HDD image for Bose Lifestyle 48 (AV48)

[absorbentgnome]

Hi everyone

Its been some time since posting on this forum, its great to see the database for manuals and other handy files getting more and more comprehensive.

I have an awful Bose Lifestyle 48 AV48 in which the internal drive has died. I bought an exact replacement Toshiba MK4025GAS drive, but the error 802 remains. I tried the drive with no partition, a FAT32 partition and an ext2 partition with no success. I assume the drive has to be initialised with the appropriate filesystem and some files before the unit will read and write to it.
So here's my question..

Does anyone have an image file of an empty but initialised bose hard disk? Or knows what filesystem it uses and a copy of any files?

Thanks
Dan.

[[email protected]]

Hi there Dan, I also have a Bose Lifestyle 48 in which the internal hard drive has died. While checking the web I found your comments about the replacement you bought etc. Did you ever solve this problem?

I have a Tech friend who has offered to try to replace the hard drive so wondered if you have any other information to share.
Cheers
Elwyn

[Guest]

Dan,

I enter the same problem. I went and purchase a replacement from Ebay and this is what I found from the replacement drive. The hard disk must be formatted at FAT32. However, you will need to have the data and folder structure for the Bose to read. The structure are listed below.

-DATA
-db
-FONTS
-MUSIC

In each folder there are specific data files the Bose system requires. If you have a working Bose system, you can backup the data or create a data image so you can easily restore it. The Bose system can only read FAT32 file system. Your maximum limit is 32GB even if you put 80GB hard disk. My Bose system is able to read a 80GB hard disk, but can use 32GB. In theory, you can use a IDE to Compact flash adapter and convert it into a memory drive.

Good Luck.

[Guest]

Hey There,

Can you please detail out the process for getting the Bose Lifestyle 48 to read the disk? I have done everything including this file structure with no results. I have a formatted 32.04 SSD 2.5" drive with a straight image from the original Bose. Tried hard reset, etc.

Also, I noticed on my exact working image of the Bose HDD (Toshiba), it did not have the "FONTS" folder you mentioned. Everything else was the same. I even tried adding an empty FONTS folder and then seeing if that changed anything and it didn't. I have my SSD properly formatted FAT32.

As a "startover," is there any way to force reinitialization of the drive through the console menus or other method? Stuck and awaiting your reply.

Thank you,
Drew

[Guest]

Hi Drew,

Can you be more specific when you say “I have done everything ...with not results”? Does it mean that BOSE does not recognize your HDD? Are you still getting an error messages from BOSE?

I have Lifestyle 38 and my HDD started giving a noise. BOSE was reporting both 801 and 802 error messages and, luckily before HDD completely died I managed to connect it to my laptop and save all files. File system on HDD was FAT32 and there were 3 folders:
- DATA
- Db
- MUSIC
I have purchased WD 160GB 2.5’’ HDD, formatted it as one whole partition of 160 GB, simply copied all 3 folders back from my laptop to WD hard disk and... here comes the best... BOSE recognized the HDD, error messages are gone, but when I press STORED button on the remote, CD and song title appear on the display, but BOSE won’t start playing the song. There is a PAUSE sign on the display (like I pressed the Pause button on the remote – which I did not) and will not go off. I tried pressing Play button on the remote – and all other buttons – but Pause sign is still on the display and will not go off.
I took HDD out , connected again to my laptop, deleted whole volume (using Control Panel – Administrative tools – computer management- disk management) and created new one with 30GB size this time, copied the folders back but no success.
HDD is recognized but Pause sign is still on the display.
I am out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Regards,

DC

[lonron]

hey DC,

have you tried a software update yet?
what if you delete all music files from the MUSIC folder and store new music?

my hdd is busted, too.
I´m really frustrated because I have no backup of the folders. do the bose files take up a lot of space or could you mail them to me (without your music files)? then I could try to get that thing working. would be great!

Greetings, Ron

[Blur]

The hard disk on my Bose LS-48 is also broken.

Has anybody had success with the repaid as described in this thread?

[execudine1]

Hey Guys,

I had already tried and waited to try and get the exact drive, format it, etc. Too much drama. I finally called Bose. $149 + shipping and within 6 days round-trip, I had my Lifestyle 48 back in business. It was much quieter and it looks like they did a lot more than replace the drive. My casing was immaculate, it sounds like they may have replaced the DVD drive or tuned it. It is much quieter now. The HDD I noticed when going through the console is not a Toshiba, but a Fujitsu now. Hmmm. Maybe that helps? They upgraded all the firmware/software and shipped it back to me in a nice box well packed with the latest uMusic DVD install.

The only thing I lost was my music, but I probably needed to rearrange and add things differently anyways. Plus, my system has a 1-Year Warranty now from the date of this. Not bad. I work in the technology field and most people don't get that kind of service for that price for equipment that pricey.

Yes, I know, frustrating that I had to send it off in the first place, but I will say in the long haul well worth it for everything they took care of.

Just send it in and save yourself the headache. I'm a techy guy, but Bose has all the software proprietary so it's hard to mod anything.

1-800-WWW-Bose. Just have your console serial ready and a credit card ready.

Drew

[DC]

Hi everybody,

I’m bringing good news to all you guys who suffered with failed BOSE HDD. Further to my post dated 16 August 2011, I managed to make BOSE to recognize and play my WD 160 GB disk!
So, what did I do in the meantime, after 16 August?

- Sent an e-mail to BOSE technical support, which they did not bother to respond.
- Called BOSE service, and BOSE technician told me that the file system is “secret” and that simply copy-paste to new HDD will not work. Nonsense – read further...
- yesterday I went to BOSE service and bought BOSE HDD. It is actually TOSHIBA 40 GB hard drive, almost the same as the one which failed. Here are the details of the failed HDD:
TOSHIBA MK4025GAS HDD 2190 T ZE01 T DC +5V 0.7A

Here are the details of the new drive I bought yesterday:
TOSHIBA MK4032GAX HDD 2010 T ZL01 T DC +5V 1.0A
- I connected the new BOSE HDD to media center and, as expected, everything was Ok, and error messages 801 and 802 are gone.
- Then I disconnected the new drive from media center and connected to my laptop to examine the drive. And here is the “secret”:
Hard disk was formatted with FAT32 and is having TWO PARTITIONS! Here are the partitions details:
Partition 1:
Total bytes: 31,412,312,064 (29GB)
Total sectors: 61,352,172

Partition 2:
Total bytes: 8,595,417,600 (8GB)
Total sectors: 16,787,925

So, knowing this, I connected my 160GB WD 2.5’’ internal HDD (which I purchased for 1/5 of the price of BOSE HDD!) to my laptop and again using Control Panel – Administrative tools – Computer management- Disk management, first I deleted the existing volume on my WD drive, then I created 2 new volumes – for the size of the first volume I entered 29958 MB, and for the second volume 8197 MB. Then I made the first volume ACTIVE. Note that still more than 120GB of my WD drive remained unallocated, since I utilized only 38155 MB (29958+8197).

Then I copied all three folders (DATA, db and MUSIC), which I managed to save before the old BOSE HDD died, back to the first partition (29958 MB). The second partition (8197MB) remains empty.
Just to avoid any potential surprises from BOSE, actual copying I did from command prompt using ROBOCOPY function, which retains the complete time and date stamps of the original files. The syntax was
ROBOCOPY c: h: /s /copy:dat
Where c: was the source drive, h: was the destination drive, /s parameter will copy subfolders and /copy:dat will retain time and date stamps.

Then connected this WD drive to media center and SUCCESS! BOSE is playing all my stored music!
Unfortunately I had to buy new BOSE HDD (which I don’t need now) to discover this. But does not matter.

So you guys, can go to the first computer shop and buy any 2.5’’ internal HDD for 20% of the price you would pay to BOSE. Just take care on the following: my WD, despite it was looking identical to TOSHIBA HDD, was not quite identical. One corner on WD drive was 1mm higher than on TOSHIBA drive – just enough that cover of medial center cannot close properly. But with the help of rasp tool I chamfered the WD drive corner and now fits nicely in media center!

And, for the end, the new BOSE HDD I purchased was having only one folder in the first partition called DATA with only 6 files in it. I presume the other two folders db and MUSIC get created at the moment you press the STORE button to capture your music CD.

Best regards,

DC

[JLD]

My drive is dead and squills like a rat on power up/down. Would you be willing to ISO the image so I could burn it to a new drive?