Hacking WBFS-HD corrupted - any chance to recover?

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

hi,
i corrupted my Games-HD (WBFS/500b) full with 270 games by switching off the power during guitar hero. Now i still can see the drive in the wbfs-manager but it says that the drive is not wbfs formated. Thats what USB-LoaderGX says, too.

When i use paragon Partition manager i can view the sectors and there is still information readable.

Is there any wbfs.recovery-tool? Or is there any other way to get my games back?

angus528 · Dec 20, 2009

I had a similar situation when a wbfs drive i was working with was accidentally formatted. I was able to recover all the games using the instructions below. It is a little tedious and technical but it worked. I was able to recover all the games from the formatted drive.

What you need to do (theoretically) is:

1. Get a hex editor that can handle hard drive partitions. e.g. HxD http://mh-nexus.de/en/
2. Search for "WBFS" - this will probably be at sector 63 or 64
3. Change the 0x00's from byte 12 onwards to 0x01 for however many games you have on the disc.
4. thats it

You can find out how many images you have on there by looking at the successive sectors and counting the disc titles you find.

The first 12 bytes in the partition sector are:
"WBFS"
4 bytes of partition size
4 bytes of housekeeping (size of sector, size of wbfs sector, two pads)

The rest of the sector is the usage table and thats what you need to change.

Blue-K · Dec 20, 2009

mrMuppet said:
hi,
i corrupted my Games-HD (WBFS/500b) full with 270 games by switching off the power during guitar hero. Now i still can see the drive in the wbfs-manager but it says that the drive is not wbfs formated. Thats what USB-LoaderGX says, too.

When i use paragon Partition manager i can view the sectors and there is still information readable.

Is there any wbfs.recovery-tool? Or is there any other way to get my games back?

You can try Wiimms WBFS Tool with the Command "repair". Realy neat WBFS-Library, btw...

Though, I guess this won't help. But hey, since you're using a BACKUP-Launcher, you still have the retails left, so why not rip them again if it doesn't work

?

olliepop2000 · Dec 20, 2009

Blue-K said:
mrMuppet said:

hi,
i corrupted my Games-HD (WBFS/500b) full with 270 games by switching off the power during guitar hero. Now i still can see the drive in the wbfs-manager but it says that the drive is not wbfs formated. Thats what USB-LoaderGX says, too.

When i use paragon Partition manager i can view the sectors and there is still information readable.

Is there any wbfs.recovery-tool? Or is there any other way to get my games back?

Click to expand...

You can try Wiimms WBFS Tool with the Command "repair". Realy neat WBFS-Library, btw...

Though, I guess this won't help. But hey, since you're using a BACKUP-Launcher, you still have the retails left, so why not rip them again if it doesn't work

?

The OP doesn't mention using the Backup Launcher anywhere.

Wiimm · Dec 20, 2009

angus528 said:
What you need to do (theoretically) is:

1. Get a hex editor that can handle hard drive partitions. e.g. HxD http://mh-nexus.de/en/
2. Search for "WBFS" - this will probably be at sector 63 or 64
3. Change the 0x00's from byte 12 onwards to 0x01 for however many games you have on the disc.
4. thats it
You can do this with the EDIT command of my WWT:

CODEwwt -a EDIT ACT=0-1000

# or if the option -a (--auto) does not work
wwt -p wbfs_partition EDIT ACT=0-1000

# add the option --force to leave test mode

But please read the doc before.

And one last note: Do not use a WBFS for backup, NEVER!

jstevenson72 · Dec 20, 2009

mrMuppet said:
hi,
i corrupted my Games-HD (WBFS/500b) full with 270 games by switching off the power during guitar hero. Now i still can see the drive in the wbfs-manager but it says that the drive is not wbfs formated. Thats what USB-LoaderGX says, too.

When i use paragon Partition manager i can view the sectors and there is still information readable.

Is there any wbfs.recovery-tool? Or is there any other way to get my games back?

Another option would be to try to read the games from the drive using wbfs_file utility (you can find it in the Cfg Loader Topic).

If you call wbfs_file with the -g (for game partition only) and -f (force wbfs mode even if the wbfs file or partition check is invalid) it may be able to pull your ISOs back onto another drive.

So the command would look something like this:

wbfs_file X: extract_wbfs_all Z: -g -f

X: would be the source drive, and Z: the destination where you want the wbfs files to be stored...

Good Luck,

Jake

mousex · Dec 20, 2009

olliepop2000 said:
The OP doesn't mention using the Backup Launcher anywhere.

Every Disc- or USB-Loader is a backup launcher

As there are only backups of your original games on the discs or HDD, everything else would be illegal.

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

angus528 said:
2. Search for "WBFS" - this will probably be at sector 63 or 64
3. Change the 0x00's from byte 12 onwards to 0x01 for however many games you have on the disc.
4. thats it

You can find out how many images you have on there by looking at the successive sectors and counting the disc titles you find.

The first 12 bytes in the partition sector are:
"WBFS"
4 bytes of partition size
4 bytes of housekeeping (size of sector, size of wbfs sector, two pads)

The rest of the sector is the usage table and thats what you need to change.

That sounds good to me!

but i can't find "WBFS". on my drive there are some bytes a the end of sector 0:

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 74 2E EB E3 00 00 00 01 ........t.ëã....
01 00 0C FE FF FF 3F 00 00 00 02 4C 38 3A 00 00 ...þÿÿ?....L8:..
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA ..............Uª

.. then up to sector 64 only "0" ... and sector 64 starts with:

52 53 50 50 30 31 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 RSPP01..........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5D 1C 9E A3 00 00 00 00 ........].ž£....
57 69 69 20 53 70 6F 72 74 73 00 00 00 00 00 00 Wii Sports......

Where should be the WBFS? Before the first game?

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

I tried:

wbfs_file :
O:\wbfs_file_2.1>wbfs_file F: extract_wbfs_all Z: -g -f
Using OPTION -g : install only game partitions
Using OPTION -f : force wbfs even if wbfs integrity is invalid
bad magic: No error
nothing happened

wwt:
O:\wwt-v0.21b-r524-cygwin\bin>wwt CHECK f:
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

!! wwt: ERROR #11 [CAN'T OPEN FILE] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#246
!! Can't open file: f:
!! -> Permission denied
!! wwt: ERROR #8 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#344
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort

I think i will buy a new HD (same brand and model) tomorrow and start a new wbfs-disk to get the missing partition info. After that i think i just have to correct the game counter - hope it works!

Wiimm · Dec 20, 2009

wwt is compiled with cygwin and have an linux flavour.
F: is not a known device.
first find your usb drive with the command "wwt find -l"

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

Thank you Wiimm for your personal assistance! Very nice to have the coder here to help me out!

O:\wwt-v0.21b-r524-cygwin\bin>wwt find -l

type wbfs d.usage size file (sizes in MiB)
-----------------------------------------------
BLOCK -- 0 76319 /dev/sda
BLOCK -- 0 76309 /dev/sda1
BLOCK -- 0 190782 /dev/sdb
BLOCK -- 0 190782 /dev/sdb1
BLOCK -- 0 152628 /dev/sdc
BLOCK -- 0 152617 /dev/sdc1
BLOCK -- 0 476940 /dev/sdd
BLOCK -- 0 238465 /dev/sdd1
BLOCK -- 0 238465 /dev/sdd2
BLOCK -- 0 476940 /dev/sde
BLOCK -- 0 476938 /dev/sde1

the two last lines are the right drive. So i tried:

O:\wwt-v0.21b-r524-cygwin\bin>wwt CHECK /dev/sde1
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

!! wwt: ERROR #14 [READ FILE FAILED] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#333
!! No WBFS magic found: /dev/sde1
!! wwt: ERROR #8 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#344
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort

and

O:\wwt-v0.21b-r524-cygwin\bin>wwt CHECK /dev/sde
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

!! wwt: ERROR #14 [READ FILE FAILED] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#333
!! No WBFS magic found: /dev/sde
!! wwt: ERROR #8 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#344
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort

olliepop2000 · Dec 20, 2009

mousex said:
olliepop2000 said:

The OP doesn't mention using the Backup Launcher anywhere.

Click to expand...

Every Disc- or USB-Loader is a backup launcher

As there are only backups of your original games on the discs or HDD, everything else would be illegal.

who mentioned anything about legality?

Blue-K · Dec 20, 2009

mrMuppet said:
O:\wwt-v0.21b-r524-cygwin\bin>wwt CHECK /dev/sde1
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

!! wwt: ERROR #14 [READ FILE FAILED] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#333
!! No WBFS magic found: /dev/sde1
!! wwt: ERROR #8 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#344
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort[/font][/indent]

I get the Error that it can't find any WBFS-Partitions in Ubuntu when I didn't used Root-Rights. I don't know what you have to type on Windows/Os X for that, but on Ubuntu I would have to type:

sudo wwt CHECK /dev/sde

and it works.

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

Blue-K said:
I get the Error that it can't find any WBFS-Partitions in Ubuntu when I didn't used Root-Rights. I don't know what you have to type on Windows/Os X for that, but on Ubuntu I would have to type:

sudo wwt CHECK /dev/sde

and it works.

I have admin rights in Windows. thats all i know. Perhaps Wiimm has a clue.

mousex · Dec 20, 2009

mrMuppet said:
Thank you Wiimm for your personal assistance! Very nice to have the coder here to help me out!

!! wwt: ERROR #14 [READ FILE FAILED] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#333
!! No WBFS magic found: /dev/sde1
!! wwt: ERROR #8 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalysePartitions() @ wbfs-interface.c#344
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort
The message tells you that the header of your partition is completly messeed up (the WBFS string yo uwhere looking for is missing and wwt doesn't see it either).

QUOTE(Blue-K @ Dec 21 2009, 01:01 AM) I get the Error that it can't find any WBFS-Partitions in Ubuntu when I didn't used Root-Rights. I don't know what you have to type on Windows/Os X for that, but on Ubuntu I would have to type:

sudo wwt CHECK /dev/sde

and it works.

It's not an error that you can't find them as normal user. This is the linux rights system

It's also sudo on OS X and on Win you'll have to start the console with admin rights.

mrMuppet · Dec 20, 2009

but when i make a new partition on another disk (same brand and model), copy the partition sector and change the "games counter-bit" it could work, couldn't it?

mrMuppet · Dec 21, 2009

Ok...
i bought a new HD (same model) and copied the Sector 63 to my corrupt one. Success! Now the HD is detected as a WBFS one. Now i have to change the number of installed games (in hex 0x7E0C).

Because i don't want to count all the games in the disk-editor (there are about 174) i tried wwt:

wwt -a EDIT ACT=0-1000
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

* MODIFY WBFS partition /dev/sde1:
> WBFS block size: 800000/hex = 8388608
> WBFS block range: 1..59616
> ISO block range: 0..1120
> Number of discs: 0
> Number of slots: 500

- WOULD activate discs 0.499.

?
* Summary of WBFS Check: 55827 errors found:
55827 free WBFS sectors marked as used!

i will make a complete backup of the disk now and then try to repair it with wwt... or any other idea how to get the number of installed games?

mrMuppet · Dec 21, 2009

YEEESSS!

Its done.
1. Bought a new disk (same Model/btw. the last demonstration model in the shop) and formated it WBFS.
2. Copied sector 63 from new to the old disk
3. Tried to get the number of games on the disk: found last game-slot in sector 1048.
4. 1049 - 63 (the first empty sectors) = 985 / 5 (5 sectors per slot) = 197 Games!!
5. Changed 197 times 0x00 to 0x01 in sector 63

And it works!
All games are back!
Thank you all for your help!

Only one little question is still there (perhaps Wiimms can tell):
When i use "wwt -a CHECK -ll" it tells me
- 32 free WBFS sectors #59585 .. #59616 marked as 'used'!
and
* Summary of WBFS Check: 32 errors found:
32 free WBFS sectors marked as used!
and
wwt: Command 'CHECK' returns with status #10 [INVALID WBFS]

What should i do with this? Should i repair it? Or is there still one game-image left that is corrupted?

Wiimm · Dec 23, 2009

mrMuppet said:
Ok...
i bought a new HD (same model) and copied the Sector 63 to my corrupt one. Success! Now the HD is detected as a WBFS one. Now i have to change the number of installed games (in hex 0x7E0C).

Because i don't want to count all the games in the disk-editor (there are about 174) i tried wwt:

wwt -a EDIT ACT=0-1000
***** wwt: Wiimms WBFS Tool v0.21b r524 cygwin - Dirk Clemens - 2009-12-13 *****

* MODIFY WBFS partition /dev/sde1:
> WBFS block size: 800000/hex = 8388608
> WBFS block range: 1..59616
> ISO block range: 0..1120
> Number of discs: 0
> Number of slots: 500

- WOULD activate discs 0.499.

?
* Summary of WBFS Check: 55827 errors found:
55827 free WBFS sectors marked as used!

i will make a complete backup of the disk now and then try to repair it with wwt... or any other idea how to get the number of installed games?

"- WOULD activate discs 0.499." means that all slots should be marked as used. Uye --force to leave testmode.

CODE* Summary of WBFS Check: 55827 errors found:
55827 free WBFS sectors marked as used![/font][/indent]

This means that there are WBFS 55827 sectors are marked as used, but no disc use it. This is changed if you execute the command above.

Hyro-Sama · Dec 23, 2009

i have an similar problem:

my 120 GB WBFS ist corrupt, my sector 63 was empty i put:

WBFS 12A18A82 09160101

on and wwt found ist, but the size is wrong "12A18A82"
i had 40 games on it: so i puted 01 01 01 and so on to the next bites

wwt dump -a

shows now 40 id's are used, but

"wwt check -a"

CHECK /dev/sdb

* Summary of WBFS Check: 1085128 errors found:
1084644 discs uses invalid WBFS blocks!
40 discs have no valid WBFS blocks!
Total: 40 discs are invalid!

so i filled up "some" more bytes with 01 and i end up with

"wwt check -a"

CHECK /dev/sdb

* Summary of WBFS Check: 1085128 errors found:
1084644 discs uses invalid WBFS blocks!
484 discs have no valid WBFS blocks!
Total: 484 discs are invalid!

i cold extract 5 of it but the rest ?

plz. help

Hacking WBFS-HD corrupted - any chance to recover?

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