New BOOT.ELF for PS2 Independance Exploit

[Kamilion]

Anyone willing to spend some time on this?

A program that will display a menu, capible of booting from CD or MC, and allow the following:

Boot from Independance Exploit
Boot from CD

Main menu

Listing ALL files on BOTH memory cards & cdrom (Not just in mc0:/B?DATA-SYSTEM)
Ability to copy/move any file from any directory, cdrom and either MC
Ability to delete any file OR directory from either MC
Ability to run any .ELF from CDROM or MC
Ability to recognise subdirectories within main directories on MC -- Browser apparently has problems with the PS2REALITY directory if there is additional directories under PS2REALITY

Ability to stop a CD by button press / menu entry
Ability to re-authenticate a disc by a button combination / menu entry
Ability to refresh CD after swapping, and unlimited swaps
Ability to run a disc via system.cnf (and also uses the BOOT2 entry in system.cnf to locate an executable file, even if it is not named with an .ELF extension (Like SLUS_900.80 for instance))

EG, load from BOOT.ELF on MC, with PSX cd in drive.
I have a trayswitch, so I press eject, light flashes, I flip switch, tray comes out
I remove PSX CD, place in a disc of my choice (say, Swapmagic DVD or other large TOC'd original) then hit square to stop the disc after it's authenticated, swap it with a CD-R/DVD-R then either run the system.cnf or select a .ELF directly from the CD after refreshing by pressing O.

Something like this would be much appreciated...
I don't even mind an interface as simple as Jum's loader.
If your willing to work on this for a while, maybe a drag & drop style system with a cursor might work better. (Left/right analog stick controls cursor, L1/R1 as cursor 'clicks')

I'd appreciate anyone else's input...

And also -- If you decide to take this project on, please distribute the source as well.

Hope someone gets the right ideas for this...
I'll elaborate a bit more if anyone needs some clarification of what I'm talking about.

P.S. -- An additional nifty feature to include would be a TXT file displayer.
Be kinda nice to look at some of the config files, or even upload a walkthrough for a game or something... (Heck, this would even allow people to read ebooks on their PS2 -- how cool would that be?) -- With the latest version of PS2Reality's MCLOADER, you can give options to a program, like a command line... Perhaps the textreader could be a seperate .ELF file that takes an arguement on load?

Heck, why not add a command line with a USB keyboard too? J/K

Edit:

By the way, I think Jum included source with his loader -- might be a good starting point.

If you're wondering why I'm just proposing this instead of saying "Hey, I'mma do this!"
It's cuz I can't code worth a damn. However, to people who can code, this would probably be a somewhat trivial project. Thus, I hath proposed it to the community.

I'm pretty much looking for a more advanced version of CDLOADER, loadable from a memory card, except without all the pretty graphics, and the addition of file management.

If this does get worked on, remember -- KEEP IT SMALL AS POSSIBLE! This is supposed to be able to live on a memory card, and not everyone has 5MB free...

Allowing the use of unrar.irx would also be a boon, but that's optional (and rather trivial.)

[Gherudos]

i am now learning on coding in c++
maybe in a couple of months i can help you...
Oh i also know coding in an old language the turbo Pascal.

[Fat_Mike]

Ability to re-authenticate a disc by a button combination / menu entry

How is that even possible without any chip installed?

[mkd2018]

this doesn't sound like it's possible

[Kamilion]

It's definitely possible.

Reauthentication -- just triggering the hardware to LOOK at the protection, not accually bypassing it...

This sounds like a useless feature, until I explain.

I use a trayswitch. When I put it in, my eject BUTTON no longer pops the tray out.

So, if I yank the switch while the disc is stopped and swap it out with another one, the disc is never reauthenticated.

This is how the swaptrick works.



The button combination I'm referring to would be like tap L2, L1, R1, L2, in that order, and would trick the PS2 into thinking the tray ejected, and came back in, and reauthenticate the disc.

So, here is it's practical application.

I put a disc in my PS2, then turn it on.
I stick any authentic PS2 disc in the drive(With or without pressing eject)

Then I hit the 'Reauthenticate disc' button, and it acts like I've just placed the disc in the drive and checks the authenticity. Since it's an original disc, the authenticity check passes, and the loader notices that it's an X type of disc (Where X is one of the following: PSX disc, PS2 CD, PS2 DVD, Unsupported media (CDR/DVDR/Anything else)) and then just sits there for user input.

I hit Square to stop the disc. I use my switch and extract the disc. I stick my backup in, without the PS2 noticing that the disc has been swapped, and boot it.

Basically, it's just adding a manual entrypoint to an otherwise automatic function. It's not all that nessicary to the functioning of the program.

[.hacker]

Its possible but extremely improbable. If it was that easy then people would have done that ages ago. You would have to find some way of somehow fooling the ps2 into thinking the tray isnt open through software means. People have been trying to figure that out with no luck for 3 years now. Dont bother waiting, it's not gonna happen.

get a modchip for craps sake.

[ADW]

Originally posted by .hacker
Its possible but extremely improbable. If it was that easy then people would have done that ages ago. You would have to find some way of somehow fooling the ps2 into thinking the tray isnt open through software means. People have been trying to figure that out with no luck for 3 years now. Dont bother waiting, it's not gonna happen.

get a modchip for craps sake.

As far as I can see, Kamilion wants a plain version of CDLoader with the functionality of cdrom/mc file management and executable running.

This would be great for people who need to swap to play backups. Instead of loading AR2/GS2/SM2, then CD Loader, then high-toc DVD then the backup to load dvdr they could use this to skip the AR2/GS2/SM2 step completely.

[Fat_Mike]

Man, you should really get yourself a modchip. There's is almost no way the exploit will ever boot backup so stop dreaming. This is mainly for homebrew software so, if you are interested in backup you should just get yourself a Magic 3.1, they are really cheap and do the job.

[ton23]

excellent features. i especially like the load any ELF from CD. you should go further with that and make it so that even Naplink/pukklink ELFs boot. what i mean by that is that they use the system call HOST0: to load other files because it expects to be run from PC. just make it so that everytime an ELF asks HOST0, it masks it back to CDROM0, that way full integration of ELF files can be made.

i know nothing about programming however so i am sorry to say i cannot help you.

[Kamilion]

Originally posted by Fat_Mike
Man, you should really get yourself a modchip. There's is almost no way the exploit will ever boot backup so stop dreaming. This is mainly for homebrew software so, if you are interested in backup you should just get yourself a Magic 3.1, they are really cheap and do the job.

Yeah, I should just pull a fistfull of dollars out of midair and plunk it down on a modchip.

Reality check -- not all of us are rich (in monitary means -- there are many other ways of being rich than having lots of money)

I'm one of those people.
I couldn't afford a PS2. My ex bought it for me as a christmas present.
I couldn't afford a GS2. I traded all my old nintendo games and stuff in for a $49 store credit at funcoland (now gamestop) to get it.
I, however, COULD afford a $1.69 switch.

I'd still like to see a program like this, even though I'll probably get a Swap Magic 3.0 disc set with the slide card (and keep the card in my CD case for use on other PS2s)

CDLoader does a damn good job, but I can't figure out how to get it to boot from mcloader.

And there still isn't a replacement filesystem browser that does a good job.

Hell, I'd like to see bzip2 compression used on the PS2 to keep space down, but rar 2.x does a good enough job as it is.

If one could get CDLoader running from a memory card and be as usuable (problem is, it boots, and you can put in an original disc, and the background turns red and crashes there, just before asking for the disc to swap to.) as from a CDR, that would do a good enough job for me to put off buying more stuff for the PS2 and focus the small amount of money I do manage to gather on other, more important things (More important than my PS2?! Inconcevable! )