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2x6's DVD or HDD clone to SSD/CF-IDE

DarkfireJosh said:
Yea mine does some of that, but stops at Boot 3.

Mine doesn't do the "ReEngine" or sound initializing that you showed. It just does Boot 03, then goes black, then the blue screen.

Im using a WD800JB which I was told is better quality than the WD800BB that was original equipment. Idk if that makes a difference but it's still 80gb.

I think I used the HDDRawCopy tool to make the last image file I tried. But I'll check when I get home. And I'll test that script as well to be sure it's not what I was already doing.
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Check is your HDD data cable ok or is it connected right way to the PCB
 
BilonFullHDemon said:
If you have PS3 memory card adaptor PM and I will try to fix your dongle
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I have a PS3 memory card adapter but I can't get it to work with my PC. Was going through brizzo's post about it. Got the program but it won't recognize my PS3 adapter on PC or in the 2x6 USB programmer system.

Downloaded the driver's from the website he recommended but still won't work. I tried 10 different USB cables but still nothing. I know it needs to be a data transfer cable.. maybe all 10 of mine are junk. I just want to play Fate 😅
 
twistedsymphony said:
a python script to find the last non 00 or non FF byte and give me the size of the file up to that point:
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so far this script is working well. and I'm glad I'm taking this approach.

For instance Zoids Infinity NM00016 M9006212A, Ver.2.06J (HDD).img
size on disc reports as 288 MB and looking in HxD around that point it appears the rest of the drive is 0x00

however using this script it found that there's actually data hiding around 986.93 MB so while at first glance it might seem a 512MB drive would work, you really need 1GB plus.

it's very slow, but there's only 15 HDD games and we only need to do this one time, so I'll let this run in the background and report back once I have all of the sizes for the games.

so far I've also found that Battle Gear 3 and Battle Gear 3 tuned cannot be shrunk as they have data all the way at the end of the drive image, but at least they're 20GB and 30GB drives rather than 80GB like some other games.

also updated the script to include a status % so you know it's working and how far along it is:
Code: 
import os
import sys

def find_last_useful_byte(file_path, block_size=64 * 1024 * 1024):  # 64MB
    try:
        file_size = os.path.getsize(file_path)
    except OSError as e:
        print(f"Error: {e}")
        return 0

    with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
        offset = file_size
        total_blocks = (file_size + block_size - 1) // block_size
        block_num = 0

        while offset > 0:
            block_num += 1
            read_size = min(block_size, offset)
            offset -= read_size
            f.seek(offset)
            block = f.read(read_size)

            for i in reversed(range(len(block))):
                byte = block[i]
                if byte != 0x00 and byte != 0xFF:
                    last_useful_offset = offset + i + 1
                    print(f"\nLast useful byte offset:")
                    print(f"  Decimal : {last_useful_offset}")
                    print(f"  Hex     : 0x{last_useful_offset:X}")
                    print(f"Size of useful data: {last_useful_offset / (1024*1024):.2f} MB")
                    return last_useful_offset

            # Progress indicator
            percent_complete = 100.0 * (block_num / total_blocks)
            print(f"\rScanning: {percent_complete:.1f}% complete", end="", flush=True)

    print("\nNo useful data found (file is all 0x00 or 0xFF)")
    return 0

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print("Usage: python find_last_useful_byte.py <filename>")
        sys.exit(1)

    filename = sys.argv[1]
    find_last_useful_byte(filename)
 
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Mitsurugi-w said:
I converted his dongle so if he thinks it might be bad he can just send it back to me and I'll double check it.
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I recently had a situation where I made a dongle, tested it and sent to Belgium. It got corrupted during the shipping, how? I have no idea, some kind of scanning equipment?
 
Tried to test Gundam Vs. Gundam Next with an industrial CF that showed up, also did not work despite the different formatting. Set my adapter to Slave/Master and took off the jumper completely to no avail.
 
VS_Lilith said:
Tried to test Gundam Vs. Gundam Next with an industrial CF that showed up, also did not work despite the different formatting. Set my adapter to Slave/Master and took off the jumper completely to no avail.
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still crunching through the HDD images to find their min size but I did do gundam already and can tell you it needs at least 10GB drive as the last bit of data is located around the 9.2GB mark.
 
This is hella important because all other reference I've seen people mention Gundam as about 6 GB, maybe I'll try to source a 16gb card, thanks for the info!
 
I can also confirm that Both GvG Next and Fate Unlimited Codes, run great with the HDD support on the new ODE. This was tested a few weeks ago with full sized drive images, so we'll see how well truncated images work once I've got that done.
 
My script finally finished crunching through all of the HDD images so here is the byte position of the last non 0x00 or 0xFF byte for each HDD game:
2x6_hdd_sizes.png


the recommended drive size in the last column is just me picking the next largest standard drive size above the last used byte position.

you can check the work by opening the .img file in the HxD application and then going to the byte offset specified.
 
twistedsymphony said:
My script finally finished crunching through all of the HDD images so here is the byte position of the last non 0x00 or 0xFF byte for each HDD game:
2x6_hdd_sizes.png


the recommended drive size in the last column is just me picking the next largest standard drive size above the last used byte position.

you can check the work by opening the .img file in the HxD application and then going to the byte offset specified.
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Amazing thank you for documenting this in a neat and concise way! I have a 16GB CF (non industrial) coming to test GVGN, given FUC runs perfectly fine on a non industrial card I assume this shouldnt pose an issue however I will report back once I have it all tested.
 
I will say it's arguably more important to have that Campaign mode Memory card than the security dongle or the DVD.

To my knowledge no one has been able to replicate those SC2 memory cards yet so having an original cart is the only way to play campaign mode, even if you're using a multi dongle and a backup disc.
 
msamiullah said:
Isnt becuase the security on SC2 is different than any other 246/256 game and hasnt been reverse engineered yet?
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oo that makes sense and that's probably what was told to me (thats its not been reverse engineered yet) and I confused it with the security dongle!
 
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