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

@l_oliveira
I seriously hope someone provides you with a PSX or at least the HDD of one; I would definitely ship one to you if I had it.

 

l_oliveira, so do you need a raw image of my psx hdd?

and i understood what you mean by Ardent CPU - yes, it is. ARDENT C8-C1 and bunch of other digits. I can make you a picture.

 

Yes, the raw image would be nice, but I could use the first GB of it for mostly try to understand the boot up structure if there is any.

 

Cannot upload it here, torrent file is too big. Try to download it from here:

http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=bac6eb5c232fb3e1bf0154a280aecbc8

I'm uploading already, 24/7, 70 Mbit.

 

Have you tried compressing it with 7-zip, using LZMA2 at maximum setting?

 

Tried with 7zip, but not LZMA2. Maybe can be compressed to 70% or original image, but i'm tired to wait after 8 hours of work and 4 more to go

P.S. I've just noticed that it works strange, stops seeding and blocking some connections...It actually writes to me that connecting timed out.. I'm using utorrent, anyone able to connect and download? What should i do to fix it?

 

well , it can boot up swap magic 3.6....

 

I would be happy to loan someone my 250gb drive out of my PSX DESR-7100. I would even be happy to do a disc image of it. Just let me know.

 

Tell you what: Just upload the first 1GB of the disk to Mediafire (In parts!). It's impossible for at least me to download the entire 160GB file. D:

We only want to see how the disk is secured, and to determine whether a normal ATA disk can be used.

 

Ok, will do tonight. What tool you recommend to cut 1Gb out of whole image?

I'm also try to compress it again, when i return home, i think it may be compressed already. But again it will be maybe 100+ Gb anyway.

 

I would appreciate the image actually Do you have a lot of stuff on it? Can you delete the video, when compress the image? i still can download entire 250 Gb, but the less, the better Thanks a lot in advance!

 

Can you please clarify what do you mean by that? What can boot?

 

Someone else needs to advice you on this, as I usually don't cut my files up. :/
And if I have to, I usually do it with a hex editor.

Thanks for offering to upload the files!

EDIT: Oh yea... can one of you use Swapmagic and perform a complete ROM dump with the PCSX2 ROM dumper? I don't know how the PSX works internally, but I assume that it's basically a PS2 that has got a DVR device attached to it's DEV9 interface.

 

I cant dump a ROM as mine is not booting But it really would be cool to have a ROM dump

 

Lets try torrent first, here is the file. Almost 1 Gb cut. accodring to how it compressed, i think main os should be there. Of course if it's in the beginning of the HDD.

And here is the link for Sendspace - http://www.sendspace.com/file/h9lrbd

 

Thanks for the upload.

Unfortunately... the PSX appears to use another proprietary filesystem that seems to have the data and the headers obfuscated. D:
It doesn't seem to be APA, as the APA header is not visible... and I see 3 blocks of (possibly encrypted) data, each two 512-byte sectors long, at the beginning of the dump.

Maybe I could try attacking this from a different approach. Can the upgrade disc format the disk? If it can, maybe I can rip out the modules and attempt to use them with my SCPH-39006...

@Other PSX users: A ROM dump might help us to determine whether the Sony HDD check is present in ROM or not. If it lacks such checks, the chance of it ever supporting regular ATA disks will increase substantially.

 

In another thread one guy wrote on BIOS and other things:

http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...R-5100-queries&p=287573&viewfull=1#post287573

 

I saw his post... but what good will that information do? I had a functional SCPH-10000, and I have dumps of it's boot ROM chip before it died. It doesn't even have HDD support.

The boot ROM of the PSX probably contains HDD support modules, as well as support for it's internal flash ROM area built in.

Well, I won't lie about this: Even if a dump was made and we find that normal HDDs can be used... we need to be able to install the PSX files onto the HDD. Since extremely few people have access to a PSX, development on this area might be very difficult.

 

How does one acquire the rom? My psx boots, but it wont read discs anymore. Even with a new laser, and even after testing its own laser in an scph-39001 and finding it was still good.

I'll say again, I'd be happy to loan my PSX or its hard drive to a trusted AG member who might be able to learn from it, so long as I can get it back in the same shape it was sent.

 

I've seen plenty of PSX units in Yahoo aution japan, just a few days ago ... maybe if something could be done about (a member could take a faulty one towards research and buy a working one for replacing the faulty one ?) I think a broken one would be enough to be used for research.