New PS2 Tool owner, have some questions...

ughhh, it's been a day or two, i showed it off to a friend a bit
worked fine that time and shut down properly.
..now that you ask about the disk... lol, im actually not sure if i put it before or after running dsedb -r

it gave some hex code-thingy-ma-jiggas for a screen or two, ughh... something about.... mehh i can't remember -_- i knew i should have taken a pic of it.

in any case, it gave few at first, and after that it did gave the dsedb S> prompt, and smart as i am, ofcourse i typed in "reset 2 100"
followed by a screen worth of same error and that's where it froze eventully

continuously hitting ctrl+c eventually returned a "device not ready" or something but that was literally all i could make it do

after the forced shutdown i get what's on the picture on my post above and the /dev/mrp0: port error

edit: oh yeah, after the forced shutdown when dsedb and whatnot werent working anymore, trying to run dsedb returns something along the line of "too many rejected requests" or something, i'll take a pic of that if it still does it with the secondary HDD.

 

probably worth a good try with the secondary hdd...
I'm having a few issues with my secondary in that gstitle seems to be crashing even though it's a barebones install from sony.. this results in a TOOL screen at boot, but nothing on it...

anyhow...
Found an interesting.. bug in prodg...
ps2tm 2.28.15.0 can't reset correctly- EE boot parameters are passed to the tool as BOTH EE and IOP parameters
ps2tm 2.32.6.0 it works correctly....

On the upside, (at least until I find a fix- or if anyone knows of one - for the issues im having with prodg3 debugger) prodg2 will communicate with the newer target manager, thus making this somewhat more viable.

On another point,
Perhaps I haven't hit it yet in the documentation, but is there documentation as to what the reset flags do?

thanks, and I hope I'm not flooding this discussion with my issues too much!

 

Ususally when I want to start a disc, I start dsedb, I wait for the S> prompt, I put the disc, I wait till I hear it start spinning and I do the reset, but that's just me, those old drives sometimes need a bit of time to recognize the disc or I get the "Not a PS2 disc error"...

Note that shutting down a computer with the power switch is really bad, especially in an unix-like OS, that's a thing I learned in the redhat 5.2 paper manual, very usefull I can tell you.

Even if you're current shell was running wild, you could have try switching to an another one using ctrl+alt+F2 for example.

Once you finished backing up your hdds, using the same one, what happens in WS mode?

defor, in usr\local\sce\doc\tool (from the sdk, not on the Tool hdd) you'll find diskboot.pdf and dsnet.pdf

 

i still have no idea what happened and where, but for the time being, the TOOL lives again powered by the second HDD, last accessed propably by parris along some point in space-time around 2008

i can test the other shells and test the WS mode if you want, but what im likely gonna do now is restore the backup of the now working HDD to the first one.
also worth a note that pressing ctrl+alt+del seems to reboot the whole thing -___- (yes, i tried that in an attempt to find the keys to access the other shells )

well anyway, let me know if you want me to test those before i format the HDD and restore the working backup to it.


also, for the >< #@&!" how do i change the damn name on the TOOL ?

on the hdd that just broke it was always root@localhost and now the other hdd it's just root@<obscure series of numbers here>

it's not like it affects the usability at all but i just hate it :|

 

If it works, don't mess with it, rule number one!

 

hehe, very well, no testing then.

i'll take it out and clone the old secondary and test it again to see that the backup worked.

i'll just have to hope that ghost did it right :|

 

Stop using ghost and use g4u http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

 

blargh that sounded messy

i'll take a peek at it, but first some statistics.

first of all, the error with the corrupted HDD is "/dev/rmp0: invalid port."
2) dsedb gives an "ds_connect: can't connect too many refused"
3) rmp0 init during boot fails and returns I/O error if only one disk is connected to the TOOL (working or broken)

so, does it actually need both of the HDD's afterall ? no matter which one i try, as long as the other is not connected, the rmp doesn't work

im actually hesitant to restore the "working" image to the hdd now since if it doesn't work, it means that i basically killed my tool -.-

 

You said it worked just 4 posts ago, so I assume the faulty hdd was connected to the sub-board, right?

You made images of both hdds, right?
So you can restore wichever you want to any hdd.

Or are you afraid that the images are bad?

 

yeah, it does work when i swap the HDD's around. but it doesn't work with neither if only one HDD is connected (to the cpu card)
i remember hearing it somewhere that the second hdd isn't used at all, so i don't really understand why rmp gives an I/O error if it isn't there.

i did make images of both HDD's but at that point, the tool had already went berserk, so the image of the first HDD is likely to be ruined.

i suppose i could just leave it now and leave the hdds plugged but i'd like both of them to be working ones -.-
if i'll leave them as is now, and the other working one decides to do something similar later, i would be screwed.

and yes, im afraid that the images are bad because i don't trust ghost

 

Then start by redoing the images using a trustworthy program.
2 PM's sent!

 

yeah, im redoing the still working drive image with dd

edits: took dd image out of the working drive, and dumped it back, all good again
the tool once again purrs like a little (noisy) kitten

 

anyhow... since I like sharing, perhaps these may be of use to someone (dumped off my system via dd):
DTL-T10000H 233mhz 30gb disk0 (unused drive)
DTL-T10000H 233mhz 30gb disk1 (SBC boot drive)

the unused drive was never booted prior to its imaging, as such may be the best example of a "plain" base install for this configuration...
(oh, and the above images have been tested twice on both original and new drives...)

Anyone happen to have a copy of a flash older than t10000-rel270.bin around? I'm having some issues with disk0 booting elfs consistently even with an upgraded dsnet - some stuff just fails out with a massive chunk of debug info - it's as though i need some other packages upgraded to bring the linux side up to date with the flash version, but the only rpms i can find are for dsnet...

 

im about to start crying right now...

so i spent about 9 hours last night mirroring the HDD and finally tonight put it properly back together and booted it up.

all fine, slapped a game in and played a bit and so on....

now, since the new image of the HDD resetted the network settings,
i redid the ifcfg-eth0 from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.

rebooted and now i get:

/dev/mrp0: Input/output error unable to mount device.

once again ,devtool opening doesn't initialize, and trying to run dsedb returns ds_connect: too many refused

im about speechless now....

it worked just fine before i rewrote the ifcfg file....

gonna take it apart now and check for some hardware damage just incase..

sorry for the coarse language but i just can't fucking believe this

edit: on a side note, wtf even is /dev/mrp0 ?

 

just out of curiosity, but could it be something wrong in ifconfig- aren't you supposed to use the web interface to change en0's setup?

based on the fact that the TOOL splash doesn't come up unless networking completes- I'd say that this may be related...

(oh, and if dd is taking a while for you- make sure to use a block size "bs=2M" value- or something similarly large- the default is 512 bytes.. which takes forever)

 

well, i redid the ifcfg file same way i did it when i first got the tool.
manually using VI since i couldn't access the web interface unless the ip is set correctly. it worked back then, and i really don't think that the ifconfig file would cause all this to begin with. :|

who knows. To be honest, im very much out of ideas now, not a clue about how to even start sorting this thing out.
first thing i'll do is put it back together i guess, after i've cleaned it up a bit and checked that there's nothing fried inside.

edit1:
i dunno, now im just getting a "no such device" when boot runs dsnet and tries to connect to the /dev/rmp0
first it was i/o error, then it was "propably not present" and now it's "no such device"

edit2:
now, i have no idea what i did, but it somehow started working again (aside WS mode, regardless of the switch, it's always on TOOL mode now) but in any case...

i'll just leave it for now and hope it will stay operational. The past 2 days have propably been the most frustrating i've ever had in my life :crying:

i'll let you guys know if i ever figure out what actually happened.

 

Glad you got it working again.

The device file used by dsnet to communicate with the mrp driver, which controls the PS2 hardware.

The dsedb error message means that there is no dsnet server listening. In case the mrp driver hasn't been loaded (or, as in your case, doesn't work correctly), dsnet refuses to start as well, so there is no server any of the ds* applications could connect to. The same goes for devtool-opening, as it relies on dsreset/dsedb, too.

Sounds like a hardware fault, probably a bad/broken signal or something like that.

Up to which point did you disassemble the TOOL? If this happens again, it might help to get the PS2 mainboard out and clean all connectors to other boards.

I had similar problems with my TOOL with the T14k emulator board. At first, it didn't detect the emulator at all, although it did show up in the BIOS' device listing. However, the PS2 itself worked fine. I also got some freezes during either testing or system start. I suspected an overheating problem first, as the unit had collected quite some dust. At one point, it did even recognize the emulator when operating with the side panel removed (in front of an open window). Lasted for around 20 minutes before the emulator quit working again.
Finally, it turned out to be a contact problem between the PS2, emulator and mechacon board (that's the one the optical drive is connected to). After cleaning contacts between these three boards, the problem didn't appear again.

Just for your information: the TOOL/WS LEDs on the front does not indicate which mode it is operating in. The TOOL LED is always lit, regardless of the switch's setting. This is also documented in the setup guide, section "Restoring the Flash ROM".

 

i pretty much disassembled it as much as it can be disassembled really

took out everything, cleaned fans, rearranged all cables, put in a new PSU, cleaned the connectors (with a brush only tho) switched in a completely new frame, removed dead spiders and lastly, placed a new facade and mohawk on it.

i suspected hardware fault too, which is why i started opening it, but didn't see anything fatal atleast and since it works now, im hoping it was dust/dirt that caused it.

im aware of this, however, the leds on the linux board under the HDD's seem to represent the actual modes the unit is running.

thanks for the mrp clarification tho :thumbsup: it bugged me since i wasn't aware of what exactly it referred to, and the I/O error just sounded like a hardware fault, especially after it started giving me the "maybe the board is not connected" error.

now im just hoping i'll never have to go through this again, and just gonna open and clean up the unit's original PSU and switch it back in there.

then it's time to move on repairing my second one

..am i the only one who finds it funny that i've bought 2 of them from this forum (different members) and both have been owned by parris at some point

 

Hi,

just a new question. As i read i need NO mouse for t he tool... cause it comes without any Desktop Environment. But i need a keyboard... so what keyboard i can use?

PS2 or USB?

Thanks

 

ps/2 since the TOOL does not have USB ports on it for you to plug an USB keyboard to. (the usb's on the front are for the ps2 side, so the pc doesn't regognize things plugged in those)

USB keyb with a PS/2 adapter works too.