Playstation 2 External BB Unit (SCPH-10210) help

My BB Unit arrived this morning and I can't get it working. My PS2 is an SCPH-10000 and I have a blank memory card for the drivers later. Upon starting the HDD Utility PSBBN disc I get an error telling me to turn off the system and connect the HDD. I can hear the HDD spin up as it should, so I know it is hooked up correctly I checked the Device 0/1 switch Both Discs work fine in my debug so I know that isn't the problem. I spent more that $200 on this setup, so I am a little bit annoyed right now.
Edit: Seems the HDD is fried, after opening it up I tested the drive itself.

 

Firstly what drive is that ? an 4D040H2 ?


Second, if the powersupply and PCMCIA network adapter cards are ok (they appear to be fine, right ?) you can go to EBAY and purchase an US FFXI SET or an used drive (any PS2 HDD should work regardless of model, just has to be a SONY drive designed to work with FFXI).

Because harddrives have no regional locks you won't have issues fitting another drive on your existing case.

It probably got damaged due to rouge handling at mail office.

 

It's a correct Sony drive based on a Maxtor D540X-4D series. I think it is a bad logic board, it spins up but does not work, putting it in my PC gave me a hard drive failure warning. I over payed on this as it is. I do have a a spare internal HDD but that is for my debug, i used that to test the enclosure. The only thing now is how far I want to push this on Ebay. I must admit this guy did do a good job packing it, it's near mint, in the original box but the drive is fried.

 

I would keep it if I were you as these things are getting rarer as we speak. Also you can use it with Open PS2 Loader for playing even if you fit a non SONY HDD.

Edit: And FYI Maxtor D540X-4D = 4D040H2.

 

A drive failure warning? Where? At the POST screen?

One thing that I noticed while playing around with the Sony DRM protection system used by these Sony HDDs is that many pieces of regular PC software (And BIOSes) fail to support the SECURITY features of ATA disks properly.

I noticed that all the software I had either failed to detect that the Sony 4D040H2 HDD I have did not support the standard ATA SECURITY features (but merely assumed that it was locked), or simply didn't even know that the drive was Sony-locked (and hence inaccessible without the console's i.Link ID).

What about using uLaunchELF to check the disk? Can it detect the presence of the disk (With the PS2 HDD Manager)? If the disk is Sony-locked, it cannot be accessed by uLaunchELF due to a bug in ATAD.IRX (But is detectable, from what I remember).

 

My other PS2 HDDs worked fine that way, this one didn't.

 

Indeed, they're just standard drives with enhanced commands in the firmware that are unknown for a PC...

 

But PCs can get confused by a protected drive... depending on how the software side of your PC is set up.

Well, if the drive's PCB is really faulty, little can be done to save it.

I was just giving my 2 cents, since I did thought that I once screwed my HDD unit up after it couldn't be accessed by almost anything (Even the HDD utility disc - no disk connected).

 

For what it is worth I think it is the "Maxtor Romulus" firmware error. Seems it is fixable but not worth the effort, I'll be getting a Seagate based model tomorrow.

 

The drive is worth repairing, because it's a original drive, the console will boot straight from it.

The name "Romulus" is the internal MAXTOR codename for the drive. If you want to tinker I can try to help you fix your drive with PC3000.

It will fail to boot (load the firmware) if a module is corrupt in the overlay area (negative LBA, where the drive stores it's firmware).

Edit:
Don't toss the drive away if you don't want to to repair it. I would love to tinker with it. It's possible that it contains interesting data even (if it's a used drive).

Edit 2:
If you decide to go the alternative route and put a generic drive on the casing for using with Open PS2 Loader, there's means of booting the HDD OSD in it

 

Google told me that much >.< but PC3000 IS the problem, I would do It if I had access to one. I found quotes ranging from $3-10K. That is like dropping a nuke to kill an ant. I think a more realistic option is to buy an SCPH-20401 and put that in, the enclosure is little more than a power supply and a raw ATA interface, all the magic is done in firmware so it should work.

 

I was only aware that this could be done with original drives. How would one do this with a non-SCPH-20401 hard disk?

 

Yes, buying another drive and fitting it on the case will work. They're detectable as the custom SCE command causes the drive to reply a model string and internal model is SCPH-20401 while external is SCPH-20400 but I doubt they even read that much into the system. Non DNAS stuff are completely ignorant of that so all will work without any chances of problem.

I am still interested on the drive and it's contents. Maybe you would want to trade it with me ?

By using hacked SONY files, obviously.

 

I am not satisfied with such a response unfortunately. Please explain what needs to be done.

 

Look around the scene for hacked HDD OSD files. They've been around for about two years now ...

 

I already knew of the HDD OSD that has to be loaded by Free McBoot first. But your post seemed to refer to a more "proper" method, where it would boot up like the "legitimate" HDD OSD.

 

Actually for it to work the way I want it to, there's a annoying roadblock regarding the MG encrypted HDD MBR. Modified and "refitted" SONY files will be used for that purpose.


I want it to boot "properly" because SONY drivers and programs do check for partition and FS sanity during boot and if any problems are found it summons a filecheck utility.

No, my idea does not involve FMCB. But the current method does.

 

I just made a discovery today and it make everything I said null and void:


All the PS2 want to boot up from ANY HARD DRIVE is a SIGNED MAGIC GATE MASTER BOOT RECORD.

 

any hard drive?

@Elijah, you mean a HDD-OSD that autoboot's on non-sony drives, just like on sony-drives?
the only ones i know are the 2 that are hosted on my blog post.
the decrypted for non-sony-hdds, and the region free for normal sony-hdd's.
and i belives that these are the only hacked-ones around....

 

He means that the consoles that can load rom0:HDDLOAD will attempt to locate and boot the HDDOSD automatically, regardless of the disk used. It's apparently something that Sony had allowed since day 1 of the SCPH-30000 (v1) series.

Up to today, most of us probably still believe that the rom0:ATAD has a Sony HDD check.....

The Sony HDD checks actually only come starting from when the HDD MBR program is loaded, as everything else outside of rom0: uses the normal ATAD.IRX that verifies that the disk is a Sony HDD. That includes the MBR program.

If you patched ATAD.IRX in all software that is loaded starting from the MBR, the HDDOSD should boot from even non-Sony PS2 disks.
(Naturally, the MBR and HDDOSD have to remain signed and encrypted)