Recovering unlock codes from your hard drive

[Bill Roper]

I recently sold my d8b, as I've been mixing in the box for over a year now, so I will likely not be around a lot in the future. (Although I still have a number of spare parts to sell once I figure out what I've got in the boxes... )

One of the things that I have not seen documented anywhere is how to recover your unlock codes from an installed image on your hard drive. These are not the *box* codes, but the unlock codes that you get once Mackie combines the box code with the ESN for your particular board.

Although I have not tested this, I believe that you should be able to unlock the OS and various plugins by dropping these files back into the appropriate directories on your d8b using the FTP Server functionality, which is *also* what you can do to look up and save these files.

So, here's what you do:

Assign a static IP address on your local network to your d8b on the FTP Server tab. Make sure that your d8b is connected to the network via the Ethernet port in the CPU.

Use your favorite FTP program (I use Filezilla) to connect to the d8b FTP Server at the address you set above.

You can now see the entire hard drive, including your sessions, which will be in the Session3 (for sessions created in 3.0) or Session5 (for sessions created in 5.0 or higher). You might want to back those up at your convenience, using the FTP Server to copy them to the hard disk on your computer.

But first, let's get those authorization codes back.

The most important code (which authorizes OS 5.1) is at system5\Drivers\rs422\rs422.key. This appears to be a simple text file that you can open in Notepad to look at, but it contains the 12 digit hex code that authorizes you to run OS 5.1.

The authorization codes for each of the plugins are stored at Plugins\PlugInName\PlugInName.key. Thus, the authorization code for Antares AutoTune is at Plugins\AntaresAT\AntaresAT.key.

If no key file is present in the directory, you are not authorized to use that plugin.

(The MFX and Vocal Studio plugins don't use these plugin keys, so you won't find a key file in those directories -- the key files are just for the UFX card plugins.)

So if you need to install a new version of the OS and plugins from original media, you should be able to resuscitate your OS and plugins by replacing all of the backed up key files in the correct locations.

And that should be a lot less work than making a backup image of the whole hard drive.

Good luck, all!

[ismains]

Thanks bill

but i should i do if my hard drive is dead ,i have install a new one but i'm unable to getb 5.1 unlock..only demo mode !!!!
thanks for sharing with us

[Bill Roper]

If your hard drive is dead, you might try using a data recovery tool like Spinrite on it to get files back. If that doesn't work, a data recovery service might be pricey, but if you can get the key files back, you can unlock everything again.

[ismains]

wow thanks for the cue on the recovering tool i will try it ...do i use it with the mackie cpu/pc or on a regular pc ?????

[Bill Roper]

Hook the hard drive up as an extra drive on a regular PC. If need be, you can probably put it into a carrier, but you should check the instructions with the SpinRite software.

[ismains]

ok i will try that out

again thanks a lot