USB games not showing (ps2 not recognizing usb?)

[Auric]

Edit: fixed my problem, all I had to do was shrink my USB Hard Drive.

Hello. I have a problem with open ps2 loader showing the list of my games. I am using a fat ps2 and Seagate's FreeAgent 1.5tb external hard drive.

I've tried formatting the USB to fat32 using USBExtreme software and using the command prompt ul_format method.

I tried installing games with both USBUtil and USBExtreme and the ISOs are named in the correct format.

The USB device start mode is on manual and the ul.cfg is in my hard drive. The game I am trying to run are 4gb and NTSC-J.

A problem I've also noticed is that when I try to check the contents of the hard drive with ulaunchelf the MASS is empty. I am running ulaunchelf v4.37.

Is it my external hard drive that is incompatible with my PS2 or the game I am trying to run? I think it's my external hard drive because OPL did not automatically create a VMC folder and instead created one in my usb flash drive. Is that is the case, is there a way for my external hard drive to be compatible with my PS2 or do I have to go out and buy a new one?

[TnA]

First of all,... You should update your software to the newest stuff, since uLE 4.37 is a few years old...

Edit: Btw.: To which size did you rezise your partition (might be interesting to know for other people)?

[dlanor]

First of all,... You should update your software to the newest stuff, since uLE 4.37 is a few years old...

It is indeed old. (released in January 2009)

More importantly, the greatly improved USBHDFSD driver was upgraded to the current SVN revision 1534 for uLE v4.39 that was released not quite a month after v4.37, and that could make a huge difference to the success rate with various USB drives, and especially huge drives like this 1.5 TB HDD.

Is it my external hard drive that is incompatible with my PS2 or the game I am trying to run? I think it's my external hard drive because OPL did not automatically create a VMC folder and instead created one in my usb flash drive.

So you have both a USB flash drive and a USB HDD connected at the same time.
Right ?

In that case, how do you propose that OPL, a program written to access only one USB drive, should know which one you want to use ?

That is clearly the main problem you are having with OPL, though I am also confused as to how you managed to start telling it to make a VMC for a game, since that can normally be done only after selecting a game to do it for, which you can't do if no games are shown...

In any case, OPL and most other PS2 software will only recognize a single USB drive, depending on the physical scan response order, and you have no control over which one that will be. So you should only have one USB drive connected when using OPL.

NB: The main exceptions from the 'one drive' rule are uLE and SMS.
SMS is able to use several USB drives (not sure of the limit) but only 1 partition per drive
uLE is able to use up to 10 partitions distributed over multiple USB drives
In addition radshell and some command-line utilities (eg: PS2PSXe) are also able to use multiple drives, through proper use of device names in scripts, such as "mass0:", "mass1:" etc...

For all other known applications you are limited to using only one USB drive and this having only one partition, and therefore you should only have one USB drive connected when using those applications (including OPL).

Best regards: dlanor

[TnA]

I might add one thing:

The person I've recently set-up the PS2, has 2 partitions on his drive.

1. 'Primary Partition' FS:FAT32 ~600GB
2. 'Primary Partition' FS:NTFS ~320GB

All application which are included in the nooby-package work correctly with it.
We also tested a few other apps.

The most crutial thing to know is, that the first partition should be primary and the filesystem FAT32.

If someone uses multiple devices, the device which should be used must be recognized as the first device, like you already said.
This might as well even work through USB-Hubs.

Example: USB-Hub is connected to the 'first/master'-USB-Connection. Now the first device which is recognized there is the HD (connected to let's say port one of the hub), which is 'chosen' by the driver.

[Ceedlorenzo]

If someone uses multiple devices, the device which should be used must be recognized as the first device, like you already said.
This might as well even work through USB-Hubs.

Example: USB-Hub is connected to the 'first/master'-USB-Connection. Now the first device which is recognized there is the HD (connected to let's say port one of the hub), which is 'chosen' by the driver.

I've beem using a USB hub in playing games on my PS2 using the two most newest USB game loaders. Wherever i plug my usb flash drive on my 4-port hub, as long as it is alone, i never had any problems. I've not tried yet having multiple drives connected...

If you want to use your usb hdd on a usb hub, better have it externally powered, or the hub is self powered. Mu hub is bus powered so it cannot give enough power to the hdd, so i use flash drives and in our area, it tends to have a lot of power interruptions... So its better to use flash drives..

[dlanor]

I've beem using a USB hub in playing games on my PS2 using the two most newest USB game loaders. Wherever i plug my usb flash drive on my 4-port hub, as long as it is alone, i never had any problems.

Of course, because wherever you plug it, it is still the first USB mass storage device responding to the device scan, since it is the only such device present.

I've not tried yet having multiple drives connected...

Which means that you have not yet tested the issue under discussion here.
What you will find is (inevitably) that nearly all PS2 software will recognize only one of the connected devices, and even if you keep them plugged in the same way for consecutive tests, the device order can still differ between subsequent power-on attempts, as device response times can vary. And to check the device order in detail you will need to use either uLE or SMS (as most others only access one drive).

If you want to use your usb hdd on a usb hub, better have it externally powered, or the hub is self powered. Mu hub is bus powered so it cannot give enough power to the hdd, so i use flash drives and in our area, it tends to have a lot of power interruptions... So its better to use flash drives..

This naturally varies with the drives used. I have a small Verbatim USB Hdd (though the USB interface is really Samsung and the 2.5" HDD inside is Hitachi), and this drive works fine when powered by the PS2 USB bus. But I would not recommend such use for any 3.5" drive nor any top speed drive (speed always costs power).

Best regards: dlanor