Booting KRC4 recovery system from any USB Flash Drive

    Greetings everyone.

    I have a KRC4 compact control system that requires the operating system to be reinstalled (don't ask why).

    I found that the system drive contains three volumes which contains:

    1. (Drive C:) Operating system, KRC folder, etc...
    2. (Drive D:) KSS installation files
    3. (Hidden) Two .wim files with images of drives C and D

    After studying the documentation and this forum, I realized that I needed KUKA.RecoveryUSB.

    However, this flash drive was not bundled with my robot.

    So I started looking for alternative methods and solved the problem by running a customized Windows PE image.

    Moreover, Windows PE refused to boot from a USB flash drive, but it would boot perfectly from a CD (the drive was connected via a USB-SATA adapter).

    I successfully deployed the main .wim-file through the deployment system inside Windows PE.

    The second file was unpacked through the dism console utility.

    The resulting system was successfully booted and started the necessary components, but the UploadRTOS.exe application ended with an error about the inability to deploy and start VxWorks.

    I spent some time looking into this issue, and found a solution by setting a limit on the number of processor cores that Windows can use.

    Intermediate conclusion: do not do like me if you do not understand exactly what you are dealing with.

    Thus, the control system was fully operational after this "manual" recovery.

    I went through the commissioning procedure and the robot started functioning without any problems.

    After a while I returned to the question of obtaining KUKA.RecoveryUSB and found the site where I downloaded a zip package with Recovery_3.0.3.0015.cab file inside.

    Then I followed the instruction from the Workinstruction_KUKARecovery30_Update_EN.pdf file.

    Of course, when launching Recovery.exe from a regular (non-KUKA) flash drive, the application refused to run.

    So I forced it to work.

    Now the Recovery.exe program has successfully created a "self-made" KUKA.RecoveryUSB for me.

    The resulting flash drive works perfectly on any computer that supports the classic MBR (Master Boot Record) boot method (including UEFI systems).

    But KRC4 refuses to boot MBR code from USB flash drives.

    I see three main ways to solve this problem:

    1. Copy my KUKA.RecoveryUSB to a CD disk (CD booting is no problem on KRC4, but I don't want to connect an external CD-ROM drive to the system again)
    2. Set my "self-made" USB flash drive to pure UEFI boot mode (I have already made sure that KRC4 boots successfully from any USB stick if it provides UEFI booting, I suspect that the original KUKA.RecoveryUSB does so)
    3. Using a special program from Fujitsu (motherboard manufacturer KRC4), and try to change UEFI settings regarding security of booting from USB flash drives with MBR

    Ideally, I would like my flash drive to repeat the functionality of the original KUKA.RecoveryUSB.

    I suppose that probably nobody will give me the Acronis-image of the original flash drive, but then at least I would like to know the type of its file system partitioning: GPT or MBR.

    This can be done in the following way:

    1. Insert KUKA.RecoveryUSB into USB slot on your regular PC (not KRC)
    2. Open "My Computer" ("This PC" in newer versions of Windows) and search the drive (usual it labeled "KRC_ARCHIVE")
    3. Use right click on the drive icon to open context menu and select "Properties"
    4. In the drive properties window change tab to "Hardware" and select corresponding physical device (your device must be named "KUKA_USB" or something like that)
    5. Click on "Properties" button below
    6. In the device properties window select "Volumes" tab and press "Populate" button (see my screenshot below)
    7. Tell me the value of "Partition style" parameter or just show a screenshot of whole window

    I would be happy to see your comments and suggestions.

    Edited once, last by VDm (March 1, 2020 at 8:01 AM).

  • Go to Best Answer

  • kwakisaki February 21, 2020 at 6:34 PM

    Approved the thread.

    Thank you, so I have to think hard about why KRC refuses to boot from the flash drive's MBR.

    The system does not even try to transfer control to the boot sector code.

    I wrote into the first sector of the flash drive 512 bytes of special code to confirm the booting stage.

    It runs and works on any PC, but not on KRC4.

    I think for booting from USB-flash the bios checks some informations of the controller chip in the USB device, like VID / PID and some more.You even can't change this with an acronis backup of the whole flash drive.

    So i am amazed about the fact that your controller booted from an attached CD-ROM.

    • Best Answer
    Quote from hermann

    I think for booting from USB-flash the bios checks some informations of the controller chip in the USB device, like VID / PID and some more.You even can't change this with an acronis backup of the whole flash drive.

    So i am amazed about the fact that your controller booted from an attached CD-ROM.

    So far, I've learned this:

    • My KRC4 system doesn't boot from any USB non-optical disk drive (I tried USB stick and regular HDD with SATA-to-USB adapter)
    • System does boot from CD-ROM attached by SATA-to-USB adapter (in MBR mode)
    • System does boot from any USB stick which formatted as FAT32 partition contains 64-bit EFI loader (in UEFI x64 mode)
    • System does boot from secondary HDD or CD-ROM directly connected via SATA (in MBR mode)

    Also today I was able to create a bootable CD that boots successfully but Recovery.exe doesn't start due to an incorrect letter assignment of the CD file system (Windows PE expects Recovery.exe to be found in the C:\Recovery folder but in fact it is in the D:\Recovery).

    A temporary workaround: Use a flash drive clone and a CD at the same time. Windows PE will boot from the CD, and then launch C:\Recovery\Recovery.exe from the USB flash drive.

    Running KUKA.RecoveryUSB from any USB Flash Drive

    Disclaimer

    Everything you do, acting according to this manual, you do at your own risk.

    I'm not responsible for any loss or damage arising from reading of this manual.

    All legal liability associated with making changes to the software rests with the person making the changes.

    I offer this manual only for those who have an original KUKA.RecoveryUSB stick that does not work or has failed.

    Prerequisites

    1. IBM PC-compatible computer with Microsoft Windows 7 or higher.
    2. USB CD-ROM drive or SATA CD-ROM drive with SATA-to-USB adapter.
    3. Couple of writable CD/DVDs.
    4. USB Flash Drive with 1 Gb of memory at least.
    5. KUKA Robot Controller 4 (I did my experiments on KRC4 compact).

    Step 1. Dealing with archives

    1. Download KUKA.Recovery_V3.0.3_UpdatePackage.zip file from http://www.update-recovery-usb.kuka-robotics.com/.
    2. Open the downloaded file in any archiver application (I prefer free 7-Zip Archiver).
    3. Inside the archive you will see Recovery_V3.0.3_Build0015 subfolder which contains Recovery_3.0.3.0015.cab file, extract that file to a folder on your hard disk.
    4. Recovery_3.0.3.0015.cab file is an archive too, so open that file in your archiver application.
    5. Extract whole Recovery subfolder from the archive to a folder on your hard disk (and don't delete Recovery_3.0.3.0015.cab).

    Step 2. Collecting information

    1. Physically remove any USB sticks from your system except one which planned to be self-made RecoveryUSB (If there is no plugged USB sticks in your system, just insert one).
    2. Open the Device Manager (In Windows 10: right click on Start Button ⇒ Device Manager, or right click on This PC ⇒ Properties ⇒ Device Manager).
    3. In the Device Manager's tree locate Disk drives branch, expand it, locate your USB stick device (you must distinguish that from any other drives on your machine).
    4. Make a double-click on your USB stick device, device properties window will be opened, select the Details tab and Friendly name property from drop-down list.
    5. Now read the value, in my case it's Generic Flash Disk USB Device (see the screenshot 1).
    6. If the Friendly name of your device contains substring USB then you can just continue read this manual step-by-step, but if not you'll need to choose any unique three letter substring from the value and use that on the step of patching procedure (or you can replace a USB stick to one which Friendly name value contains USB substring).

    Screenshot 1

    Edited 2 times, last by VDm (March 1, 2020 at 7:51 AM).

    Step 3. Patching procedure

    1. This step involves the use of a hexadecimal editor, so if you haven't one you can download free hex editor called Hexplorer from SourceForge
    2. Open Recovery.exe file from Recovery subfolder (Step 1.5) in the hex editor.
    3. Use Edit ⇒ Find... (Ctrl+F) with hex chain of bytes: 4B0055004B0041005F00550053004200 (it means KUKA_USB encoded as UTF-16 little-endian wide string).
    4. The hex editor will jump to offset where 0x17DDB0 is a beginning of the located chain, and 0x17DDBF is an ending of the chain (see the screenshot 2).
    5. Now edit the chain by overwriting first three letters of KUKA_USB to just USB (or your specific substring from Step 2.6), subsequent letters must be zeroed (see the screenshot 3).
    6. So the hex chain 4B0055004B0041005F00550053004200 is now replaced by 55005300420000000000000000000000.
    7. Save the file (File ⇒ Save), now you're ready to make RecoveryUSB.

    Screenshot 2

    Edited once, last by VDm (February 29, 2020 at 5:50 PM).

    Screenshot 3

    Step 4. Making RecoveryUSB

    1. Copy whole Recovery subfolder from a hard disk to your USB stick.
    2. Launch patched X:\Recovery\Recovery.exe (where X: is drive letter of your USB stick), KUKA.Recovery application window will be opened
    3. You can change the language to your preferred.
    4. Press Update USB stick button, locate Recovery_3.0.3.0015.cab file for the Update package field, press Update button.
    5. Wait when the creating process will complete, then close KUKA.Recovery application.
    6. Now you need to copy patched Recovery.exe file from your hard disk to USB stick again (it's important).
    7. Your self-made RecoveryUSB is ready.
    8. (Optional) Launch Recovery.exe from the USB stick again, select Expert settings and uncheck Support only KUKA controllers to make it possible to boot and run on any PC.

    Step 5. Making Super Grub2 Disk

    1. Download CD image of universal boot manager from SourceForge.

    2. Burn the image to CD/DVD using your preferred CD recording software.

    Step 6. Booting to Recovery System

    1. Connect a CD-ROM drive with Super Grub2 Disk inserted to your KUKA Robot Controller.

    2. Insert your self-made RecoveryUSB into your KUKA Robot Controller.

    3. Perform reboot or power-on of the control system.

    4. During POST stage of booting (KUKA Logo) press F12 to select boot device.

    5. Select your CD-ROM device from the list and press Enter, universal bootloader will be loaded (see the screenshot 4).

    6. Select Boot manually... ⇒ Disks and Partitions (Chainload) ⇒ (hdX, msdos1) "KRC_ARCHIVE" (where X is a number).

    7. Now your RecoveryUSB system will be loaded (you must see the loading progress bar), you can disconnect CD-ROM drive from your KUKA Robot Controller.

    8. Follow the manual for KUKA.RecoveryUSB.

    Screenshot 4

    Acknowledgements and wishes

    I would like to thank others for help in researching of the original KUKA.RecoveryUSB.

    I would also like to ask the moderators to edit this manual in order to improve the grammar (I'm not a native English speaker) and, if possible, combine several posts into one.

    Edited once, last by VDm (February 29, 2020 at 5:49 PM).

    Quote from Fubini

    Are you sure that publishing instructions on how to hack kuka software should be posted public. Do not get me wrong but as a former KUKA employee i am aware that a lot of Kuka people are watching this forum.

    Fubini

    Ethical and legal issues are left to the discretion of the person using the instructions.

    I don't distribute any source or modified software from KUKA or other companies.

    And obviously, I don't profit from it.

    I have supplemented the disclaimer with lines about this.

    If the KUKA representatives or moderators of this forum see a problem with the existence of these instructions, they can simply delete them.

    Quote from hermann

    What is the advantageof of this complicated, probably illegal method?

    You need an USB stick, an USB sata adaptor, a CDrom drive and the suitable CD.

    It is much easier to connect the adaptor direct to the kuka harddisk and laptop to use your prefered backup software.

    In my case I didn't have an image of HDD, but had original .wim files instead. That's the reason why I needed original Recovery system.

    Quote from VDm

    In my case I didn't have an image of HDD, but had original .wim files instead. That's the reason why I needed original Recovery system.

    Ah, that's a problem, but not unsolvable.

    You can use imagex.exe from the Windows ADK with free graphic frontend GImagex to restore the image in the .wim files.

    Just ask your favourite search engine for that tools. The kuka USB stick uses imagex.exe as well.

    Quote from VDm

    I have already thought about this option, but I have not yet found a specific USB device that would allow such a modification.

    Buy a USB device can be mass production, the USB device disguised as KUKA USB, need to pay attention to the name, VID and PID.

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