Selfbooting Dumpcast games?

Post discussions on how to downsample and hack CD-based games here. Discuss the best ways to fit your backed-up game onto a CD-R, or other ways to play GDI files on a real console.

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Vegeta
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Selfbooting Dumpcast games?

Post by Vegeta »

Hey there,

So I know how to extract the data from single and multi-track Dumpcast dump games but there are still some things I want to know.

For extracting the IP.BIN is using Isofix to extract it the correct way?

After having all of the files how do I create a working selfboot disc out of the extracted files? Is it the good old Echelon way or an easier method?

Thanks!
darcagn
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Re: Selfbooting Dumpcast games?

Post by darcagn »

Vegeta wrote:Hey there,

So I know how to extract the data from single and multi-track Dumpcast dump games but there are still some things I want to know.

For extracting the IP.BIN is using Isofix to extract it the correct way?

After having all of the files how do I create a working selfboot disc out of the extracted files? Is it the good old Echelon way or an easier method?

Thanks!
Yes, running isofix on your track03.iso (get track03.iso by running bin2iso on track03.bin) will give you the proper IP.BIN (it will be named bootfile.bin).

After that, it is pretty much the good old Echelon way from here, as far as selfbooting goes. However, the Echelon Self-Boot tutorial was created with only already-cracked bootCD-requiring games in mind, not fresh GD-ROMs. Therefore cracking protections is out of the scope of that tutorial.

Instead of using Echelon's binhack.exe to binhack binaries, I prefer hack4.exe (available from the front page of this site under "Tools"). hack4 is more versatile--it lets you hack multiple binaries at once (all binaries on the disc need to be hacked; on some games this is just 1ST_READ.BIN, but on some it could be many) as well as crack several known copy protections.

Note that even if you use hack4 to binhack, you will still need to use binhack.exe to hack the IP.BIN. I usually just copy over an extra 1ST_READ.BIN and tell binhack.exe to hack the 1ST_READ.BIN/IP.BIN then throw away the 1ST_READ.BIN (because I plan on using hack4) and keep the IP.BIN.

Of course, you will have to remove or downsample any data that makes your total data go over the capacity of a CD-R.

Note that you will have to spend time getting used to this procedure, and for a while you might be wasting a lot of CD-Rs until you get it down. Each game is very different, and while the procedure is mostly the game, plenty of games will have some quirks to them. Some games (not many) will have copy protections that you will be unable to crack with tools and will require you to dive in with a hex editor. CDDA games require CDDA hacks (available from the Tools section) and Windows CE-based binaries require BINCON.

El Bucanero's Rip Database is an excellent source for instructions for individual games. A lot of entries will also tell you exactly how to crack copy protections on certain games as well.
Vegeta
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Post by Vegeta »

Thanks! :)

I just managed to selfboot Virtua Fighter 3 TB (JP). I used a CD-RW disc and Chankast for verification and it works just fine!

Next I'm going to try King of Fighters '99 Dream Match (JP).
darcagn
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Post by darcagn »

Glad to see it worked for you :)
Vegeta
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Post by Vegeta »

Just a question on the CDDA RAW audio files. Do they need any kind of conversion?
darcagn
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Post by darcagn »

Vegeta wrote:Just a question on the CDDA RAW audio files. Do they need any kind of conversion?
Nope, they're just raw tracks and you can just burn them when you burn the game. If you want wavs from them, you can use raw2wav, but they will burn fine as raws.
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Shoometsu
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Post by Shoometsu »

I'm curious: how do I extract data from games multi data tracks? I'm trying with sega rally 2, but if I convert the tracks to iso, the track21 gives me an error about missing the iso9660 label. and isofix tells me that could not find PDV. what am i doing wrong?
Vegeta
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Post by Vegeta »

Just realised the History movie doesn't play in my selfboot copy of VF3TB. Do I need to hack the MOVIE.BIN? What hack and command do I need to run on it?

Also, what is the difference between hack3 and hack4 binaries? What does hack3 do?

Thanks!

PS: Yeah, I'm also having trouble ripping the data files from a multi-data track game, King of Fighters '99 Dream Match (JP).
darcagn
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Post by darcagn »

Vegeta wrote:Just realised the History movie doesn't play in my selfboot copy of VF3TB. Do I need to hack the MOVIE.BIN? What hack and command do I need to run on it?

Also, what is the difference between hack3 and hack4 binaries? What does hack3 do?

Thanks!

PS: Yeah, I'm also having trouble ripping the data files from a multi-data track game, King of Fighters '99 Dream Match (JP).
Yes, you need to hack all of the binaries on the disc. Binaries are always .BIN files, but not all .BIN files are binaries. You can do hack4 [parameters here] *.BIN and it will hack all of the BIN files for you (don't worry, it won't mess up any .BIN files that aren't actually binaries).

You should be able to use the same command you used for 1ST_READ.BIN to crack MOVIE.BIN.

I'm on a Mac right now so I can't triple-check the differences between hack3 and hack4 (but I believe hack4 just has some additional protection cracking that hack3 does), but I know hack4 incorporates everything hack3 does so there's no real need for hack3.
Shoometsu wrote:I'm curious: how do I extract data from games multi data tracks? I'm trying with sega rally 2, but if I convert the tracks to iso, the track21 gives me an error about missing the iso9660 label. and isofix tells me that could not find PDV. what am i doing wrong?
Try using a cuesheet like in this tutorial. Once the cuesheet is loaded, you should be able to extract all your files and create sort files for your new CD-R to have a proper layout.

Speaking of a proper layout, I seem to have forgotten to tell that to Vegeta. Vegeta, in order to have a disc with the files in the proper order on the disc (not alphabetical), which makes load times faster, when you extract the files with ISOBuster, you should create a sort file by selecting the filesystem and creating a file list by relative LBA, then running makesort.exe from our tools section on that FileList.txt to make a sortfile.txt. Then, to pad all data to the end of the disc (where the GD-ROM loads data fastest), create a dummy file (just a file filled with zeros, google for "dummy file creator" or such) named "0.0" and make it as big as you can fit on the disc. This will put the 0.0 file first on the disc and make the rest of the stuff go back. When you make your ISO with mkisofs, use the -sort sortfile.txt option.
Vegeta
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Post by Vegeta »

Yeah, I used a sorttxt for VF3TB :)

I just used hack4 on VF3TB with the command "hack4 -n -0 -w *.bin" and then selfboot it and the History movie still doesn't play. In the prompt the 1st_read.bin and movie.bin were cracked only but I don't understand why it still doesn't work.

As for a cuesheet for a multi data track game, I just made one for KOF99DM. CDmage only sees the first data track contents and IsoBuster shows neither :?:
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Post by darcagn »

Vegeta wrote:Yeah, I used a sorttxt for VF3TB :)

I just used hack4 on VF3TB with the command "hack4 -n -0 -w *.bin" and then selfboot it and the History movie still doesn't play. In the prompt the 1st_read.bin and movie.bin were cracked only but I don't understand why it still doesn't work.

As for a cuesheet for a multi data track game, I just made one for KOF99DM. CDmage only sees the first data track contents and IsoBuster shows neither :?:
Try using -3 instead of -0.

As for the cuesheet, by "only sees the first data track contents" do you mean that CDmage only sees track01? Because the tutorial excludes track01. If you mean that you only see track03 and you should be seeing track03 and the last track on the disc as two different tracks, that's not actually how it works. On discs with multiple data tracks, track03 contains the ISO9660 filesystem header and dummy padding, while the last track on the disc actually contains the data that the track03 header refers to. So track03+trackXX together are actually one filesystem, so it will show up as only one "track" in CDMage.

As far as getting it to work in ISOBuster, ISOBuster for some reason has a problem with the cuesheets made in that tutorial--the solution is to mount the cuesheet as a virtual disc in Alcohol 120%, then open ISOBuster and open the virtual disc and do your work from there.
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Shoometsu
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Post by Shoometsu »

darcagn: I tried the method, but the last data track still not showing the files. using isobuster, it found flies found by its signature, but i dunno is are all the files there, and isobuster don't know their real names (i.e. "Recovered File 023.wav"). is there a way to solve this problem?
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Post by darcagn »

Shoometsu wrote:darcagn: I tried the method, but the last data track still not showing the files. using isobuster, it found flies found by its signature, but i dunno is are all the files there, and isobuster don't know their real names (i.e. "Recovered File 023.wav". is there a way to solve this problem?
That was after you mounted the cuesheet with Alcohol 120%? If so, I think you make the same mistake in thoughts as Vegeta did above. The track03 and final trackXX are really one filesystem together, whatever is displayed in track03 is all you need. When you go to create a selfboot, just make it one track.
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Shoometsu
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Post by Shoometsu »

I mounted the cuesheet with alcohol120% 1.9.6.5429 and daemon tools 4.10. both gave me te same.

but according to your explanation, won't I need the data from the last track? so it'll e just a mater of extracting the data from track03, right?
darcagn
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Post by darcagn »

Shoometsu wrote:I mounted the cuesheet with alcohol120% 1.9.6.5429 and daemon tools 4.10. both gave me te same.

but according to your explanation, won't I need the data from the last track? so it'll e just a mater of extracting the data from track03, right?
An typical data track on any plain ol' CD-ROM with an ISO9660 filesystem contains a header with all of the files' filenames+LBAs, then right behind it all the data itself, which the header is pointing to.

On a multitrack Dreamcast game (let's say for example your Maken X dump), track03 contains the ISO header, but it isn't followed by the data--there's actually no data in track03 besides the header. But the header in track03 points to LBAs that are actually in data track09. So when ISOBuster looks at the header on track03, it is actually grabbing the data from track09. In that sense, track03+track09 combined are actually one ISO9660 filesystem.

This means that once you click on track03 and extract its files, if you get no errors you should be just fine. Create a selfboot like normal--with just one data track.
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