(Help) How to add Icons to HDLoader/KERMIT Games on PS2 HDD-OSD

Ahoy!

What? What? What? Can't believe that!
:smile-new:

Interesting point.
So, what are the differences? The firmware. Any more?
Maybe an ata-command monitor would give any hint...



Rgds.

 

Wow - one more hdd osd I made a little investigations in HDD images and discovered that APA modver was changed everywhere:
HDD OSD 1.10U - 0x0104
PS2BBN 0.10 and 0.20 - 0x0202
PS2BBN 0.3x - 0x0203
And one more detail about MBRs. All PS2BBN uses the same MBR (at sector 202) and some strange data just after MBR (

But 0.10 uses a little bit different mbr module They alter about 20 bytes.

maybe it because maximum partition number on official HDD = 40Gb/256Mb = 160 < 296 ???? )))

 

Yeah, really. This nonsense makes me sick, and people are still waiting for POPStarter to run without the requirement of a damn disc in the drive. Though, I still don't have the time to tweak the code and build it . CUE2POPS needs a rework too.

I find suspicious the fact that the lag appears so close to the 40 GB mark... Perhaps there are some routines which are based on Zony's HDD size in the EE side... Or like SP193 mentioned, an IOP perf issue...

This sucks hard, since that lag would affect most HDDOSD users. Before the 2011 Giant Enemy Fail, there were modchips with the ATAD patch feature. Why wasn't the lag noticed/reported until now ?

EDIT :

Mmmm, the left one is the unZonofficial:very_drunk:, the right one is teh official.
I'm making your dumps right now. It may take awhile, as I'll have to resign the 1.00J (the one of SUDC3 has trojaned DVDELFs and it's kinda dirty).

 

Did you find it's resource files on the disc files ? O_O

Interesting stuff

 

Keep in mind that the PS2 format utility SONY uses do not clean the harddrive, just writes on top of whatever is already there.

So if you install a new MBR, what the install tool will do is paste the new MBR then zero fill until it completes the last sector needed by the new MBR.

So the strange data can be either what remains of the original pseudo random data SONY would fill the drive with at testing phase or leftovers of whatever was installed previously on the harddrive.

 

Yes, hosdsys resources, the filesystem checker, the full thing. There's even an installation script:topsy_turvy:. I don't know if it's enabled in the installer; since I'm running out of CDRs, I've modded the KELFs and followed the installation script to copy the stuff with uLe. IIRC, the HDDOSD is in DISC 1 FILES\INSTALL.PAK

 

I checked it out - it is not trash or something wrong. If you extract INSTALL.PAK you can see file MBR_J.XIN. This is exactly what I mean. It is 1 001 996 bytes long but real MBR is 492 032 bytes long (with addition in 509 968 bytes). And yes it is the same as I mention above.

 

Hi!

This is interesting, too.
How much from the modchips patching-routines is known and used...?


Rgds.

 

That's right. Zoony did allocate some extra space, probably for futher updates...
Check this out : http://rghost.net/45931623
This is the decrypted TOC of the 0.32 INSTALL1.PAK you can find in SUDC3. Offset 0x258 = 0xF4A0C (MBR_J.XIN size) = 1001996 bytes. Though, it really don't think this junk data is used for the calculation of the 2 DNAS keyphrases.

 

Can we use this with existing HDL partitions?

 

Yes but I would recommend to use this newer one
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f19/new...l-access-hdd-over-network-113411/#post1056114

 

Is there a tutorial on how to properly modify the partition header using those programs?

 

it's a command line tool, below is an example, through network connection.
On Windows 7 run cmd.exe as administrator then type:

Make sure you're working in the directory the files are in.

 

ATADpatcher v0.03

ATADpatcher_0_03.zip

The raw xOSD LBA48 version of ATAD.IRX could not be patched for a reason that I don't know. The pattern in both the patch and the text file was correct but couldn't be found by the CodeFusion patch:concern:... Well, I took the byte sequence 64 bits higher. It's fixed now.
I've also added patches for 2 dnasload KELFs... Thanks to the person who sent me the US FFXI one yesterday:encouragement:. You know who you are.

 

Hey hrHACKen, is it now possible to play FFXI on non-$ony hdd? If so that great news for FFXI player, I may try it as I sometimes play it.

Great work as always.

 

Nope and I don't think it will be ever possible. The game is nearly at the point they're going to drop PS2 support in a year or two, the game still has threee DNAS checks until you can move your character, It's patched regularly (meaning every patch will delete DNAS bypasses) and the game plays horribly at a PS2 currently since they moved the main development on to Windows PC platform.

Not to mention that you need an existing account (or cd keys to create an account) and pay a monthly fare to have access to the game server.

 

0xFF = REGION exclusion mask (0xFF = allow all) and the 8 bytes under it are part of the re-generated hashes for the header (since we changed the header from 0x01 to 0xFF we have to fix the hashes). Further down you will see another 32 bytes changed, as well, right after the end of the contents bittable...

Edit: The ONLY file that EVER came out from SONY with all regions flag set was the PS2 HDD MBR SONY made for the PS3 emulator to boot FFXI and Nobunaga Online. And I believe that one has 0x7F instead of 0xFF ....

 

Question, what can you do with this and how to use the application?

 

you can launch any Sony applications with non official HDD. E.g. I successfully patched Metal Saga's atad.irx - and installed it without problem through OPL network mode.

any success?

 

i encounterd a problem with hdl_dump 0.9.2 i cant inject my injected mini-opl(1,6mb) in the partition header, it always says at the end:

skipped boot.kelf. trying to boot boot.elf
skipped boot.elf
skipped boot.kirx

if i try to launch the partition, it wont work.

but the system.cnf, list.ico, icon.sys, works fine.