PSX BIOS Dump Tutorial

[solis]

Hello Gamesoul Master,

I'll try what you said.

[ShendoXT]

If it still doesn't work the try with the launcher.

You will have to rename the dumper (psx.exe) to target.exe and put it in the root of the cd with the
bladelib app launcher which is called psx.exe.

So you will have 2 files on the disc:
psx.exe - BladeLib app launcher.
TARGET.EXE - Dumper.

[dragonslayer]

I wanted to try dumping the BIOS of my PS1 (SPCH101) so I bought a DexDrive and Gameshark Lite. I burned the dumping program onto a CD-R at 8x and have been trying to get my PS1 to boot it, but I'm having some trouble. When I try to do the "Start Game Without Cheats" option, it asks me to insert a game. I taped my lid sensor down like you said and switched to the burned disc, but the Gameshark won't load the game unless I open the lid and close it (or release the sensor and repress it). No amount of button pressing will bypass it. Am I doing something wrong here?

[whengreg]

Alright, I just finished dumping my PS1 BIOS, and so I'm posting my notes:


1) The biggest problem I ran into was transferring the ps1 saves to the computer. In the end, I softmodded my PS2, then ftp transfered them over. I won't be going into detail about the modding process, but the parts for this are a little easier to come across than most save transfer hardware.

2) To boot the dumper program, I used the double-swap trick. The directions I could find were slightly off, so I'm posting my steps:
a) Keep the lid sensor down, using whatever you have around.
b) Turn the ps1 on, with a real ps1 game inserted.
c) The disk will speed up, then the black ps screen will come up, then the disk will slow down. As soon as the disk slows down, switch with the cdr.
d) The disk will speed up again, then slow down. As soon as it slows down, switch for the original. Keep it in until the black ps screen disappears.
e) At some point, the bios dumping screen will come up. Switch the original for the cdr.
I've got the SCPH-9001 model. This method may not work well with games; having the original in while the backup is booting seems like it would cause problems, but for BIOS backup, it's fine.

3) Once the bios dumper booted up, I discovered that my controller didn't work. (No, it's not my controller at fault; I tried 3 different controllers, one from Sony, and none of them worked.) I worked around this by booting up a cdr of a disk swap utility instead of the actual dumper, still using the double-swap method, then using the disk swap utility to boot up the dumper. That required me to place an appropriate system.cnf on the disk with the dumper.

4) At this point, I transferred the save file to my PS2, and used the official browser to move it to my PS2 savecard. (The ftp server doesn't recognize PS1 cards.)

5) Then I booted up the ftp server on my PS2, and copied the file to my computer over the network. (Name it something memorable, like biospart1 or something.)

6) Repeat the previous steps for all 5 parts. Once I had all five parts, I discovered I had no idea what to do with them. Online docs indicated that the saves would be in .mem format, but none of the utilities I tried properly converted them to something that the bios merger could use. Instead, I just used a hex editor to combine them. For each file, copy-paste from offset 2000 to the end of the file. Combine those sections in order, then save as a .bin file.

Now, when I checked the md5sum, I did *NOT* get a match. This is probably something to worry about, but when I stick it into pSX, it does work...

dragonslayer said:

I wanted to try dumping the BIOS of my PS1 (SPCH101) so I bought a DexDrive and Gameshark Lite. I burned the dumping program onto a CD-R at 8x and have been trying to get my PS1 to boot it, but I'm having some trouble. When I try to do the "Start Game Without Cheats" option, it asks me to insert a game. I taped my lid sensor down like you said and switched to the burned disc, but the Gameshark won't load the game unless I open the lid and close it (or release the sensor and repress it). No amount of button pressing will bypass it. Am I doing something wrong here?

I think you need to keep the GS cd in, "lift" then "drop" the lid, wait for the PS to check the disk, then switch in the dumper. This is dependent on your GS version, though.

[dragonslayer]

I'll give it a try. I'm just a bit uneasy about swapping cds as they're spinning and was hoping to find a way to avoid that.

[whengreg]

dragonslayer said:

I'll give it a try. I'm just a bit uneasy about swapping cds as they're spinning and was hoping to find a way to avoid that.

I don't think the ps1 ever stops spinning the disk while on with the lid closed.

You do have an advantage over the regular swap trick, as there's no timing involved. Also, when you hear about damaging the motor, that's focused more towards people who are booting backups, as they could be doing the swap trick hundreds of times each year. You, on the other hand, will likely do the trick five times in total...

[ShendoXT]

whengreg: Is you BIOS more than 512KB in size? That might be why md5sum is not right.
Part 5 when dumped doesn't fill the whole Memory Card.

Just out of curiosity were your saves from the PS2 named "BEFFFFFFFFFFBIOSDUMP" ?

[whengreg]

shendo said:

whengreg: Is you BIOS more than 512KB in size? That might be why md5sum is not right.
Part 5 when dumped doesn't fill the whole Memory Card.

Just out of curiosity were your saves from the PS2 named "BEFFFFFFFFFFBIOSDUMP" ?

Yes, indeed that was the problem. I removed the last string of 00's, and the md5 matched other SCPH-9001 files.

And yes, that was the name in question.

[ShendoXT]

It's kinda pointless now, since you HEX edited files but there is a way to convert those saves to .mcs format
which can after that be imported to .mcr memory card.

If you still want to check it out you can find the tools here.

[dragonslayer]

I still can't get this thing to work. Is there any special thing you have to do when you burn the disc? I've been burning the psx.exe file to a standard Memorex CD-R using CDBurnerXP at 4x. I've tried loading it with the normal swap trick and it hasn't worked, although I may just need to work on my timing. I can't even get the disc to load with PCSX, even though it runs the EXE by itself just fine. Any thoughts?

Also, in this thread, Haldrie said he was able to get it to work by hacking his Tomb Raider CD. Does anyone know how to do that?
Link

[ShendoXT]

Can you start any other backup with the Gameshark Lite?

As for other question, you don't have to do that when you are using a swap method.
If you still want to launch the executable then use Blade LibApp launcher.

[dragonslayer]

Ugh, this just isn't working for me. I decided to give up on the Gameshark and just try the normal double swap method. I followed whengreg's instructions with a plain backup of my Tomb Raider disc made in Alcohol 120%, as well as my CD with the BIOS dumper (not made in Alcohol).
I first tried the Tomb Raider CD. I tested it first in PCSX and it loaded just fine. I followed whengreg's instructions several times, but it would always hang on the Playstation logo. I then tried my BIOS dumper CD. I went through the steps and it seemed to work fine(the Playstation logo did disappear), but the dumper screen doesn't show up.

I'm pretty sure it's not a timing problem because I'm actually doing it faster than some of the Youtube videos. Could someone please upload an ISO with the dumper? I would really appreciate it because I'm out of ideas.

[dragonslayer]

Well, I was finally able to dump my BIOS. I got the dumper to boot with my Tomb Raider CD. The process was a bit of an ordeal though. I don't know if it was my memory card, my Dexdrive, or something else, but the file had a different MD5 checksum almost every time I dumped it. If I combined them and tried it in pSX, I would just get a black screen. I just kept trying with each piece until I got two that were identical so I would know there weren't any errors. I ended up having to do each piece four or five times.

Anyway, I got my BIOS, pSX works great, and my fingers are messed up from pulling tight memory cards out of my Dexdrive. Thank you for all of your help. You guys are awesome.

[Sune]

Apr 26, 2008 22:46:37 GMT -5 dragonslayer said:

You guys are awesome.

Especially Shendo.

Good job, it feels good to be emulating legally.