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Repair Memory Card filesystem

Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:05 am
by methos3
Hey there.
I have a memory card that had its filesystem damaged by a PS2 title (Soul Calibur III), and I was wondering if there is any tool to repair the filesystem of a memory card (just like that one of windows: fixboot/fixmbr. they repair an hard disk shown as "unformatted", but I don't know exactly how do they work), or if it's possible to develop something to access the filesystem's file/files, so that I could try to see if there's something wrong? :( It's kinda impossible, I know, but I wanna try :)
Thanks for any help!

ps.: with "access the filesystem", I mean: see, in text mode, the bytes of the file/files of the filesystem, I could do this in 2 ways: copy them to a pendrive, or finish my ooold project that I stopped months ago (a virtual keyboard with a nice textbox) to show the chars on the screen (or the number, in case of an unprintable byte).

ps.2: it's for personal use, I know, but vould help much people, and this topic is strictly about programing, I just don't know from where to start

[edit]
Ow, this guy (Ross Ridge) knows how the ps2 memory card filesystem work:
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/mymc/ps2mcfs.html
According to him, the "magic" field must set as "Sony PS2 Memory Card Format " , and the superblock of the filesystem is "Located in the first page of the memory". The "magic" field is a byte array (a char array, in another words :) )
So... how do I access the memory card by page level?

ps.: I forgot to say, but my memory card is being detected as unformatted by the PS2 (then, I suppose the "magic" field was changed somehow)

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:57 am
by yoshi314
try searching psx-scene.com forums for tool called HD Project. a more recent revision has support for dumping entire memcard to a file on usb and restoring from such file.

it also works on nonstandard (>8MB) memory cards.

i believe attempting to fix a memcard image on pc would be much easier (you can always verify it in pcsx2, right?)

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 3:59 am
by methos3
Mmm...
I didn't think that way, thanks for the idea :)
But a better thing to do would be first create a backup copy of my memory card, and then use a modified version (that I could do, if I study the HD project code for some time) of the HD project to show the first bytes of the memory card on the screen, see what's going on and then develop another modified version of HD Project to fix it directly on the memory card (just by writing the correct bytes on the area I suppose to be wrong).
Or develop a PC program to open the image in binary mode, and then fix ^^
But thanks for the idea!

[edit]
ow, good! I lost my pendrive :( I've searched my entire home, but it's no use...
Better try when I ged a new pendrive! Until then, I'll continue studying the HD project's code...

[edit]
I was studying the HD Project code, and it will not be sooo dificult, I just need no change the code of the MC Dumping module to simply read a block of the memory card, and then send it to the EE and see what is going on this memory card, this could also help some other people with this problem!