G1000 SD cards backup

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gsontheimer
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by gsontheimer »

As I said before: My observation was, that after I inserted a blank 4 GB SD (not SDHC) card into the MFD, it wrote a AIRFRAME.INFO file with a S/N to the card. When I put a blank SD card in the MFD, it did NOT write this file.

It should be possible - without Andoid phones and Linux - to put a blank card in the PFD, then install all data bases with the mygarmin.com web site or JSUM, and it should work. But it did not in my case.
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by cbrinton »

I have verified that the cloned card was functional. I started the g1000 and verified the version data for all expected DBs was correct between original and clone. TAWS system test was ok, nav data checked and my charts were there.
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Kai
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Kai »

cbrinton wrote:I have verified that the cloned card was functional. I started the g1000 and verified the version data for all expected DBs was correct between original and clone. TAWS system test was ok, nav data checked and my charts were there.
Interesting insight. Although I am still sure that serial IDs cannot be copied or cloned, the system seems to accept mismatches of hardware serial and the contents of airframe_info.xml.

Thanks for sharing!
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Rick
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Rick »

Kai wrote:Interesting insight. Although I am still sure that serial IDs cannot be copied or cloned, the system seems to accept mismatches of hardware serial and the contents of airframe_info.xml.

Thanks for sharing!
I still believe that the SD cards that live in the PFD and MFD do not contain any files that are tied to the SD card hardware s/n. I believe this because these cards can be programmed from Windows, and Windows has no way to read this hardware s/n from the SD card. I am also quite certain that the "unlock" SD cards supplied by Garmin to unlock certain features (SVT, SafeTaxi, ChartView, etc.) ARE tied to the individual SD card they are supplied on. Garmin does this to explicitly prevent copying an unlock card before it gets used to unlock a feature.

Now that this thread has me thinking about it, I am wondering why one cannot make a backup of the DB cards by simply copying all the files from one card to another, using Windows Explorer or your favorite file copy utility. These cards would not work in any other aircraft (your Garmin system ID is embedded in several files on the card to make sure of this), but why wouldn't they work in the same aircraft? Pure speculation, as I have not tried this, but now I want to. I will try to round up a couple of suitable SD cards and give it a try and see what happens.
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gsontheimer
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by gsontheimer »

Rick wrote:
Kai wrote:Interesting insight. Although I am still sure that serial IDs cannot be copied or cloned, the system seems to accept mismatches of hardware serial and the contents of airframe_info.xml.

Thanks for sharing!
I still believe that the SD cards that live in the PFD and MFD do not contain any files that are tied to the SD card hardware s/n. I believe this because these cards can be programmed from Windows, and Windows has no way to read this hardware s/n from the SD card. I am also quite certain that the "unlock" SD cards supplied by Garmin to unlock certain features (SVT, SafeTaxi, ChartView, etc.) ARE tied to the individual SD card they are supplied on. Garmin does this to explicitly prevent copying an unlock card before it gets used to unlock a feature.

Now that this thread has me thinking about it, I am wondering why one cannot make a backup of the DB cards by simply copying all the files from one card to another, using Windows Explorer or your favorite file copy utility. These cards would not work in any other aircraft (your Garmin system ID is embedded in several files on the card to make sure of this), but why wouldn't they work in the same aircraft? Pure speculation, as I have not tried this, but now I want to. I will try to round up a couple of suitable SD cards and give it a try and see what happens.
Image this:

On the SD Card is a feat_unlk.dat file. Whenever a DB gets stored on the card, by JSUM (Jeppesen) of flygarmin.com (Garmin), this file is updated. It registers the new DB as valid. I creates hash values and uses both the G1000 system ID and the SD Card S/N as input. All DBes are valid for one system ID and one S/N. The SD card can only be used in this very G1000 system and only on this SD card. If you use Explorer in Windows or any other file managemnt tool to move the files to another SD Card, this SD Card will not work, because it has a different S/N.

It is not necessary under Windows to read the S/N of the SD Card, because it is in the airframe.dat file.

When the G1000 PFD/MFD boot, they read the SD Card S/N and compare it to the one in the airframe.dat file. If the S/N numbers are different the process stops there.

I do not know, whether this is how Garmin implemented the copy protection. It is, how I would do it. So far none of my observations contradict this hypothesis.

One interesting thing to add: I recently bought two 4GB SD cards from the same lot from the same manufacturer with - hold your breath - the same hardware S/N. Should not be possible. But this is what I have gotten.
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Rick
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Rick »

gsontheimer wrote:Image this:

On the SD Card is a feat_unlk.dat file. Whenever a DB gets stored on the card, by JSUM (Jeppesen) of flygarmin.com (Garmin), this file is updated. It registers the new DB as valid. I creates hash values and uses both the G1000 system ID and the SD Card S/N as input. All DBes are valid for one system ID and one S/N. The SD card can only be used in this very G1000 system and only on this SD card. If you use Explorer in Windows or any other file managemnt tool to move the files to another SD Card, this SD Card will not work, because it has a different S/N.

It is not necessary under Windows to read the S/N of the SD Card, because it is in the airframe.dat file.

When the G1000 PFD/MFD boot, they read the SD Card S/N and compare it to the one in the airframe.dat file. If the S/N numbers are different the process stops there.

I do not know, whether this is how Garmin implemented the copy protection. It is, how I would do it. So far none of my observations contradict this hypothesis.
I believe that the feat_unlk.dat files that JSUM writes do NOT contain the card s/n. I know I can start with a new, empty SD card and windows will happily write a feat_unlk.dat file along with the DB updates, knowing only my Garmin Sys ID. My G1000 will then update my DBs from such a card. JSUM has no way of knowing or reading the card s/n when it does this.

The question, I guess, is: does the G1000 then modify the feat_unlk.dat file during the update to include the "local" SD card s/n and save it back to the "local" card? ("local" card, as opposed to the "update" card you are using to update the DBs). If the s/n was only in the airframe file (which is ascii), then it would be easy to just change that file to match the card s/n and be done with it. More testing required, I think...
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Kai »

gsontheimer wrote: Image this:

On the SD Card is a feat_unlk.dat file. Whenever a DB gets stored on the card, by JSUM (Jeppesen) of flygarmin.com (Garmin), this file is updated. It registers the new DB as valid. I creates hash values and uses both the G1000 system ID and the SD Card S/N as input. All DBes are valid for one system ID and one S/N. The SD card can only be used in this very G1000 system and only on this SD card. If you use Explorer in Windows or any other file managemnt tool to move the files to another SD Card, this SD Card will not work, because it has a different S/N.
gsontheimer wrote:It is not necessary under Windows to read the S/N of the SD Card, because it is in the airframe.dat file.
... and if there is no airframe_info.xml on the SD-card because it is a new one? Then it will get the information when first time booting from it on the G1000.
gsontheimer wrote:When the G1000 PFD/MFD boot, they read the SD Card S/N and compare it to the one in the airframe.dat file. If the S/N numbers are different the process stops there.
And if there is no airframe_info.xml-file?
gsontheimer wrote:I do not know, whether this is how Garmin implemented the copy protection. It is, how I would do it. So far none of my observations contradict this hypothesis.
IMHO, this is how they used to do it until they found out that they don´t need to tie the SD-card but the G1000 serial. In previous versions the databases were all the same. You could buy a DA40 training CD with the new databases and you could have copied those ones over to your SD card.

Now the databases are tied to the serial of the G1000. It´s a lot safer and they cannot be copied anymore.
gsontheimer wrote:One interesting thing to add: I recently bought two 4GB SD cards from the same lot from the same manufacturer with - hold your breath - the same hardware S/N. Should not be possible. But this is what I have gotten.
It was the hardware serial for sure? How did you check? Sliding each into the G1000, booting and then reading the recently written airframe_info.xml on a PC?

That would be interesting in case the databases wouldn´t contain any information for which G1000 serial they were sold. Garmin would then rely on the SD-card as a security feature.
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by gsontheimer »

Kai wrote: ... and if there is no airframe_info.xml on the SD-card because it is a new one? Then it will get the information when first time booting from it on the G1000.
My SD Card reported an error and would not boot. It reported database errors. On the second boot it had a airfram_info.xml file with the S/N of the Card. The feat_unlk.dat file was not changed and the databases were still not recognized.

Kai wrote: It was the hardware serial for sure? How did you check? Sliding each into the G1000, booting and then reading the recently written airframe_info.xml on a PC?
Yes, this is what I did. I had 6 blank SD Cards from 3 manufacturers. One Manufacturer sold me 2 SD Cards with identical S/N.
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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by gsontheimer »

I am wondering: If I put my PFD or MFD SD-Card into the SanDisk reader connected to my laptop, I always get a Dialog box like the one shown below.
Fix SD-Card.jpg
Fix SD-Card.jpg (25.29 KiB) Viewed 5047 times
I never used the "fix" option.

Now it may well be, that during an update something got corrupted. But the G1000 works well. And the dialog box pops open on BOTH cards.

I am wondering: Might there be another copy protection mechanism, like sectors incompatible with the FAT32 file system of the 4 GB SD card but readable by the G1000?

And: The 4 GB garmin cards have 4.067.340.288 bytes total disk space. The other make I have has only 4039.114.752, the third one only 3.956.801.536.
Gerhard

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Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Wall-e »

gsontheimer wrote:I am wondering: If I put my PFD or MFD SD-Card into the SanDisk reader connected to my laptop, I always get a Dialog box like the one shown below.
Fix SD-Card.jpg
I never used the "fix" option.

Now it may well be, that during an update something got corrupted. But the G1000 works well. And the dialog box pops open on BOTH cards.

I am wondering: Might there be another copy protection mechanism, like sectors incompatible with the FAT32 file system of the 4 GB SD card but readable by the G1000?

And: The 4 GB garmin cards have 4.067.340.288 bytes total disk space. The other make I have has only 4039.114.752, the third one only 3.956.801.536.
I know it has been some time since this thread was active but thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth. I have backup cards for my PFD & MFD. They are Sony 8 GB cards. I tried the 4 GB but they were short of space by a few kb like you state here. I use a program (Windows) called imageUSB. It is designed to make a digital image of a USB drive but it works with any removable device. You make an image of both your MFD card & your PFD card and they are stored on your computer. Then you burn that image to the backup cards.

Once you have backup cards you can load any of the Garmin databases directly to the backups and then use them in the plane while you bring the original cards home to update them. Once updated they can be imaged again. I have never burned an image to the original cards, only the backups, but the backups work fine in the plane. It is a lot cheaper than paying Garmin for new cards.

Here is the web address: http://osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html
Wally
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