Red screen - related to boot.elf?

[patrana]

Hi,

I own a "fat" PS2 which has served me very well over the years, despite the amount of tweaking and heavy use it has been subjected to. Currently it has a modbo chip and an ethernet card with a HD, and it is configured to start on DEV2 mode (booting from the HD). The boot.elf was a copy of ULE 4.16/4.19 (unfortunately, cannot check at the moment), working flawlessly.

The problem is that today I decided to do some maintenance on my dear PS2: added a couple of games to the HD, and updated the default ULE to the latest version (4.40). As usual, I overwrote "/bootpartition-cantrecalltherightname/BOOT.ELF" with the newest ELF file (the compressed one, in case it matters). After rebooting, the PS2 hangs after showing the chip load screen with a completely red screen.

After browsing for a while, unfortunately I was not able to find a reliable source by myself that explains the problem, though a couple of forums point to issues with the autoloaded BOOT.ELF. Could this be the case? For the record, I was able to load and run the ELF correctly from inside the older ULE version (ie launching it from the file browser). Could it be a problem with the case of BOOT.ELF (the older ULE filename was on lowercase)?

To make things worse, the DVD reader of the PS2 has been dead for a long time, and unfortunately I do not have a memory card with some ELFs on it that I could boot from. This means that I currently have no easy method of booting somehow a copy of ULE and try to replace the BOOT.ELF (if that is the source of the problem, of course). The solutions I can think to my problem are:

a) get someone to put the ULE ELF in a memory card for me (probably using a modded PS2) - unfortunately I do not know anyone with a modded PS2 near my area
b) replace the DVD reader with a working one, and boot ULE from a DVD - might be tricky to find and replace the DVD reader
c) attach the HD to a PC, and replace the ELF from within the filesystem - is this even possible? I know some programs are able to modify the HDL partitions (since I have no DVD reader, I usually use hdl_dump for that matter); however I am unable to find a program that allows full access to the PS2 filesystem.

Am I missing something? Could someone please give me more information on how to solve this issue? Thanks a lot in advance, and don't hesitate on asking me any questions if you need more information - your help will be very much appreciated!

[amp2006]

(4.40). As usual, I overwrote "/bootpartition-cantrecalltherightname/BOOT.ELF" with the newest ELF file (the compressed one, in case it matters). After rebooting, the PS2 hangs after showing the chip load screen with a completely red screen.

case sensitive here they should be in lowercase boot.elf not BOOT.ELF

if you have not way to run backups or Homebrew in your case its seem you don't have well i suggest you go for FMCB volunteer thread

c) attach the HD to a PC, and replace the ELF from within the filesystem - is this even possible? I know some programs are able to modify the HDL partitions (since I have no DVD reader, I usually use hdl_dump for that matter); however I am unable to find a program that allows full access to the PS2 filesystem.

there is an app its called PFS Explorer but its buggy and it may corrupt your HDD

[JNABK]

For the record, I was able to load and run the ELF correctly from inside the older ULE version (ie launching it from the file browser). Could it be a problem with the case of BOOT.ELF (the older ULE filename was on lowercase)?

Yes, it MUST be lower case letters. If you can still access the old uLe, then rename it to lower case. If you cant, then use the older uLe to delete that new one and rename the copy on your USB device to lower case, then copy/paste it using the older uLe.

I'd strongly advise against using PFS Explorer, as the risk to screwing up your HDD is far worse than the simple fix i just mentioned.

[patrana]

Thank you both very much for your quick answer and for the confirmation that the problem is probably in the case of the filename BOOT.ELF.

Yes, it MUST be lower case letters. If you can still access the old uLe, then rename it to lower case. If you cant, then use the older uLe to delete that new one and rename the copy on your USB device to lower case, then copy/paste it using the older uLe.

I'm afraid I cannot launch any ELF from my PS2 at this point (DVD is not working, HD has the wrong filename for the boot.elf file, and my MC does not have any elf on it - and I have no means of modifying its contents). Also, the HD is IDE, not USB: I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but I think your solution would not apply in my case. Also, is there a way of booting from USB?

Regarding PFS Explorer: thanks for your information and the advise against using it. However, considering the options, I might give it a try despite being buggy. I will try to make a raw backup of the HD, apply PFS Explorer to rename the file, and pray

Again, thank you both for the help. I will report back after trying PFS Explorer, just in case it helps someone else that has a similar problem. Best regards!

[JNABK]

Also, the HD is IDE, not USB: I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but I think your solution would not apply in my case. Also, is there a way of booting from USB?

I thought you were still able to run the old uLe, so i was saying you could copy/paste the new boot.elf off a USB stick if you had one. But if you can no longer run the old ELF, then it wont do any good that way.

Im not sure of what your Modbo's capability is, but some chips supported running ELFs from a USB device, like the 2 chips i have: CC 2.0 SLE and DMS4 Pro SE.

[amp2006]

modbos only have Dev2 and Dev1

[dlanor]

@patrana:
I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the uLaunchELF update, caused by the character 'case'. The filename as used in the uLE release package was chosen to match the most common usage, either for modchip Dev1 installation on MC or for the various softmod methods, all of which need the upper-case form of the "BOOT.ELF" filename.

At present the easiest ways to fix your problem would be as follows:

1: Find someone else you know who has a modded (hard or soft) PS2 console, and use that console to prepare a Dev1 or FMCB boot setup for uLE on one of your MCs. This can be used as-is of course, but will also allow you to repair your Dev2 boot setup, simply by using uLE to rename the file "hdd0:/__boot/BOOT.ELF" to "boot.elf" instead, as required for Dev2 booting.

2: Send off your MC to one of the FMCB installers, to have a full softmod install made.
That MC can then be used to boot uLE on any console you please, even unmodded ones. And for your modded console this too can be used to rename the Dev2 file as mentioned above.

Either way, I recommend always having some MC available with a working boot setup using either Dev1 or FMCB methods, so that you can repair any future damage to the Dev2 setup, as that may sometimes become needed even without any user error involved (like this time). And for these purposes a full softmod like FMCB is more certain to work than a mere Dev1 install (as that relies entirely on the modchip firmware).

For example, the modchip in one of my own consoles (a DMS4pro) has sometimes needed reflashing of its firmware in order to regain normal operation, and without a working softmod I might not have been able to do that as needed.

Having a fully working softmod MC, independent of any modchip, is always a good idea.

Best regards: dlanor

[patrana]

Thank you again for your efforts on helping me diagnose and solve this issue: it is very uncommon to find such a detailed and friendly support, it is very kind from you.

After reading your answers and evaluating the different solutions available, it seemed to me that my safest bet would be to resort to the FMCB volunteer thread (which is another example of the amazing community you have been gathered here). However, during the weekend I decided to try my luck with PFS Explorer and pfsshell by applying them to a raw backup of the PS2 HD (after your warning about the possibility of corrupting the HD) ... And I am pleased to announce that I have been able to rename the file to lowercase, meaning that my dear PS2 is booting correctly in DEV2 mode and working flawlessly again!

The way I renamed the file was not very conventional (actually involving hex editing), but I am posting here the process I followed, in the hopes it can be of help to anyone else. Also, all the steps have been done on a Linux machine, which should not be too relevant but I think it is worth noticing.

- The first thing I made was a raw image of the HD, using the dd command. This way if anything went wrong I could always get the HD back to the prior state.

- My first intention was to use pfsshell [1], specially since I was very impressed with the hdl_dump tool. I had no high hopes, since the readme stated that it lacked little endian compatibility. The source code was did not compile on neither my regular machine (amd64) nor a 32-bit chroot, due to errors related to pointer arithmetic and casting [2]. I tried to hack my way around the error, and I got it to compile. The executable was able to list the contents of the HD and mount the partitions, but I got an error whenever I tried to do something with the files (rename, delete).

- Noticing that pfsshell had a precompiled Windows binary, and that PS2 PFS Explorer [3] was also Windows only, I tried to run them with wine to see if it was worth trying to find a real Windows machine to which I could attach the HD. I noticed then that PFS Explorer had an option of working with an image file instead of working with the device: nice! I loaded a copy of the image, and played with it for a while.

- I renamed hd0:/__boot/BOOT.ELF to hd0:/__boot/boot.elf, saved and it seemed to be renamed "properly" (ie loading the image back into the program, it showed the filename in lowercase). However, after writing the new image to the HD using dd and plugging the HD back into the PS2, the same dreadful red screen appeared.

- My first step was to try to delete the existing hd0:/__boot/boot.elf, add a new hd0:/__boot/boot.elf, and see if it worked: no luck, red screen again. At this point I must admit I felt the need for swearing!

- Still, hoping that the PFS filesystem was a relatively simple one, I tracked the differences among the original image file and the "renamed" image file. As expected, the only difference was in a once of place on the file (replacing the string BOOT.ELF with boot.elf). I looked for more occurences occurences of BOOT.ELF in the original file using the strings command, and noticed that there were 2 more occurances near the position of the replaced string, and several others in distant position on the file. Using an hex editor (hexedit), I took a more detailed look and then finally decided to replace the 2 nearest occurences of BOOT.ELF to boot.elf.

- And it surprisingly worked! I did some light checks to see if the changes did not have second hand effects (ie copying files to/from the hd, navigating through the HD, launching some games) and everything seems fine at the moment.

Of course, the first thing to do was to put ULE in the memory card for being able to DEV1 boot, and I will installing a fully working softmod during the week, just in case the unexpected happens. Again, thanks a lot everyone for your support, and keep the good work! Best regards

[1] http://hdldump.psx-scene.com/
[2] http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthre...light=pfsshell (Pfsshell ?)
[3] http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthre...light=pfsshell (PS2 PFS Explorer 0.7.0.26b English)

[JNABK]

Glad to hear you were able to sort out the issues, seems like a lot of work, but still glad you were able to get it to work.

[dlanor]

Thank you again for your efforts on helping me diagnose and solve this issue: it is very uncommon to find such a detailed and friendly support, it is very kind from you.

It is how we always like to do things here, but that also depends a lot on the attitude of a newcomer, such as yourself.

Some people arrive here showing a hostile attitude from the start, and then we deal with them in an entirely different manner...

----- snip ----- re: long story (interesting, but no need for me to repeat it here)

- Still, hoping that the PFS filesystem was a relatively simple one, I tracked the differences among the original image file and the "renamed" image file. As expected, the only difference was in a once of place on the file (replacing the string BOOT.ELF with boot.elf). I looked for more occurences occurences of BOOT.ELF in the original file using the strings command, and noticed that there were 2 more occurances near the position of the replaced string, and several others in distant position on the file. Using an hex editor (hexedit), I took a more detailed look and then finally decided to replace the 2 nearest occurences of BOOT.ELF to boot.elf.

- And it surprisingly worked! I did some light checks to see if the changes did not have second hand effects (ie copying files to/from the hd, navigating through the HD, launching some games) and everything seems fine at the moment.

This passage of your story was particularly interesting as it proves that part of the reason why PFS Explorer can corrupt HDDs is because its programming is based on an incorrect assumption of how the 'real' file and folder names are stored. This hints strongly at an incomplete definition of the HDD directory structs for the PFS filesystem, which may also affect even more crucial data fields than some mere filenames.

Of course, the first thing to do was to put ULE in the memory card for being able to DEV1 boot, and I will installing a fully working softmod during the week, just in case the unexpected happens.

That is always advisable, and with FMCB it has the added advantage that the 'mod' is portable, as you can bring that MC with you and boot it on any other PS2/PSTwo console you may find available (at a friend's or wherever), as long as it is of the same region and not one of the most recent models (which block FMCB through the new bios).

Best regards: dlanor