Unofficial FMCB v1.8C installer

[SP193]

1 I restored with anialator and shut down PS2
2 I did but wanted to see if double install corrupted and of course it did
3 I have never not unless very and I do mean very long time turn off or remove memory card besides my installs seam only maybe like 3 min faster then 1.8b
4 I reformat and then try to reinstall always with corruption help keep my MC

Only thing is wonder why never stop install or no warnings when I installed over another install

Tried to install over after shutdown and still corrupts so checks or something not right about over writing

One thing I should point out this are on 8M official MC

Thank you for your report. There is no warning issued as existing installations are automatically uninstalled.

Could you please do one final test:

1. Uninstall an existing multi-install installation (After removing and re-inserting your card) via the "Uninstall" menu option.
2. Unplug and re-insert your card
3. Perform a multi-install.

If no corruption occurs, that means that this problem is not actually a result of a bug, but by the same limitation in the system used by this installer.
Manipulating the filesystem during an uninstallation probably caused filesystem corruption when MCMAN writes the new files during installation with the old filesystem layout.

[l_oliveira]

I have a suggestion here:

Don't crosslink folders and files. Crosslink JUST THE KELF and have sepparated icon.sys + 3Dicon files for each folder. Also make sure the text description on each file let the user know which region that save is for.

The new FMCB kelf is smaller than the 7700x 74KB kelf file so I don't feel that crosslinking is even necessary. I don't use it on my FMBC MC.

Indeed, the new payload not only have a smaller loader/footprint loader code as it doesn't need to trojan a host file, it also contains 10k kernel fixes.

[SP193]

@RandQalan: I did a few tests on my hardware with my only remaining Sony PS2 8MB card, and found that if I overwrite an old multi-install installation:

1. The installer freezes and renders the incomplete FMCB installation damaged without the icon files and with a few cross-linked files and folders missing.
2. If I uninstalled the old installation before installing again, it works fine.

#1 seems to be caused because the FAT was damaged.

So that means that my hypothesis was probably correct. But I need at least your report to be sure.

@All: Can anyone else who has encountered this problem before share with us whether this happens to you too?

----------------------

I have a suggestion here:

Don't crosslink folders and files. Crosslink JUST THE KELF and have sepparated icon.sys + 3Dicon files for each folder. Also make sure the text description on each file let the user know which region that save is for.

The new FMCB kelf is smaller than the 7700x 74KB kelf file so I don't feel that crosslinking is even necessary. I don't use it on my FMBC MC.

Indeed, the new payload not only have a smaller loader/footprint loader code as it doesn't need to trojan a host file, it also contains 10k kernel fixes.

Hmm... you have brought up an interesting suggestion.

However, all thanks to Sony once again deciding with their infinite wisdom, an additional ~14KB (12 file entries * 512B + ~8 KB for the icon and information files) will be taken up if the folders were not cross-linked.

Sony had decided that each entry in the MC (Be it a file or folder) will be given a whole page (A full 512 byte sector!!) for it's directory entry, despite the fact that each entry is only about a quarter of that size lol.

Not to mention that additional cross-linking will mean a longer installation, more potential errors (Usually only a factor if the user's memory card already had a damaged filesystem) and is more dangerous (Well, this cross-linking process is the process of introducing controlled filesystem corruption after all!).

On the plus side: We have folders that won't have "?" as their reported sizes and the folders will have proper descriptions instead of generic descriptions (Which might also be informative to clueless users... and avert the possible danger of them deleting the files and folders).

Yea, the new KELF is small. It's wonderful... but I aim to make the installations as small as possible for efficiency. Well, not everyone will appreciate it and feel that it's necessary, but it's there for those who appreciate the efficient usage of MC space.

I still think that it's an interesting idea though. I'm sure that some users won't like seeing folders with "?" as their folder sizes and folders that are better labeled are better too.

So what do you guys think? I feel that the system should only be changed if more people think that custom folders for each MG region group is better.

[l_oliveira]

Well let me explain how flash memory works:

Each page is 512 bytes with 16 bytes of error correction data. When you overwrite something, you have to erase the whole page and that's why having one entry per page do make sense on a engineering standpoint. So in their infinite wisdom they actually did it right ...

Also about the icon files, icon files for system items are different in a per region basis, which is why people will see the ?. Again, their infinite wisdon shows up. (They never expected that people would do cross linking tricks on their memory cards lol)

Anyway I'd suggest that you give my previous suggestions a try and check for the results. Also make sure your tool format the memory card before starting. For obvious reasons you are well aware of now.

Finally thanks for looking up into the problem and making this new installer.

[RandQalan]

1 with uninstall I get 1k corruption and copy prohibited file so i left it no reformat
2 unplug and reinstall and corruption is gone
3 tried to uninstall again same as one
4 reinstalled normal and 1k gone
5 tried muti install over regular everything went well

So uninstall full leave 1k copy protected file

[SP193]

A lot of bugs and faults were patched in this release:

1. FMCB installations should now be faster. Files are being read in as the files are being written to the memory card asynchronously.
2. Fixed a bug in MCTOOLS where deletion of unused clusters doesn't work properly and trashes up the FAT and directory records.
3. Changed the uninstallation part of the FMCB installer to use the ROMVER string that was recorded into the FMCB uninstall file (SYS-CONF/uninstall.dat).
   It's important as the console used for uninstalling the old FMCB installation might be of a different region code from the console used for making that old installation.
4. Added more checks and warnings to the installer.
5. Changed the properties that the crossed linked directory entries will come with. Directories will now be non-copyable and all directory entries are read-only.
6. Split off process of uninstalling of FMCB from the process of downgrading to a normal installation by removing the cross-linked files and folders.
   This was not only to prevent a possible failure that could occur by performing file I/O after manipulating the card's filesystem layout, but to give users more flexibility and reduce the number of writes to the cards.
7. Consolidated all checks into one function to reduce the amount of redundant code.
8. Corrected some errors in the uninstallation file generation function. It might remove the wrong file during an event of failure.
9. Declared some buffers as global. Hopefully, that will make things easier to manage and to reduce the amount of stack overflows.
10. Re-written the prerequisite check system. Now all checks and error messages are displayed from a single function to save space.
11. The uninstaller has been fixed.
12. The installer system has been altered to be easier to understand and to be simpler in design.

Note: Unfortunately, I've discovered that the v0.90 and v0.91 installers have a terrible problem that causes them to generate malformed uninstallation data files, rendering uninstallation of multi-installations impossible.

However, I have created a cleanup utility that can perform an uninstallation of the multi-installation without the uninstall.dat file.
Hence, it is also useful for users who have damaged or had accidentally deleted the uninstall.dat file.

Therefore, if you have used v0.90 or v0.91 before and have made a multi-installation with either one of them, please use the cleanup utility to uninstall your multi-installation first!

And I should probably mention that unlike the FMCB installers created by Jimmikaelkael, my installers and utilities do not totally remove FMCB when the "Uninstall MI" option is selected.

Instead, only the extra features that make a normal FMCB installation a multi-installation are removed. Hence, uninstalling a multi-installation will only convert the FMCB installation into a normal FMCB installation.

Please read the notes posted on the homepage for more details about the menu options.

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Well let me explain how flash memory works:

Each page is 512 bytes with 16 bytes of error correction data. When you overwrite something, you have to erase the whole page and that's why having one entry per page do make sense on a engineering standpoint. So in their infinite wisdom they actually did it right ...

You are almost totally correct, but:

1. The FLASH memory in the MCs is erased in blocks (Usually 16 or 32 pages long, depending on the card), and not individual pages.
2. The erased regions are programmed in pages with the desired data.
3. It's actually 3 bytes of ECC data per 128 byte-long section of each page with another 4 bytes of padding (512/128*3+4 = 16).

It's still not a valid excuse to not cram 2 entries into one page though. Unless the engineers at Sony had already realized how useless and slow the IOP already was and implemented the MC filesystem that way to improve it's already pathetic performance.

Frankly, it seems more like an act of laziness lol.

The ISO9660 filesystem does cram as many records as possible into each sector. Each CD-ROM sector has a 2048-byte data area and not a contiguous area of memory.

I think that the normal Microsoft FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems have that behavior too.... but I am not too sure about that.

Also about the icon files, icon files for system items are different in a per region basis, which is why people will see the ?. Again, their infinite wisdon shows up. (They never expected that people would do cross linking tricks on their memory cards lol)

Hmm... I think that you are mistaken. The icons appear correctly in the browsers of my consoles, but the sizes of the 2 cross-linked folders appear as "?" for the SCPH-77006 console.





The image at the top shows what anyone would probably see with a "modern" console, and the image below shows what I see with my SCPH-10000 console.

Both images are showing the same folder.

Oh, and just in case that wasn't what you were referring to: There isn't a field in the icon file that states the size of the folder.

Anyway I'd suggest that you give my previous suggestions a try and check for the results. Also make sure your tool format the memory card before starting. For obvious reasons you are well aware of now.

Well, that will have to wait until I have confidence that the my tool isn't damaging the filesystems of the users' cards.

Finally thanks for looking up into the problem and making this new installer.

Thank you very much for your help in a lot of areas too.

[dsgamer]

Thanks SP193, great job. I will install it now to have a look.

Is it already considered stable, like Jimmikaelkael's (and others) version?

[SP193]

Thanks SP193, great job. I will install it now to have a look.

Is it already considered stable, like Jimmikaelkael's (and others) version?

Thanks.
Frankly, I have no idea.

After I posted it, nobody made any comments.
The only test results I got were from myself and RandQalan.

So I suppose that since approximately a week has passed and nobody complained about it, it must be stable (lol?).

I cannot really do any more tests because I only have one working 8MB memory card left (The other 2 got trashed during the tests).
My 2 new 64MB compatible cards just arrived today, so I'll see whether they can have FMCB installed on them tomorrow.

[dsgamer]

Ok, nice. I've just installed multi-install and it works just fine. Only thing is that I added my own apps (open ps2 loader and ps2esdl) and replaced the config file, but they don't show up in the browser.

Apps that I want to appear in the browser, should I put them in the boot folder? I might have done something wrong though.

At one point I thought the program froze. But as it turned out I was using controller 2, which is ok for browser and ulaunch, but not for the fmbc installer gui :o.

[RandQalan]

what I did was backup my config file on another MC or just copy to USB or PC and restore it your config for FMCB was reset during installation
or you could just FMCB config and make changes manually