Fmcb help

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by revized

i thought the ATA interface card would have the power/ide connection facing the rear of the pc.

No. The normal assumption is that the cards are intended for extra drives internal to the PC, so the connectors are usually not accessible from the rear of the PC.

no matter if using a interface card is faster then that is the way i will go, only one more question , after i install the iso`s with hdl.dumb on a 300gig maxtor drive , is their a way to clone the drive to yet another 300 gig maxtor drive , so i would not have to reinstall each iso again?

WinHiip can clone contents of one PS2 drive onto another such drive.

i always wondered about this as i would like to have a backup incase the drive ever has reconizing issue`s in hdloader, as this was always my error in the past after a year or so of playing, and i didn`t want to drag the images from one drive to the pc then to the ps2 hdd and so on.

I see what you mean, but if you keep adding new games as you acquire them it can be a lot of extra work to also keep a backup updated...

thank you for all the excelent advice you have shared m8 !

I'm glad to help. That is the purpose of these forums.

btw... when you said a "real ATA interface card interface" i just checked online for the ata interface card and i see how they are set up with the input connections in the inside or the pc rather then the rear , oh well i wanted to ask you this question, the data transfer rate for the Adaptec Ultra ATA Card 1233 found here w.adaptec.com/en-US/support/sata/ata/ASH-1233/ is said to be at 133 MByte/sec is this not a real ATA interface card?

The card described by the techie specs on that page seems to be a perfectly normal ATA card. The only odd thing about it is that the page has "sata" in its URL, but that's probably just due to how they organize their folder trees.

The specs are what matters here, and they describe a normal ATA interface card.

and this usb 2.0 found here w.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/jones_02august05.mspx said a new version of USB, USB 2.0, with a hefty 480 Mbps data transfer rate, making it faster than IEEE 1394 (FireWire),

is this true , or can i use this "new 2.0" thingy they are refering to? or is it a hoax.

The USB 2.0 standard (not very new anymore) can only be used with hardware built for it. I use a rather old computer myself, and to use USB 2.0 with this I had to buy an add-on interface card, implementing additional USB ports.

Devices built to fill USB 2.0 specs are normally (but not always) also compatible to the older USB 1.1 specs and protocols used by the PS2. However, the higher speed will only be obtained when a USB 2.0 device is plugged into a USB 2.0 interface. So you will never get the higher speed while such a device is plugged into a PS2 (so it can't be used to speed up USBAdvance).

The higher speed of USB 2.0 is really needed when using a USB adaptor to install HDLoader games to a PS2 HDD, as the speed would otherwise be slower than the speed you get when installing games over network with hdl_dumb.

Still, for raw speed in installing HDLoader games there is nothing which can beat having the PS2 drive connected directly to an ATA IDE interface on the PC.

can you recommend maybe the cable that you have , cuz for me as their as tons to chose from and i really dont understand all the tech stuff.

I can only recommend what I've tested myself, and that isn't many at all.

I tried one cheap USB enclosure which caused corrupted data, so I threw it away.

But I currently have a "DELTACO USB SATA/IDE adapter kit" which I'm very happy with
This is a kit which allows both SATA and ATA drives to be connected to a USB port of a PC.

The kit contains several different parts, one of which is a separate power supply intended only for the external drive, and the other main component is the adaptor cable with a USB connector at one end and the IDE and SATA connectors at the other end. In addition to these there are also extra SATA cables (both for power and interface connectors) and a Y-splitter USB cable, so the new drive can be connected even when all USB connectors of the computer are already occupied.

Their product code for this adapter kit is 'SATA-61', but their presentation of it on their webpage (www.deltaco.eu) is ridiculous, showing only the main interface cable and none of the other stuff.

Best regards: dlanor

[revized]

i found it just like you said , and it looks just right ! it even has english translation , although i cant see how to purchase the item on this page w.deltaco.eu/Details.aspx?PID=SATA-61&lang=eng
i see no add to cart and the contact number is in another country

i found one on ebay for like 12 usd thank again !
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250294822593

"yooshi!"

[revized]

hey bro , i plugged in the power adapter to the wall that it came with and then the usb cord to the pc, and the pc said found the maxtor and is installed and ready to be used although cant find the drive on my computer anywhere. it is not in device manager that i can see or seen in disk management

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by revized

hey bro , i plugged in the power adapter to the wall that it came with and then the usb cord to the pc, and the pc said found the maxtor and is installed and ready to be used

Where, when, and how did it say that ?
I do not automatically get any such messages when plugging in a new USB device.
But possibly you plugged it in with PC powered-off, and then turned the PC on. Right ?

although cant find the drive on my computer anywhere. it is not in device manager that i can see or seen in disk management

That is very strange, as I do see my disk in both those places, although differently described in each place.

I start by right-clicking 'my computer' and then left-click 'Manage' in its popup menu.
That opens the 'Computer Management' window with 'Device Manager' in the 'System Tools' category and 'Disk Management' in the 'Storage' category.

Left-clicking 'Device Manager' shifts the main window area to show the devices, and opening up the 'Disk drives' section then shows me the three internal HDD drives plus one more, which is described as "ST330083 1A USB Device", but yours will look a bit different as the first parts of that string are derived from the IDE drive (a Seagate in my case). But there is nothing useful you can do with a PS2 drive in the device manager, so forget that.

Left-clicking 'Disk Management instead' shifts the main window area to show the usual disk management display, split vertically with a normal listing in the top section showing drives currently recognized by drive letter assignments of Windows. This means that a PS2 drive will not be visible there. But in the bottom section all physically recognized drives are listed, and here the PS2 drive should be visible, though only identified by drive number (simply assigned by the drive scan order) and described merely as "unknown" and stating the raw disk size and claiming that the disk is 'Not Initialized', which is nothing to worry about as it only means that Windows can't recognize a PFS format by itself.

NB1: When entering the disk manager you may get an extra popup for the "Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard". Simply use the 'Cancel' button to avoid having your PS2 drive reformatted for Windows.

NB2: You'll probably have to scroll down a bit in the bottom section of the window to see the new drive, as the internal IDE buses come before the USB bus in scanning order.

However, there is still nothing useful for you to do in the disk manager, so just leave it after verifying that the disk has been physically recognized, and noting what drive number it got. (That is also used in WinHiip.) If that still doesn't work, then you have some more serious problem (check that Master/Slave/CableSelect straps are set for Master).

Assuming that you can get the disk recognized as above, close the 'Computer Management' window and instead launch WinHiip.

Here the first thing you should do is to use the 'Select Drive' button, which opens a list of available harddisk drives, where you should select the on with the same number you found in the disk manager, but WinHiip also makes it real easy for you by showing which of the drives are formatted for PC and which are formatted for PS2 (but that is no help when starting from scratch with a drive that's unformatted, or previously used with a PC).

Hopefully you now have all you need to get WinHiip to show you a drive listing, after which you should be able to manage on your own without detailed instructions from me.

Best regards: dlanor

[revized]

i put the it from cable select to master on the pin setting and now when i click on disc management a window pops up saying "welcome to the initialize and convert disc wizard" then i click cancel and i see at disc 5 it says unallocated and not itinatalized" lol, i guess that was a new drive i never used cuz i tried another and it just poped up everything right away =)

thank you very much !

[revized]

i loaded a few images with winhip and then i see image #6 & 7 were fine beofre and now it says "bad.hdrid" and now the name a boot file are in weird charaters that i cant read ?

i did a search and nothing ,
any ideas ?

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by revized

i loaded a few images with winhip and then i see image #6 & 7 were fine beofre and now it says "bad.hdrid" and now the name a boot file are in weird charaters that i cant read ?

i did a search and nothing ,
any ideas ?

I've never had any corruption resulting from my own use of WinHiip through my USB adaptor, but it is possible for this to happen if you use it incorrectly. Since WinHiip transfers huge amounts of data through the USB interface for game installs, it will always max out the USB cache buffer usage, and then it is imperative to use the 'safe removal' procedure each and every time you want to disconnect the USB device (or turn off the PC with the device attached). If you miss doing that, then some of the data intended for the PS2 HDD may still just reside in the USB cache buffers, and disconnecting or turning the PC off at that time will then result in corruption of the PS2 HDD.

It's hard to be sure of course, but that sort of thing could explain the corruption you got.

As for fixing it, here is what I would do:

1: Connect the drive to the PC through your USB adaptor and start WinHiip as usual
2: In WinHiip, click the 'Utilities' button and choose 'Scan / Repair PS2 Drive' and select the drive this should use
3: When the scan has completed, the 'Repair' button below the scan display should become enabled, so click it.
4: After preparing the 'Repair' changes the program will enable the 'Save' button next to the 'Repair' button, so now click 'Save'
5: WinHiip will then write the repaired sectors back to the HDD and close the scan window
6: In the main window of WinHiip click 'Select Drive' and select your drive to inspect its game list
7: If the game that was damaged earlier is still in the list at all, with normal or weird name, then remove that game (click select box at the left, then 'Remove Image(s)' button)
8: If the game was present (thus removed) in step 7, repeat steps 2-5 above to remove any remaining corrupt traces of that game

NB: In step 7 above it is important to remove the game, even if it looks normal, which might make you think that the game was fully repaired. But WinHiip can only repair the disk structure to make the partitions valid. It can not ensure that the sectors also contain the correct game data, which will probably not be the case if the damage occurred by premature disconnect/power-off with some write data still in cache, in some earlier session. So even if it looks right, the game being installed in that previous session must be removed, to get rid of all corruption.

I hope this cure works for you.

Best regards: dlanor

[revized]

you were right! it wa because i removed the usb with using the "remove hardware safe sign that poped up in front of my very own eyes, what a lamer , were the hdd is ok i just had to reinstall the images again, i wont just unplug a usb hhd the wrong way ever again!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH !

i have another question although i will make a new thread for it since i have asked too many question in this one already