Fail to backup tomba!2

[broodje]

Hi guys,

was wondering if someone has succeeded in backuping up tomba2 (psx).

i tried many times, but i keep failing.

i heard this game has copy protection of some sort and i already tried the ppf patched from kalisto.

ppf-o-matic told me the image size was not correct, but i still patched it, with no luck.

i have ripped it with imgburn
some info:

PS2 V7 PAL
matrix infinity chip latest firmware

game:
SCUS_944.54
tomba2 NTSC

thx for any help

greetz

Broodje

[djflexmaster79]

I mostly use Clone CD to backup my PS1 games. I know the early Resident Evil games had copy protection on them as well. But I do have working backups of them from Clone CD. So it may be possible for you. It's worth a try. DJ

[dlanor]

I mostly use Clone CD to backup my PS1 games. I know the early Resident Evil games had copy protection on them as well. But I do have working backups of them from Clone CD. So it may be possible for you. It's worth a try. DJ

I agree that CloneCD is one of the best tool for making reliable PS1 backups.

This way you are sure of getting all the subchannel data, which can NOT be contained in any normal ISO file (as it is not stored as normal sector data).

Many games do not use subchannels, and for those most copying/ripping programs will do the job fine. But for games that do use subchannels you need the separate ".sub" file created by CloneCD or some other program supporting the same format.

One such program is Alcohol 120% (remember to set it for 'Playstation' compatibility), which is the program I currently use for making CloneCD compatible backups.

And of course, in burning such a backup to a physical disc you should always specify the ".ccd" file as source for that burning, to ensure that both the ".img" and the ".sub" data is included in the burn. If you only specify the ".img" file, there is a risk that the ".sub" file will be ignored, especially if the burn program has no real support for ".ccd" format.

Best regards: dlanor

[broodje]

Thank u all very much.
Including your explenation Dlanor!

I always like to have background information, answers a lot of other questions i had bout them sub channels!

anyway, i have succeeded, wasnt as much trouble as i thought.

thankx all!

And being here now anyway, does one of u have a tombi 1 savegame perhaps? :P
In order to unlock certain stuff in tombi 2 i needed a full 100% finnished game save of tombi 1

Now i have found one. except it is in a rare format "tomba_.gme"

Ofcourse i cant do anything with this, i tried to convert, spent an hour or 2 searching converters and explenations for this, but i seem to fail in the end.

Soooo, to make a long story short, does any have such a save on his memory card, make a copy with good old launchelf and sent it to me ?

I believe i have read about ulaunchelf being able to copy such saves with this 'psu paste' ??

perhaps Dlanor could shed a light on that once more

(sorry guys, am very lazy 2day to search the whole forums bout psx save games )

Thx a bunch guys !

(attached the game save)

[dlanor]

Now i have found one. except it is in a rare format "tomba_.gme"

That is a memory card format for emulators I believe.

Having inspected some such files I believe that the real gamesave files start at offset 0x2F40 within such a file, and then each normal gamesave block follows at intervals of 0x2000 bytes (== 8KB).
And you can find the proper gamesave filenames in the 8KB block starting at 0x0F40.

The entire file area from 0x0F40 to the end of the file matches the 128KB area of the original memory card. This is split into 16 8KB blocks, the first of which acts as a primitive TableOfContents for the 15 8KB data blocks.

Ofcourse i cant do anything with this, i tried to convert, spent an hour or 2 searching converters and explenations for this, but i seem to fail in the end.

Soooo, to make a long story short, does any have such a save on his memory card, make a copy with good old launchelf and sent it to me ?

I believe i have read about ulaunchelf being able to copy such saves with this 'psu paste' ??

No. psuPaste is only intended for normal PS2 gamesave folders, not for PS1 saves.

But for PS1 saves you can instead use the normal Paste command, if the file you have is a standard gamesave file of 8192 bytes (== 8KB), or a multiple thereof.

The best way to produce such files is probably to use a normal hex editor, and 'goto' offset 0x2F40 and check for a standard gamesave header starting with 0x53 0x43 (== "SC"). With that found you start a selection block and scroll forward 0x2000 bytes to complete the block, and save that block out as a separate file. This 8KB file can then be copied to a PS1 memory card using uLaunchELF. Some games use saves which are a multiple of 8KB, but that can be handled simply by taking additional 8KB 'steps' in marking the data block in the hex editor before saving.

After extracting the gamesave data block you also must give a proper name, identical to what it originally had, and those names can be found in the 8KB block starting at offset 0xF40 of the GME file.

I've had a look at your file and extracted the single gamesave it contains. The attached ZIP contains an 8KB file ready for copying as-is to a PS1 memory card using the uLE FileBrowser's normal Paste command.

I haven't tested the restored gamesave in the real game myself, but it shows up fine in the Sony MC browser so I think it will work.

Best regards: dlanor

[broodje]

wow your great dlanor, thx man

i will go and try, and present my findings here for others, altough such an old game (12 years!) wont be played much these days.

Thank u very much four your time Dlanor!

*EDIT*
Works like a charm
thanks again !!!