"Free HDBoot" starts.

[TnA]

This thread is intended to work on Free HDBoot (equivalent to "Free MCBoot", without the need of an MC, but a BBA and HD).

Post all findings, researches, news and all that would help here.

Just for start.

Try to collect some Info:

- Sony-HD-OSD-Update should work on V3-V11 (SCPH-3000x - SCPH-5000x).
- It may only work on original Sony-HDs.
- The PS2 checks some sectors on HD, when it boots up.
- ...


If this is totally off-topic, or not possible just delete this thread.

[yoshi314]

The PS2 checks some sectors on HD, when it boots up.

ps2 does some calls to hdd firmware. sony's hdds have some custom mbr/firmware so they work with ps2.

actually we could alter mcboot to attempt to launch boot.elf off hdd and then take it from there.

[fuqi]

according to this

BootBrowser      !!! !!! !!! !!!
       ExecutePs2GameDisk
     cdrom0:\SYSTEM.CNF;1    can't open 'SYSTEM.CNF'
        can't read 'SYSTEM.CNF'
        BOOT2   =       rom0:PS2LOGO    rom0:PS1DRV     -m rom0:SIO2MAN -m rom0:MCMAN   -m rom0:MCSERV          È9# Ø9# è9# ø9# -x mc%d:%s/%s   dvdplayer.elf   moduleload      -k rom1:EROMDRV -m erom0:UDFIO  -x erom0:DVDELF @:# P:# `:#     moduleload2 rom1:UDNL rom1:DVDCNF       %s/%s   rom1:DVDID      ???     cdrom0:\PSXMYST\MYST.CCS;1      SLPS_000.24     cdrom0:\CDROM\LASTPHOT\ALL_C.NBN;1      SLPS_000.65     cdrom0:\PSX.EXE;1       BOOT    VER     rom0:HDDBOOT

i don't think its possible.

[yoshi314]

it is possible, just not natively off ps2 bios.

you need sony hdd because there is a hdd check in ps2 bios, so we need to use patched driver. some hdd files also seem encrypted, and it's unknown what does the signature depend upon.

[DaRKcLoUD-X]

Well, I would imagine that it is possible. I probably cannot give you anymore information that is already available. However, I was working on an equivalent to the MC boot but for the Hard Drive, it is not automatic and does not boot when you turn on the ps2 like the recent discovery. It requires you to use an icon from the HDD portion of the ps2's browser. I have not completed it and there is a high chance that I never will, but I have had some success, I was able to make the ps2 look for the elf on the Hard Drive, at least that is my guess. After activating the icon, the ps2's screen would go black and I could hear the hard drive searching and after awhile the ps2 would return to the browser. So basically I was able to place a usable icon similar to the ones used by code breaker, HD Loader, final fantasy 11 and play online. I wasn't able to create my own icon but I was able to modify the information for an icon to boot an elf. I think that this has potential but I have no knowledge of coding for the ps2 so I can only go so far.

Basically, the ps2 is able to boot elf files off the hard drive from the ps2's browser. We haven't been able to recreate the process that Play Online uses but there is a possibility that we can. When you see an icon under the HDD portion of the browser you will notice that you can activate it. The action that occurs depends on some "special information". I believe that this information is predetermined before the icon is placed on the HDD. On the disc of a game that supports the HDD, you will find a file which should be named “ICON” or something similar, and it may have the file extension “.DAT” Within this file is the information for the icon that appears on the HDD. It has all of the information for a normal save icon, plus it has some different information. It has the information from the system.cnf file for booting a disc. This is used for the boot function for the HDD. There are two boot possibilities that I know of and those are for disc and HDD. Some games that use the HDD for Data such as Socom 2 or Resident Evil Outbreak have the icon file on their discs. In this file the boot portion is set up to boot the disc when you activate the HDD icon.

I have done many tests and discovered some stuff but I currently do not have my ps2 or my games with me.

Here is the information from that Bishi Bashi psx game:

BOOT2 = pfs:/dnasldnk.elf
DNASBOOT2 = pfs:/SLBB-00001
VER = 1.00
VMODE = NTSC

Anyways, I had more information about it but ive been busy lately so I have forgotten stuff about this method of booting elf's. Maybe you guys could look into this if you can't find a method of direct booting from the HDD?

[yoshi314]

can you share some more technical info? this is pretty interesting.

[TnA]

Indeed, but the BB-Icon is only visible (under Device-Manager), after successful OSD-Update.

[DaRKcLoUD-X]

Well lets see what i can remember.....Well as you probably already know, the save icons on the memory card are actually folders (Well pretty much, the directories on the memory card a displayed using icons.) The HDD does the same thing but instead of a folder, an hdd icon is linked to a "PP." partition. Now one of the problems I faced was that I could not create my own "PP." partition because the format is different that normal paritions that we use (like for roms and movies.) I have no idea how to create this type of partition and the HDD icons only seem to work with that type. So that was a real bummer for me. But there is still a way. As I mentioned before Hd Loader and Codebreaker have their own HDD icons. This could really benefit us because they have included the "ICON.DAT" file within their elf's(Im not sure how this works, but basically it is done the same way that hdloader was packaged with ulaunchelf for the free MC boot.). So with a hex editor you are able to hex in your own information for the HDD icon. I was able to hex in my own name for the Icon's title . And after some more fooling around, I got the PS2 to search for the elf on the hardrive, I hex edited Codebreaker and Hdloader. Please keep in mind that these have to be unpacked, I found out how to unpack Codebreaker by using a special unpacker that was being used for another project, I can't really remember but I think the project was to provide a way to boot directly into hdloader from codebreaker. So anyways I used the method from that project to unpack Codebreaker. Before I say anything else I would like to mention that if you choose the HDD icon to boot from the HDD it will look within the partition that the Icon is linked to. So, I tried changing it to boot an elf from the MC but that doesnt work, it gets an error message when you try to boot it from the icon. But I think I used "pfs" or "pfs0" for the Boot section for the HDD icon to search on the HDD. I remember one working better than the other but I cannot remember which one it was. I also tried "hdd" and "hdd0" but i dont think that those worked. The major problem i had is that the codebreaker partition is purposely corrupted or somethin because it freezes the ps2 if you try to access it from a program other that Codebreaker. But codebreaker is able to place saves and updates into this paritition, and the HDD icon is supposed to look inside the partition it is linked to. So an idea I had was to somehow place an elf file within this partition. I tried to do various things like making an elf have the same extension as a save, I think that the elf showed up as a save but I couldn't move it correctly, there is probably a check or scan to make sure the save is not corrupt. You could also try with HDloader, and I believe that their is the possibility to load games installed on the Hardrive by using this icon method. Im not sure how exactly hdloader works in terms of storing the information but if we could direct the Icon to boot into the elf for the game then it could work. I don't have enough knowledge to get that much further than this but maybe I can remember some more information about this in the future. It is funny because i was going to talk about this in the past and I had the info and pictures all ready but I never thought that this was very significant. One last idea I had was about playonline. The playonline disc appears to be very strange for the data thats on it. It seems to be similar to an archive and divided into multiple sections. So I cannot access any of the files for it. But one thought was to replace the elf that boots from the HDD icon with ulaunchelf or some other homebrew. But simply swapping it on the disc is not an option because the elf is not accessable. However, after installing playonline, it goes online and downloads updates. I was thinking that we could redirect it to are own server that will have ulaunchelf instead of playonline thus tricking it into placing the elf within the playonline partition. Well that is all I got for now.

[l_oliveira]

How the PS2 boots from the HDD ?

It loads DEV9, ATAD and then HDLOAD from the rom.

It's the modules you should look into.
As we already know, ATAD send custom commands to the drive. If the drive doesn't have SONY firmware, tough luck.

Last year I downloaded some warez-ed russian program for HDD repair and I was able to use it to dump the firmware for one of my PS2 hard disks. It's a risky process and I almost screwed the drive (I actually did screw it but before I started to mess around I did backup the whole drive firmware so I was able to restore it exactly as it was before the screw up) and it was the drive that has Bishi Bashi 3 Stepchamp installed. :o

I was able to reproduce the drive into another EXACT model/firmware maxtor drive. But the fake one never passed the DNAS checks. I could install PSBBN on it and play around but it would never connect and download the updates/ sites. I put the stuff aside and stopped working in it.

The "fake" drive would boot on a unmoded PS2 and it was usable for any disc based games which would install to the HDD. But again nothing with DNAS would install in it.

[yoshi314]

But the fake one never passed the DNAS checks

are those checks done via network connection, or is there also some offline protection?