Yes you can.

I have not heard of a blank HD being sold like that before but just be sure...

Did you use Linux reader to see it is truly blank?

Multi-drive hard drives have all images on them.
You install the drive and log into SSH via the same credentials as BEM, then choose BCM450.
Once it installs that release, it will then delete the other releases off itself.







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If you have a working BCM450 R6, you can certainly copy its drive to another blank drive.

I would personally recommend using a blank 2.5" SSD. BCM450 is not very picky with regard to SSD devices (as opposed to BCM50), so you should be able to use a reasonably wide range of devices. My personal recommendation would be an Intel device (as Intel devices have very good backward compatibility with SATA II) or maybe Samsung 870 EVO (250GB should work fine).

When copying the hard drive, do not change partition sizes. The first few partitions MUST stay unchanged (so preferably do not change any of the partitions). If you have a Linux system, you could use dd to copy the drive, If you have ghost, you can certainly use it, too.

One more note - I've been successfully using Transcend SSD370 64GB (TS64GSSD370S) in BCM450. If you can still find it...

thanks all for the info

Is there a particular IDE to SATA converter that should be used or any old one will work?

BCM450 has a SATA connector (and uses a SATA II hard drive) - no need for any converter.

Well don't I feel like a NOOB. There was an old IDE 8oGB hard drive sitting on the top shelf of the BCM not connected to anything and I figure the guy I work with had disconnected when doing other work on the unit. That makes things way easier than....lol. Can you tell I haven't taken one apart for way too many years. Thanks again for the help.

Thanks for all the help. What I wanted to do won't work. I also remembered that the software get associated with teh system base tray so I couldn't use a hdd from another system and just restore the backup on it like I was hoping.

Anyone happen to have a copy of the 450 r6 software and patches?

Also I was tying to connect to the front of the bcm to the db9 with both 9600 8 N 1 no flow as well as 11500 8 N 1 no flow and all i was getting was garbage, I tired different setting and never got anything other than garbage. Any ideas with that?

11500 8 N 1
Should be 115200 right?
Also need a Null Modem cable or adaptor.

What's the story/background with this BCM?
Is it a lab rat? or a system down?

Do you have the required keycodes for the problem BCM?
If not then nothing will work.

When you do a restore, the new system must first have:
-The same release # of software (ie. if old system is R6 then the new system must be R6)
---You cannot buy a system that was say R5 then just drop in an R6 hard drive, it wont work since keycodes are required for upgrades, the BIOS knows all.

-The new system must also have exact same patch names that are the same version or greater(newer) than the old system.

Once it boots up you would then load the keycodes that came with the new system since the keycodes are tied to the MSC/SystemID(MAC)

Normal process to replace hard drive on a failed system:
-Install same release hard drive
-Install the keycodes tied to that same BCM
-Install the same/newer patches
-Restore from backup

Normal process to replace the BCM:
-Use a BCM with the same release hard drive (or upgraded it to the same release)
-Install the new keycodes tied to the new BCM (not the old keycodes)
-Install the same/newer patches
-Restore from backup

Hope I got all that right!


I might have what you want.

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Is there a way to download the keycodes off of a working bcm for that machine or is the only way to go through krs?

OMG I can't belice I was 200 baud out....lol sure can twll I was having a day yesterday. I will have to try buying another multi version drive as this was trying to get some stuff ready if one of our 40 or 50 bcm dies in the middle of the night with a bad hdd.

The difference between 11500 and 115200 is not 200

If you have a functional BCM450 with the same release, you shouldn't need to buy the multi-image drive. A proper clone of the hard drive (with partitioning retained) will boot in another BCM450 just fine - the drive is not locked to a specific BFT. The license file on the drive won't match the system ID of the BCM450, so you'll need to install the proper keycode file.

The keycode file in stored in a backup (if I remember correctly, the name is license.txt). So, to retrieve a file from a working BCM, you can create a backup, download it and extract the file. I believe either in one of the FAQ on a thread on this forum, you should find the exact location in the backup.

"Is there a way to download the keycodes off of a working bcm for that machine"

Via the Backup file
If the BCM is alive or if you already have a backup:
-Backup the BCM
-Extract the backupname.tar
-Extract keycodes.tar.gz
-Navigate to the keycodes.tar folder and extract keycodes.tar file
-Navigate to folders /nn then /etc where you will finally find the keycode file.

Via the Log file
See the FAQ here

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