standalone devices is that you have to be easily able to change disk image without needing to involve the Atari in the process, otherwise multi disk games could be unusable.
If you have a SID2 cart *and* an Ultimate 1MB board in your Atari, Flashjazzcat's BIOS lets you access ATR disk image files stored on a FAT partition of the CF card in the SIDE2 cartridge. You can mount multiple disk images in each of several disk drive slots (D1:, D2: ...) and then cycle them by pressing the external button on the SIDE2 cart. So, for instance, you can mount a two-disk game in two slots, and when the game tells you to insert the second disk, for instance, you can tap the button to swap the two disk images and the game now has access to that second disk image, now rotated to the D1: slot. Since this functionality also lets you write to ATRs stored on the FAT partition, you can do the same trick with single-disk games that use a second disk to save your progress. Put the game disk in D1:, your save disk in D2:, then swap in your save disk with a tap of the button, and then a second tap will rotate the disks again, putting the original back into the D1: slot ... You can rotate as many disks as you have mounted, though admittedly it can be tricky if you have more than two or three.
It's all very easy to use and elegant, and makes the U1MB/SIDE2 combo a must-have for me as a modern hobbyist using my classic Atari hardware. My "daily driver" Atari for 2 years was an 800XL with U1MB + SIDE2 cart, then I installed another U1MB in a 1200XL I restored to working condition; that machine was my daily driver for another 18 months or so until I built my 1088XEL.
While I am slowly gaining interest in the Ultimate 1Mb Upgrade, I really don't think I'd be interested in the Side2 Cartridge. While neat, I already have other devices that perform the same functions.
However, if I were purchasing one today, I would be inclined to buy Lotharek's new (and somewhat crudely named) SIO2SD variant. It has a larger display than the original SIO2SD model and I really like the look of its clear casing.
I thing the Sio device that end up using the most is a laptop with RespeQt and sio2pc. The reason is that most of the time I am trying something interesting I found here in the forum, a new app a new variation of a game, the new Plato, svg rendered, etc. So I need to start my PC anyways to update the files in the SD Card. So now I just connect the cable to the laptop and everything is easier and faster.
Don't get me wrong, sio2sd is a great amazing device, but in my case, having a laptop beside the Atari setup, makes the use of a PC much more convenient, and RespeQt is an amazing piece of software, you can swap disk, view the disk content, extract and add individual files, create new disk, load cassette images, and much more, with the convenience of a mouse and big screen.
Whenever I click on MIT App Inventor Setup application, a popup appears to allow the app to make changes to the device and I select 'Yes' after that nothing happens. I keep waiting for minutes but nothing happens. I also tried running the app as administrator but the same problem persists. Kindly guide me on how can I setup my MIT App Inventor on Windows.
I don't think I've heard of this (non-)behavior before. A couple things to check might be whether antivirus programs are interfering with the installer. If you're still having issues even after that, you should take a screenshot of the installer state and attach it to your post.
I even tried it after turning of my antivirus program but same issue is persisting. When I tried to open the program many times (as it is not opening), the setup file automatically disappears from my system and I have to reinstall it. Please suggest any solution as I didn't understood that what you meant by taking a screenshot of the 'installer state'.
You could place the inventor-Tools in your C drive. On most PCs that is the drive it is usually downloaded to. The installer installs to the C drive . It might be having issues installing the emulator there from your D drive. With the installer in your C drive; try again installing as Administrator.
Same thing is happening as shown in the video demonstration. I know that the 'emulator' must be installed in the 'Program Files (x86)' directory.. but we can run the setup file from anywhere.. Still I tried your suggested method, but same issue is there.
Edit : I think you misunderstood my problem. I have problem in installing the emulator or opening the exe file. That's why I have used the word 'setup' file in my query. Although, I tried putting the setup file in Drive (C:) but still there's same problem.
We occasionally get posts from people who install aistarter then sit watching the black CMD window waiting for the AI2 GUI to pop up.
We then have to ask them to go to ai2.appinventor.mit.edu and start a Project, then use the Connect menu from their Project.