Does anyone have any ideas on extracting info from someones headware mem or even cranial deck? Obviously you could take a few different routes when dealing with an unwilling host....
but what about a dead host?

I don't see any problems with (carefully) digging it out and jury-rig a hook-up to the memory with a few 'Electronics'-rolls. Could the ware be povered up from outside the corpse, say, through the datajack for example?
The module Eyewitness deals with something like this, I think.

Like Dog said, just hack the head off so you can take it with you and when you've got some time, extract the memory from the head and plug it into something like a diagnostic tool. This is where contacts like streetdocs come into their own beside the usual patch-up job.

Being cyberware, it will lose power several hours after the bearer's death. You would need to re-power it, then perhaps the system would have stats like any other matrix host.

Hack your head, chummer!

Deck his head! Deck his cyberware systems! Circumvent the Direct Neural Interface and take over!

This might actually get a little complicated, depending on how the memory is built. I don't have any details right now since I'm too lazy to go upstairs and grab my books and dig it out.
If it is built like conventional RAM, it needs some kind of trickling current to sustain the data. If the body dies, this sustaining power would stop and the data would become useless.
However, I remember something like RAM having become obsolete and being reaplaced by optical chips of some sort, which don't need this sustaining power. So energy might not be a problem, but I'm not absolutely sure.
And then, this thing is built to interface with the brain, so it might not be so easy to built a rig for it. I would guess you couldn't just plug it into a computer or solder some wires to it so it interfaces with your deck. Alternatively it could just be a neural interface connecting to the memory. In this case it would be easy to hook it up to a computer. However, I highly doubt this. Computers work quite differently from the human brain, so I would think it needs some special architecture to work well. Also, the high essence cost has to be coming from somewhere, right? But you never know, do you? Science can do some amazing things.
And then of course, there can be scrambler mechanics, frying the memory on death of the wearer.

I would say that it is ultimately up to the GM. Depending on how difficult you want the run to be. You could say that you need the client alive since the data will be lost if he dies. However, this probably isn't what you're looking for.
When he's dead you might make it really hard and add a new subquest for finding the one specialist who is able to do this but who is only willing to do this for quite a favor.
When you want to make it a bit easier you could say that it's standard memory and require a mere few electronics roll to rewire some connections.

Thanks guys, some good ideas so far. I'm actually going to throw this at my players in the future and I'm lookin' for some viable means of this working out...
I'd rather have a few solutions to the problem first...
hehe
I could just do it and wait til' someone comes up with a good idea too!

oooh, good question.

im sure any street doc or good decker worth his salt would be able to do it. hook up a deck through the datajack and just put it on a zip disk or something

i think MrSandman has got a point here. it is up to the GM how difficult he wants the run to be.
so far, the books seem to give alot of guideline to you, but leaves the actual descision (spelling?) to the GM. and i find this a good quallity in the SR game, not having everything set in stone.

so be creative, think of something that'll fit your game.

the ware takes power from chemicals thus using your sugar and other substituties.
if the corpse is dead long enoung, the ware has eaten all power up chemicals thus it has been shut down.

and like you said, headmemory is still RAM ("hot" memory) thus it needs nearly-constant power up unlike the "cool" memory like storage memory (e.g. Hard Drives).

Exactly. If I remember correctly, it states somewhere, that RAM has become obsolete and is not used anymore. AFAIK, even the temporary memory in decks is permanent and doesn't need upkeep. However, it doesn't say much about headmem...
Again, I'm down here in my living room and too lazy to go upstairs where my books are.

I think that there would be a serious demand for volatile headware memory, though! It'd be an important advantage to a captured data courier.

Well, for data couriers it might be nice but they also have the possibility of dead-man-switches. Either a cortex bomb or a special version of scrambler IC linked to a biomonitor. That way the data becomes useless as soon as the biomonitor stops sending life signals.

But beware, anxious crowd, this time I'm sitting in my room with my books and - lo and behold - I'm actually going to take a look at what they say!

hmmm... disappointment.
It doesn't say anything specific. But I'm gonna stay on the case. I know there's something burried in there. AFAIK there was a statement that the whole industrie switched to the optical chips after the Crash of '29, which are supposed to be more secure than the silicon chips.

Cool concept, but I wouldn't think you would need something as complex as a biomonitor. You just need a sensor to attack to the nearest blood vessel.

Lose a pulse for over a certain length of time, the memory purges itself.

For the REALLY paranoid, perhaps you put in a chip to continously overwrite the memory with random data until the power drops. NOBODY is recovering that data then.