What's the Latest HDD Loader?

[monkeyshare]

Hey folks,

I was wondering if any revisions or updates have been made on the HDLoader front? I use the one that allows use of a 120 GB drive. Have there been improvements? (Also, is it against forum rules to ask what vendor might have it for sale?)

Thanks.

[spedmetal]

Well there are ways of patching the HDL.ELF to do many neat things yourself. Including support for larger then 120GB HDD's and adding your own custom skins to HDL. And then burn it back to a CD-R if you have a mod chip which you do. Or if you have an MI or CC you can install it to the memory card and the chip will boot it up for you right from the memory card with no disc in your PS2 at all!!!!

I was going to attach the HDL_AIO_2.2.rar (HDloader All In One patcher that also packs the .elf) file for everyone to download, but with our 8KB limit this is pretty much imposable to attach anything, let alone its a .rar and not a allowed format. Empire can we bend just a little please :(

Anyway here is a link to it on another forum, also thanks to ZeroX, c0d3x, crazyc, Pixel and the rest of the HDL hackers for these great patches.

http://www.ps2-scene.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6115

[monkeyshare]

Thanks, Sped.
Wow... um, just wow. You have to forgive me for being out of the scene for so long. CC or MI? If you can point in the right direction, I will give it my best shot, but I've got to admit, to much chagrin, you went over my head just now. I've looked at a few other message boards, but their tutorials never seem to be concise enough...

[H|LLJD00]

You can also FTP it over once u have installed the FTP Prog.

[guod9]

CC = Crystal Chip
MI = Matrix Infinity

[ToolNila]

Well there are ways of patching the HDL.ELF to do many neat things yourself. Including support for larger then 120GB HDD's and adding your own custom skins to HDL. And then burn it back to a CD-R if you have a mod chip which you do. Or if you have an MI or CC you can install it to the memory card and the chip will boot it up for you right from the memory card with no disc in your PS2 at all!!!!



I tried using this program to patch HDLoader elf file (unpacked ~2MB file) and update the splash BMP and it installs OK. When I run it, I'm left with a black screen. Why? =(

ToolNila

[FreeFighter]

did you repack it with the ps2packer before putting it on your modchip?

[ToolNila]

The program ("HDL/HDA All-in-one Utilities v.2.2" by codex) from the aforementioned link by spedmetal has a built-in packer.

I added my own BMP that was resized to the correct dimensions of 512 x 448 pixels and renamed to splash.bmp. I took the INSTALL and SYSTEM files from an unpatched HDLoader image that I have and checked to make sure that everything was correct inside these files.

Like I said I used the unpacked ~2 MB HDLOADER.ELF file. I compiled the ISO with Nero and burned it. I have a DMS3 chip (latest firmware) and a V7 PS2.

I made two iso's, one with the patched splash screen and one without. On both, I have /N, /C, /S, /L, /D marked (no disk seek/copyright remove/stop disc spinning/LBA 48-bit patch/Date-time correction) for the .elf file. I've installed each one and tried it and neither works. I also installed a working HDLoader (unpatched) AND a patched one on my MC at the same time, and oddly enough, the unpatched doesn't work anymore either. I figure the files are jumbled up on the MC.

I had to erase everything from my MC with a card killer program and reinstall the working copy.

I've coastered roughly 10 discs trying to get this crap to work. I've tried mentioning as much detail in this post as I can possibly imagine. Is there anything I missed?

Please help,

ToolNila

[FreeFighter]

Like I said I used the unpacked ~2 MB HDLOADER.ELF file. I compiled the ISO with Nero and burned it. I have a DMS3 chip (latest firmware) and a V7 PS2.
You've unpacked it but never repacked it if i'm reading correctly.

[ToolNila]

The program ("HDL/HDA All-in-one Utilities v.2.2" by codex) from the aforementioned link by spedmetal has a built-in packer.



The program gives you the option to pack it before saving the patched .elf. When I checked it in My Computer for size after patching and packing, it was exactly 507 KB.

?

[spedmetal]

Make sure your SYSTEM.CNF file is configured correctly and is directed to whatever you have names the pached.elf. To edit the .CNF you can simply oprn it up in note pad. I posted some info about this not to long ago. Also when you have the pached .ELF and .CNF its best to load them up in PS2cdGEN and create a bin/cue then burn to CD-R. You dont need to necessarily pack the .ELF especially if your going to be booting it from the CD-R. The only time where packing would be worth while would be if your installing the .ELF to the memory card. This is where your confusing me also. You talk about your memory card but also burning discs. If your installing it to the memory card via the CD-R you are burning you need to have an INSTALL.CNF also to tell the PS2 what folders to make and what files to copy to the memory card.

You had mentioned that you to the took the INSTALL and SYSTEM from another dev package, how do you know thay are correct. Where are you trying to install the .ELF to or do you even know?

[ToolNila]

I'm sorry about the confusion. Here goes clearing things up....

I'm trying to install HDLoader onto my memory card so that I can direct-boot HDLoader from my card without using the HDLoader disc every time I want to play games from the HDD. I am trying to do this by compiling my own cue/bin onto a CD-R and running the CD-R on the PS2 so that the patched ELF will be installed onto the memory card. Since it’s going onto a memory card, I want it packed so that it takes up as little space as possible.

I have a working cue/bin of HDLoader ELF/INSTALL/SYSTEM that's meant to be booted from a CD-R into a memory card and was something that someone else put together. I used this package simply to extract INSTALL and SYSTEM so that I didn't have to write new entries for these two files for the patched version and left the ELF alone since the ELF from the cue/bin is only 658.26 KB (packed).

The patch program demands a particular HDLOADER.ELF that is 2977792 bytes in size, which I also have. So I patched THIS version with no disk seek, copyright remove, stop disc spinning, LBA 48-bit patch, date-time correction (/N, /C, /S, /L, /D), English language, NTSC default, but left the BMP fonts/Buttons/Box Colors alone.

I also used my own splash BMP (a picture of my Halloween costume!) and named it splash.bmp (no caps) and use HDLoader's default main.bmp. Then I saved the patched and packed ELF as "HDLOADER.ELF" in all cap's.

I used Nero to compile the image and burned it onto media (Imation) that I know is compatible with my V7 since I've used them many times before to install other app's.

The CD is used to install the ELF through DMS3’s memory card manager “Explorer” application and it’s the only way I know to boot the ELF onto the memory card. Trying to run the CD in the drive does NOT automatically boot the file onto the card, since I get a “Cannot read disc” message in the PS2’s browser (where it shows you the memory card icons).

When I load the ELF into the memory card via DMS3’s application, it installs successfully, but when I run HDLoader, all I get is a black screen that eventually goes back to the PS2 browser.

Now just so that it can be proof-read, INSTALL.CNF when opened with Notepad is:

HD Loader
mc0:\BOOT\HDLOADER\HDLOADER.ELF
_MKDIR mc0:\BOOT <--------- This line may be the problem??
_MKDIR mc0:\BOOT\HDLOADER
COPY cdrom0:\HDLOADER.ELF;1 mc0:\BOOT\HDLOADER\HDLOADER.ELF

SYSTEM.CNF is:

BOOT2 = cdrom0:\HDLOADER.ELF;1
VER = 1.10
VMODE = NTSC

I don’t know much at all about what the directions in the INSTALL/SYSTEM files mean, that’s why I took them from an unpatched HDLoader bin. I’m assuming that the CD is supposed to boot by itself since it’s got a SYSTEM file? Also, look at the line to which the red arrow's pointing, that line may be unnecessary? I haven’t tried using PS2cdGEN to build the image, maybe that’s one way that’s screwing things up.

I really hope this cleared up a few things. Please take a good look and perhaps reread this long-winded post and see what you can find.

Thank you so much,

ToolNila

[spedmetal]

Well there probably is a better way of doing it then the way I'm about to tell you but this was how I did it with the DMS3.

1) Your SYSTEM.CNF should look like this

BOOT2 = cdrom0:\EXPLORER.ELF;1
VER = 1.00
VMODE = NTSC

2) Your INSTALL.CNF should look like this

DMS Explorer 1.0
NO_ENTRY
_MKDIR mc0:\BOOT
COPY cdrom0:\HDLOADER.ELF;1 mc0:\BOOT\BOOT.ELF

3) From your DMS Explorer extract the EXPLORER.ELF and 0.BIN

4) Have your HDLOADER.ELF patched how you want it and packed.

5) Have all these files in there own folder.

6) load them all up in CDgenPS2 and creat a bin/cue of your project.

7) Burn to a CD-R

8) load it up in your PS2 you will, you will see the DMS Explorer load up but when you go to install it, it wont install the Explorer but the HDLOADER.ELF to your \BOOT holder on your memory card. This will also over ride your DMS explorer and now you can set your DMS3 to default to dev1 mode on boot up and the first thing you will see when your PS2 boots is HDloader.

Now you can do all this with out having to burn discs and compile install scripts and all that mumbo jumbo.

1) Download ExecFTPs and burn it to a CD-R you might need to configure CONFIG.DAT to your local netwrok settings before burning to disc.

2) Once you have burned it to disc load it up in your PS2, when its has set up the FTP on your network simply log onto your PS2 from your PC with FlashFXP and you can then access the CD, HDD, and memory card.

3) Go into the memory card and delete anything in the \BOOT folder then upload your patched and packed HDLOADER.ELF (make sure HDL is called BOOT.ELF) then like I said before simply set your DMS3 to default to dev1 mode on boot and HDloader will be the first thing to pop up.

Now the only thing with doing it this way is that you loose your DMS Explorer, but you gain HDloader which is better. Now like I said I'm sure there are other ways but thats how I did it a long time ago.

Good luck.