Here's a link to kenwood's site with more detail [link] I want one bad.

Anyone bust open one of those DMS cartridges yet?

I bust open my keg five minutes after i got home. I uses a standard 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. I haven't upgraded the drive yet but i will try to clone the drive to a larger drive.

i got the 20gb kenwood music keg. i opened the DMS right after it was delivered here... Toshiba MK2018GAP. Simple upgrade to the MK4018GAS for 40GB should be possible, but I'm still working on getting the first 20GB used up... Maybe if it was all in FLAC format. :)

I recently bought a 15G Archos Jukebox, and it is pretty badass.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than the Music Keg, plus you can take it with you. Admittedly, you'd have to use a conversion kit to get it to play in your car stereo, but it is still pretty cool.

There is no way to replace the drive in the DMS. It's totally locked with firmware or data keys. Cloning doesn't work. Don't even bother trying. Waste of time.

the Music Keg is pretty much the only Mobile MP3 Hard Drive that can't be "upgraded" by replacing the hard drive with a larger one.

here is a side by side comparison of the Music Keg, Neo Car Jukebox, and the Riocar. [link] Personally, i like the Riocar.

Any luck on changing out that hard drive??

Any Ideas?

Call me crazy, but maybe you should consider an iPod? Just slap the car power adapter on there, and you've got the same thing only it's portable, you don't have to take out your CD player (just plug it in, assuming it has the connection) and if you want to take your tunes with you when you leave your car you're good to go.

Also, they're a lot cooler and definitely easier to install.

Just an idea.

Ahem... way old news but I had this link on my HD for a long time and new it would come in handy eventually... [link]

Oh yeah... toss on a dvd player and flat screen for the back seat and you have a nice place to kick back and watch movies too :D

Course for that price you would be better off just getting a dvd system for the car which can handle mp3s on disk :D

One place that i've ordered a few things from is [link] . Everything is real inexpensive and i've never had a problem with them about anything. They got speakers, LCD screens, in-dash DVD players, all sorts of subs and car stereos. etc. etc. blah blah blah. check it out and be amazed. lol.

I just had a 10gb keg installed in my car last week. I spent most of the weekend trying to hack it to use an old 30GB drive that i have but with no luck. I convinced the Phat Noise software that my hack was valid but i couldnt get the unit in the car to play friendly.

Here is what I did....much cheaper.

I bought the Rio Riot for about $150.00. It holds 20 gig also. I use the RCA jack that my car stereo already has and hooked it up that way. Love it. Love it. Love it.

oh yeah and I can take it out of my car and use it like a walkman too!

... for having a keg installed in my car. It was 13.5 gallons and held Coors-light.

(stupid police)

That defeats the cool-factor of building your own custom car-mp3 player.

Feh.

BK that's pretty much my plan too. Back when I posted this there weren't many high capacity mp3 devices available.

I thought about going the other route but really, I like having something less permanent. Who wants to rip all that crap out when you get a new car or when bigger capacity is available? I am too cheap and lazy for that. ;) And it really kicks ass when you ride with a friend and just plug in to their system. Who needs cd's....I don't need no stinkin cd's.

Higher capacity than say a 120GB HD or two?

With that kinda cap. you would never hear the same song twice before the car died and rusted out.

Remember when we thought a 3 gig harddrive was big? :D I imagine it will be the same here.

if you want to up your capacity you may want to check [link]
they have 40, 60 and 80 gig carts for "fair" prices.

if you want to up your capacity you may want to check [link]
they have 40, 60 and 80 gig carts for "fair" prices.

no

How to replace your phatnoise DMS cartrige harddrive (kenwood too)
This works, I just did it... Want pictures? If ya live in wisconsin you can stop by and ill show ya ;P

My 10gig died in my kenwood unit.. but as you all know it's a standard DMS from phatnoise ... I'm not one to read so I said f'k it and tore the thing open... I mean my drive sounds like you're dragging 20 fingernails across a chalkboard and doesn't work anyway so why not have some fun. I had a 4.something gig fujitsu laptop harddrive laying here i wasn't using.. so i tossed it in..

Wanna get it to work? Simple.. Computer management with windows xp. Go into Disk Management.. and create yourself 2 partitions of type FAT32 named PHTSYS and PHTDTA. do at least a quick format on both. After doing that, just pop open Phatnoise Music Manager, click on devices and choose Phatnoise DMS.. It'll tell you that your DMS hasn't been initialized and take you through this pretty process of initializing it..... aka, picking your headunit basically. It nicely downloads all of the system files and everything you need on the drive from their site and extracts ihe zipfiles out for you. If you want the zipfiles for kenwood head units I do have them available now.

ANYWAYS.. I'm not exactly sure what partition requirements would be... I think it varies a little bit but my system files took up a whompin 9MB so maybe like a 50MB partition should be sufficient... I made mine 600 because I didn't know what I was headed into. But lemme tell ya.... 4GB right now should work *alright*... especially for the rediculous prices that phatnoise is charging for those harddrives... 80GB Seagate Momentus HD from your favorite online retailer *cough*newegg*cough* will only land you somewhere along the lines of about $142 plus 1.99 shipping right now.....

Hope this helps for the adventurist or people that get screwed over like i did with their HD diein on them after just over a year... (and i didn't even hardly ever have mine hooked up, sat on my desk not even in cradle).

Questions can be directed to: kungfoo a-t rootboxen d o t net
(Spelled it out to avoid email address robots)

So tell us if you're able to get the upgraded DMS to work in the car unit. I have heard you can upgrade the HD, get MM to recognize, etc. on a PC, but when you try to use in the car player, no go.

Those prices are not even close to being fair.

Please let us know if it works as DIY disk upgrades would be awesome.

I tried the upgrade as mentioned above, would recognize fine in the PC, but in the car the lights would just flash and the headunit would show Eject and not read anything. From what I have been able to find it actually reads the hardware ID from the drive and the DMS drives have a special ID that is recognized by the car unit. I have not been able to find a way around that so far.

My factory stereo was dead and needed to be replaced so I got a Music Keg. I personally got a keg because the ipod would've cost me more than the keg and a brand new head unit. Additionally, it's been my experience that PC users, such as myself, just have too many probelms with iTunes software. I'd love to have a Mac but comparable Apple products just cost too much! Sure, I could get a mini-mac of some sort for a few hundred bucks JUST so I could easily use the heinously overpriced iPod but then, I'd still need a more powerful computer for the graphics heavy work that I do. I like apple but they want me to pay too much for the "cool factor". I got a factory refurbished Kenwood CX-910 (with a manufacturer's and extended warranty) and a brand new Kenwood MP228 head unit for a grand total of $328 delivered and I installed it myself. Pretty easy. My girlfriend could've done it on one of her more patient days. Not everyone is going to be able to duplicate what I've done but, those of us who are into car audio will probably want to go with a car audio unit anyway. Again, I LOVE Apple computer's products but, because the asking price is so "out of range", I think I'll go with one of Creative Labs' portable units when the time comes that I want to walk with my tunes. Creative's got much better battery life and a lot fewer pricey peripherals to buy anyway.

My factory stereo was dead and needed to be replaced so I got a Music Keg. I personally got a keg because the ipod would've cost me more than the keg and a brand new head unit. Additionally, it's been my experience that PC users, such as myself, just have too many probelms with iTunes software. I'd love to have a Mac but comparable Apple products just cost too much! Sure, I could get a mini-mac of some sort for a few hundred bucks JUST so I could easily use the heinously overpriced iPod but then, I'd still need a more powerful computer for the graphics heavy work that I do. I like apple but they want me to pay too much for the "cool factor". I got a factory refurbished Kenwood CX-910 (with a manufacturer's and extended warranty) and a brand new Kenwood MP228 head unit for a grand total of $328 delivered and I installed it myself. Pretty easy. My girlfriend could've done it on one of her more patient days. Not everyone is going to be able to duplicate what I've done but, those of us who are into car audio will probably want to go with a car audio unit anyway. Again, I LOVE Apple computer's products but, because the asking price is so "out of range", I think I'll go with one of Creative Labs' portable units when the time comes that I want to walk with my tunes. Creative's got much better battery life and a lot fewer pricey peripherals to buy anyway.

There are low-level disk editors available. I'm waiting for a new DMS to be delivered and I will try analysing it before I do anything else. See if I can spot the frig.

This has already been done. You all should look here:

[link]

Unfortunately the site is temporarily down do to a hardware problem. Just create a link/shortcut and keep trying it. You'll be glad you did.

I had that idea, but a certain Phatnoise employee told me it wouldn't work!

[link]

I should have known that they would try to make us buy their 10 billion dollar DMS's.

Have you tried it in your car yet? It won't work!

forum.phathack.com

Tell them how you did it and see what they say

It'll work if he has a red box, but you CAN add a second drive to it ;)

[link] - there's a wiki with info on adding a serial port, I'll be getting in the info on making second drive work too

Sam

Hey guys, www.phathack.com

We cracked the DMS lock and have a bootable CD that makes a new one for you and unlocks your phatbox / music keg..