Desperately need a dump of HDD from a working PSX DESR-5500

Hi all,
I would be really really grateful as i think it's the last chance what i can try in attempt to recover my dead PSX. I was palying with it for a while and the story is seems quite similar to some other people here: HDD got corrupted in some way, mine had the only bad block, which seems to contain some important data from psx os.

I easily cloned the hdd thanks to Winhex so everyone can do it (i used 16th version). It will help a lot if you will not have any recorded video on it, so final image can be compressed and shared lets say via torrent. I copied the cloned image to another similar HDD - my psx has Maxtor drive, i copied image to Seagate. As a result behavior during loading exactly the same - some white flashes and after that black screen. But when original Maxtor HDD make a noise trying to read damaged (and by the way remaped sector (i didn it with MHDD) which seems is no help), new seagate makes no such noise and just goes black after some time. Which makes me think that there is no lock in HDD firmware and hdd can be swaped. The important thing is to keep the same partitions and files.

Anyway to confirm my theory i really need image from working console. Hope someone can help. Thanks a lot in advance!

 

The original harddrive has modified firmware. Nothing but an official HDD will work there as replacement (just like the old classic MAC computers..)

 

Any idea whether it's a strict requirement (E.g. A full retail SCE ATAD driver within ROM, unlike the stripped-down bootloader ATAD module within modern retail consoles) or just another software limitation (MBR containing the retail SCE ATAD driver, like the MBRs for the HDDOSD)?

 

I would know if people were interested on helping. I offered to look on how a PSX works months ago, not even a single reply. Now honestly I won't ask anymore.

Once all HDDs cease working and no images exist, there will be no means to revive them.

 

I hear there was a disc that was to format a new hdd for these but i cant find it anywhere can't sony in japan repair these still.
Here in the uk sony still repair ps2's psp's.

 

Even it has modified firmware, it can be read by utilities like PC-3000. And i dount it has modified FM so far actiually.. Come on guys, just one dump will make this question clear

 

How did you offer to help? i must have missed this offer. I'd personally be happy to loan you my psx hard drive or whole psx to learn from it. (though i wouldn't want to be responsible for shipping)

 

http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...t-Playstation-2-DVD-DESR-XXXX-HDD-image-dumps

to which you replied.

 

Oh, THAT... well I was unable to create an image of my drive, and like I said before, I was afraid to render my only working drive useless in any PSX console.

 

Ok, so you know how to dissassemble PSX, right? You need to take HDD out and connect it directly to IDE controller of a motherboard. It recogmises fine in BIOS and when you load into Windows it will ask you to format it. Just refuse to do it and launch Winhex instead. I used ..16th something version, registerted, but i think trial will do as well. By default Winhex working in read only mode sio you will not damage the HDD, dont worry. After that you need Disk tools in menu and there - clone disk. There you choose the PSX hdd in the section of hardware devices and copy it into image. If you do not have much content on it, you can compress it easily afterwards.

Can you please try to do it? It will help us greatly to step further in understading how it all works.


P.S. I've checked update disk - thanks again a lot of this l_oliveira! Did you notice that replace.img files clearly contains some Lunix calls? Obviously PSX OS if its exists written on Linux... there there is another change how to access it.

 

it like PS3 encrypt format, the clone is no help

 

Do you think it's encrypted with connection to NAND (BIOS of PSX) of exact piece of hardware?

BTW I simply took a look on exe-file of this update disk - you can easily see there how it calls replace.img and than you can see different partitions and files which being writed to them. If someone more knowledgeble (i studied programming long time ago but i'm not a developer) will take a look on it, i believe he can see:

1. how many partitions are out there (i see few so far)
2. what files are on each partition
3. and finally get and access there somehow by analyzing update disk

 

1. PSX want run the upgrade disc, at list it need normal boot up, than switch PS2 mode.
2. when RUN the upgrade disc, it will check HDD ver. if find out same ver , it will stop it,
3. live swap the HDD(use PS2 HDD TOOL/BBNAV format drive) , when upgrade disc start up time. it no help. it will stop it.

btw. i lost the chance PSX HDD system is old ver. , it may can help. PSX upgrade disc "start install new file time" live swap HDD

if some one is free time. and you have band new PSX , please use TIFF / dummy MP3 to decrypt your clean HDD, <- this is shot time on no touch HDD.

 

Yes, this i figured out already. As i expected, the copied update disk doenst work. My PSX tries to read it but i believe it sees that it's not original and sometime stops, sometime tries to read more.

So lets say i have dead HDD PSX with 2.11 and i try to update with 2.11, it will do nothing, right? But actually it's no sense anyway as we can upgrade only working PSX.. or ON working PSX

As i wrote ealier, it doesn't recognise PS2 formatted HDD. But if we clone working one (from the same model, lets say 5500 in my case), why it shouldn't work? I'm still not convinced that in this case nothing will happen...

Yes, like this it can work as well i think. But i think get a working one with old firmware can be a challlenge. According to SMARTof my HDD it worked non stop for 3 years Until finally got a bad sector

 

Honestly, the only way to tackle the drive encryption is by reverse engineering the drive contents and SYSTEM ROMS. I suspect that at least the boot loader (MBR ?) would not be encrypted. And if it is, we should have a look on the system roms to try to figure out the algorithm.

If it serves as consolation, we already know how to make a regular PS2 boot from non SCEI harddrives without doing any hardware modifications to the PS2 console itself...

 

Yes, maybe it's like this. But in this case it shouldnt be that hard maybe.. Please check the executable file on update disk - I believe you're better than me in such things So you can find all the files and paths. After that you can search all these things in HDD image. I can upload for you my image but be aware that it can be corrupted and it's actually corrupted to some extend (at least 1 bad sector). And seems it's full of video, it's useless to compress it, so it will be 160 Gb torrent

I will check more and try to dump the HDD firmware if i can (with old PC3000). But it will take time i think.

 

You happen to know what exact drive is it ?

Is it a Poker/Ardent based drive ?

I'm familiar with the 4D040H2 drive (40GB version of the Romulus type drive, second type of drive SONY used on HDD kits) which SONY used on the early HDD sets.

 

As I actually wrote in another thread mine is like this:

Model: Maxtor 6Y160P0
Serial No.: Y4770G0E
Firmware Rev.: YAR41QW0
Bus: ATA

To me it's serial maxtor drive, i even had the same long tiem ago for my PC. But now it's gone. I only have another Seagate on 160 Gb with IDE interface.
I'm not really familiar with all these PS2 drives specifics, never was interested on that

 

You know, personally... I would like a dump of the PSX's ROM as well. But how similar is the PSX compared to the PS2?

If he's willing and it's possible to, dumping the ROM of the PSX and sending a dump of a working HDD will allow us to find out a LOT on how the PSX works and how we can get the SCE software to accept non-Sony disks (If it's possible...).

 

It seems to be a 160GB Calypso III drive. So yes, it's likely to be Poker/Ardent CPU.

Funny enough I happen to have a 120GB version of it:

YAR41BW0
Y33883JE
6Y120L0032011