Unofficial Free Memory Card Boot (FMCB) v1.8C installer v0.93B1 beta test - 2012/11/04
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an unofficial Free Memory Card Boot (FMCB) v1.8C installer. 'Unofficial' refers to the installer, not FMCB.
I DID NOT WRITE FMCB v1.8C AND NEITHER DO I HAVE IT'S SOURCE CODE.
No part of it was directly re-used from FMCB v1.7 itself, but parts of it were based or referenced from the code of FMCB v1.7.
The files in the fmcb-install folder are from Jimmikaelkael's PS3MCA project. Of course, I didn't include the questionable files which Sony claimed as a breach of their copyright.
So what's new in this FMCB release? Well, from what I have gathered:
1. Bugs in the CNF parser were fixed.
2. The bootup mechanism was improved on, leading to faster bootup.
3. Jimmikaelkael's fix for the v1.00 and v1.01 kernels (Of v0 consoles) were added.
Most importantly, CROSS-REGIONAL installs work now. You have to perform a Multi-install to make a cross-regional install.
I've spent slightly over a hundred hours working on this, and I hope that it works well.... but of course, anything could go wrong - so I have provided a memory card dumping and restoration facility within the installer.
A dump of a memory card in slot 1 will get saved as mc0.bin, and a dump of a card in slot 1 will get saved as mc1.bin.
The file will be saved to the directory where the main executable of this installer resides in.
Caution! You can only make one dump of a card from each port. Making additional dumps will overwrite the previous dump.
During development, I have sent 2 of my cards to their graves and damaged their filesystems. Thank goodness for the dumps that I made at the beginning of this project!
(I seriously don't know what's wrong with those damaged cards... they were hardly used and now they won't be detected at all).
All consoles should be supported, and no additional files should be required.
I've tested the installer on my SCPH-10000 console, and it works fine too.
!!! WARNING !!! If you make a multi-install, DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THE B*EXEC-SYSTEM FOLDERS OR ANY OF THE OSD*.elf FILES INSIDE THEM!
Doing so might result in _SEVERE_ data loss.
Do not delete uninstall.dat from the SYS-CONF folder either, or you will probably be stuck with the multi-install files forever (Unless you use the cleanup utility, but it has it's own limitations).
Lastly, please do give feedback. Other than the bugs listed below, I do hope that this release has met the requirements of the public.
Notes regarding the sources:
----------------------------
The sources have been released.
Within the sources, I have created:
1. XSECRMAN, a module that extends on rom0:SECRMAN to give it the functions of SCE's secrman_special module.
2. SECRMAN_rpc, the RPC server module for XSECRMAN
3. MCTOOLS, a RPC server module that provided misceallenous functions for the memory cards like dumping and restoration, and filesystem manipulation.
Hopefully, they will be useful for the homebrew community after their release.
Known bugs and limitations:
---------------------------
-None
Supported installation media:
-----------------------------
*USB devices
*The CD/DVD drive (Assuming that your console has a modchip or you are using a program like ESR)
*Memory card (Using the other slot should work).
!!! Using the same memory card for installation WILL NOT WORK if you perform a MULTI-INSTALL. I didn't implement a check for this in this release, but don't do it. !!!
Credits:
--------
Jimmikaelkael and Neme, as they were the original developers of FMCB.
Jimmikaelkael (Yes, again), as his MCMAN and MCSP modules, and the MCID file of FMCB v1.7 were used as referrences. FMCB v1.8C was also released by him.
Ross Ridge, as his page on the PS2 Memory Card filesystem was invaluable: http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/mymc/ps2mcfs.html
And to all contributers and beta testers!
Anyone else missed here was not intentional.
2012/11/04
-SP193
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an unofficial Free Memory Card Boot (FMCB) v1.8C installer. 'Unofficial' refers to the installer, not FMCB.
I DID NOT WRITE FMCB v1.8C AND NEITHER DO I HAVE IT'S SOURCE CODE.
No part of it was directly re-used from FMCB v1.7 itself, but parts of it were based or referenced from the code of FMCB v1.7.
The files in the fmcb-install folder are from Jimmikaelkael's PS3MCA project. Of course, I didn't include the questionable files which Sony claimed as a breach of their copyright.
So what's new in this FMCB release? Well, from what I have gathered:
1. Bugs in the CNF parser were fixed.
2. The bootup mechanism was improved on, leading to faster bootup.
3. Jimmikaelkael's fix for the v1.00 and v1.01 kernels (Of v0 consoles) were added.
Most importantly, CROSS-REGIONAL installs work now. You have to perform a Multi-install to make a cross-regional install.
I've spent slightly over a hundred hours working on this, and I hope that it works well.... but of course, anything could go wrong - so I have provided a memory card dumping and restoration facility within the installer.
A dump of a memory card in slot 1 will get saved as mc0.bin, and a dump of a card in slot 1 will get saved as mc1.bin.
The file will be saved to the directory where the main executable of this installer resides in.
Caution! You can only make one dump of a card from each port. Making additional dumps will overwrite the previous dump.
During development, I have sent 2 of my cards to their graves and damaged their filesystems. Thank goodness for the dumps that I made at the beginning of this project!
(I seriously don't know what's wrong with those damaged cards... they were hardly used and now they won't be detected at all).
All consoles should be supported, and no additional files should be required.
I've tested the installer on my SCPH-10000 console, and it works fine too.
!!! WARNING !!! If you make a multi-install, DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THE B*EXEC-SYSTEM FOLDERS OR ANY OF THE OSD*.elf FILES INSIDE THEM!
Doing so might result in _SEVERE_ data loss.
Do not delete uninstall.dat from the SYS-CONF folder either, or you will probably be stuck with the multi-install files forever (Unless you use the cleanup utility, but it has it's own limitations).
Lastly, please do give feedback. Other than the bugs listed below, I do hope that this release has met the requirements of the public.
Notes regarding the sources:
----------------------------
The sources have been released.
Within the sources, I have created:
1. XSECRMAN, a module that extends on rom0:SECRMAN to give it the functions of SCE's secrman_special module.
2. SECRMAN_rpc, the RPC server module for XSECRMAN
3. MCTOOLS, a RPC server module that provided misceallenous functions for the memory cards like dumping and restoration, and filesystem manipulation.
Hopefully, they will be useful for the homebrew community after their release.
Known bugs and limitations:
---------------------------
-None
Supported installation media:
-----------------------------
*USB devices
*The CD/DVD drive (Assuming that your console has a modchip or you are using a program like ESR)
*Memory card (Using the other slot should work).
!!! Using the same memory card for installation WILL NOT WORK if you perform a MULTI-INSTALL. I didn't implement a check for this in this release, but don't do it. !!!
Credits:
--------
Jimmikaelkael and Neme, as they were the original developers of FMCB.
Jimmikaelkael (Yes, again), as his MCMAN and MCSP modules, and the MCID file of FMCB v1.7 were used as referrences. FMCB v1.8C was also released by him.
Ross Ridge, as his page on the PS2 Memory Card filesystem was invaluable: http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/mymc/ps2mcfs.html
And to all contributers and beta testers!
Anyone else missed here was not intentional.
2012/11/04
-SP193
