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Originally Posted by
osirisale
I'm currently attempting a 2tb hdd install with the cheapo Chinese native SATA adaptor... So far, minimal success. I know that I can format it with DMS HDD Format Tool, but it reads as negative space (as does WinHiip). Also, my modified .7c HDL 48-bit version will format it fine, seemed to freeze when I attempted a game install though.
There are two kinds of problems involved here. One is that each game is installed by allocating space for a new partition to hold that game (only), and that partition space has to be allocated from the remaining free space of the HDD. So any failure to handle this total size in checking for free space can cause the install to fail.
The other problem relates to how generic function errors are flagged by negative return values. So any functions supposed to return remaining free space or some specific sector number, will be seen as returning some undefined error code whenever they are trying to return a value that has the top bit set (the sign bit).
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I know if I could just find A tool, ANY tool, that'd partition it properly, I could get my stuff loaded onto it fine aside from the main HDL partition.
I'm sorry, but that is probably a misunderstanding, based on how HDDs are used by a normal PC. It is not done the same way at all for the PS2.
The games are not installed 'inside' some HDL partition. They are installed with each game stored as a separate partition of its own, independent of all others.
There is no partitioning done to create the free pool of sectors from which game partitions are allocated what they use. That was done by the main formatting.
There is an HDL settings partition "hdd0:/HDLoader Settings/", but I doubt very much that its use is the main cause of the problems you've seen.
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HDL will read it, at least the version I used in initial testing (.7c 48-bit patched),
How do you know it would work, if you never managed to partition the stuff the way you mentioned ?
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so I'm thinking if I just wanted a 2tb gaming HDD, I could likely use HDL_Dumb or PS2 HDD Handiness or the like (in theory, lol) I'd be fine, but my PS2 game collection rests at just shy of 500gb last I knew. Major waste of space there, my 500gb IDE or my 500gb SATA would do that job just as well.
The SATA would of course require an extra adapter to work at all, but apart from that I agree. Very few users have a game collection large enough to warrant larger HDDs.
(And WinHiip would need to be patched to allow a truly large number of games anyway, as it does have a limit of 256.)
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I found a PC-based tool that MIGHT do the trick, but as of yet, I cannot test it, as my IDE/SATA HDD Enclosure broke recently of overuse (cheap lousy wires, poorly soldered). Waiting to see my buddy who has the same one to test further theories. I've heard of success online up to 1.5tb, but I'd need to wait for payday to buy a 1 and 1.5TB drive to test the real limits myself.
I have no idea what you mean by "success online" here.
What possible online PS2 usage could make sensible use of an additional 1.5 TB of HDD space, beyond what you use to store the games ?
Or perhaps you simply meant that it was online that you heard of such large-HDD use. (Your phrasing can be taken either way :lol:)
In any case, I see little real use in having massive space on a PS2 HDD, beyond the game storage needs (more on why follows further below).
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And possibly a new enclosure, LOL. No ideas whether HDL .8C works with my test unit, hasn't really been my priority. SMS read the disk fine but obviously I had no media partitions on it just yet. uLE formatted it just fine but cannot partition it (also reads as negative space, any attempts to create a partition just seem to "confuse" uLE... Doesn't freeze, just acts like it did something but in fact it's done nothing) for use with media players.
uLE probably tries to do what you order it, but never gets anywhere, as any attempt to calculate space or allocate sectors returns a negative number == Error code.
And since non-standard error codes have no sensible interpretation, none of the standard error cases can be recognized (else you'd see specific error messages).
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Thus far, it seems that TRUE 48-bit support isn't entirely an option for PS2 users. No idea why not, but I'm not a dev,
But I am, and the basic problem here is very obvious, as some functions use insufficient word size for handling some of the values involved in calculated size and allocated sector numbers of such an HDD. This can relate both to the PS2 HDD device driver lib functions and the values those functions return, and also to the usage of each separate PS2 application using such return values in too 'cramped' word sizes leading to misinterpreted values.
That the same thing also happens in WinHiip, though it is a PC application using entirely different libs, just goes to show how easily this sort of thing can happen when software designed for an earlier generation of storage drives have to try dealing with a newer generation with much larger storage capacity. This problem is general, not at all specific to the PS2, though all modern OS versions of other systems have of course adapted to the new HDD sizes. But for the PS2 there is no 'modern OS' (or any at all really... :().
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just a capable psychopath with too much free time on his hands. If I do succeed, I'll be sure to say how it was done.
Please do. I wish you the best of luck in it, though I also find it hard to believe in success without new software of several kinds (drivers and driver-using apps)
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More testing, tinkering, and cursing vainly at the screen will be required before I know more. And an enclosure would help... Damn that thing's timing LOL.
Even if I swing it with 1.5tb I'll be satisfied... 1tb and I'd still be willing to call it a good purchase. Either way, it doubles or triples my current capacity to the point where my full media collection can be safely stored without needing my 500gb FAT32 externals so much. Not the biggest fan of the USB-based performance with media.
PS2 USB is not capable of giving good movie playback even at modest movie bit-rates (maybe 1000kbps, for a good USB drive, but not much more).
But I still don't see it as a good alternative to store an entire media collection on a PS2's internal HDD, even if that is the unit you always use for playback of movies and TV shows.
For many years I too used the PS2 as my main movie and TV-series playback unit, but I never bothered to transfer the media files to the PS2 HDD for it, partly because it would simply be too bothersome to keep doing that all the time, and partly because I wanted the fat PS2 in my workroom, which is not where I normally watch my HDTV set. That is in my living-room where I have a slim v15 PSTwo, so no PS2 HDD available. But that was never a problem since I preferred to use the SMB interface of SMS in playing my media files, and this allows much higher playback bitrates than the USB interface does. (Though at high HDTV resolutions it still falters above a few thousand kbps.) Thus I used SMS to play media files directly from media folders on the HDDs of computers in my LAN.
I used this playback method exclusively for several years (ever since SMS gained working SMB routines) until some time ago, when I bought a specialized LAN media player unit of the 'Roxcore' brand, which I believe is also marketed in the US as "Mvix". (The model I chose is one without HDD, and thus cheaper than the more commonly advertised 'flagship' model which comes with an HDD (or HDD bay anyway).) This unit then replaced SMS in my use of the same media collection, giving me compatibility to a few more media file formats (MKV, MP4 etc) as well as raising the LAN throughput for media playing above what a PS2 is capable of.
For anyone wanting to use the PS2 for all media playback I strongly recommend using the SMB mode of SMS to do it.
Like I said above, this method served me very well for many years.
Best regards: dlanor
