Problems using PS2 HDD

[Velocity_7]

I'm having trouble with two games that are on my PS2 HDD, Star Ocean 3 Director's Cut and Xenosaga II. For Star Ocean 3, sometimes after I go to another area the game would freeze up and the HDD would be turned off. The same thing happens with Xenosaga II, and often happens after a cutscene (particularly long ones). Any idea how to fix this problem?

By the way, other games still work fine with it (e.g., Virtual-ON Marz).

[T07N]

Uhm, isn't Xenosaga II DVD9? Did you patch it up correctly?

[Velocity_7]

Xenosaga II is officially DVD5, two discs.

Looks like someone else has the same problem I'm having:

From Fat_Mike's Compatibility List Thread:
Xenosaga 2 boots fine but it will hang and stop loading in after a cutscene or a change to a different area. When and where it will hang and stop loading could be anytime but eventually it will making it pretty much impossible to get far in the game. I would hate to play off the dvd since the loading times are horrible. I tried all 8 combinations and it still does the same thing.

I imagine there must be some sort of patch I should apply before attempting this again (but by no means is this a Xenosaga I patch, as we are talking about Xenosaga II after all.

EDIT: There are hints pointing at the possibility I need to patch the ATAD.IRX file. Is this true? (Most likely, considering the fact that it tries to access the HDD, itself...)

[caball88]

Xenosaga II is officially DVD5, two discs.

Looks like someone else has the same problem I'm having:


I imagine there must be some sort of patch I should apply before attempting this again (but by no means is this a Xenosaga I patch, as we are talking about Xenosaga II after all.

EDIT: There are hints pointing at the possibility I need to patch the ATAD.IRX file. Is this true? (Most likely, considering the fact that it tries to access the HDD, itself...)

i think the only thing that can patch the atad.irx is the dms 3 chip.

[Velocity_7]

No, the DMS 3 just does auto-patching. I can patch the images manually, but I am wondering if it will solve the problem I'm having with this game, Xenosaga II, and Armored Core Nexus (which I failed to mention). Oh, did I mention all of them have ATAD.IRX? ^_^;

[relfie]

The ATAD.IRX is what accesses the HDD and the NA. If you know what you have to change, you can use hex editor to patch the atad.irx file. For instance...in the DMS forum...someone there has the code to patch the atad.irx file for the hdd utilities to get a 3rd party hdd to show up in browser like an official.

[Velocity_7]

Too bad I can't find out who actually has the information I really need.

I've tested Xenosaga 2 again with compatibility modes. Yes, it's still freezing up, but it's worse with any combination involving Mode 2 (freezes the HDD altogether before the game even starts).

[relfie]

that definetly sucks!

[Velocity_7]

Indeed.

Just tested with Star Ocean 3. Activating Mode 1 & 3 reduces the chances of freezing, but not enough unfortunately. Activating all modes will cause the game to freeze up before even booting.

Also recently found out that Xenosaga II doesn't have ATAD.IRX after all. However, Xenosaga II is more likely to freeze up than Star Ocean 3 will... this is really really weird...

[relfie]

Velocity 7, you might want to try going to ps2dev.org, and try their forums. Someone there may have the answer for you. As they seem to be the smartest of us all.

-I hope that posting this address doesn't present a problem, and if it does, just delete my thread admin and mods.-