PS1/2 Having trouble accessing PS2 hard drive via PC and PFS Shell

[Elliander]

Since there's no way that I'll be able to repair my PS3 I decided to go with a PS2 for older games and a PS3 slim for PS3 games. I purchased a used modded PS2, but it came with a broken DVD drive so I can't rip my games onto it and it can't connect via a network cable either, so I figured I would just connect the internet drive to a PC and move my games onto it that way. Easier said than done.

I found two possible tools to use. One of which had scary bugs which just left PFS Shell. I connected the drive to my computer via a USB enclosure, and it was detected by windows as an unknown "Disk 11" 1863.02 GB Unallocated (2 TB drive) so I used the following command:

> device hdd11:

and then it quickly closed. I tried a few times and was able to get the text to appear on a screenshot half transparent:

hdd: PS2 APA Driver v2.5 (c) 2003 Vector
hdd: max open = 1, 3 buffers
hdd: 21:21:15 07/17/2022
hdd11: Invalid Argument

I then tried turning off the drive and turning it back on just in case power saving was the issue, but the message was the same aside from a different timestamp that's a few hours off from my computer's clock which was interesting. I also tried being in administrator mode and that didn't make a difference either.

I'm not really sure where to go from here. The drive works in the PS2, but I can't seem to get it to load the drive. I wanted to make a complete backup of the file system as a precaution and then put POPSTARTER on it to play some of my old PS1 games, but I can't seem to get access to the drive. I was also hoping to eventually clone the drive onto an SSD.

I know, I know, I could just run a PC emulator. My computer is certainly strong enough, but I have a thing for playing on real consoles. Any advice on how to get access to this drive, even via some other software, would be appreciated. (Any suggestions to do something else won't be appreciated as I am getting tired of those.)

 

[HideoKojima]

I think that PS2 drive is formatted in a specific format that you can't really access using PC, PC only knows FAT, FAT32, NTFS .. etc

I guess you'll need a tool that will allow you to copy the games into the drive without changing it's format. I never owned a PS2 so not sure which one to use, I think it should be a homebrew app or something.

 

[Elliander]

Yes, it does use a special format which is why you have to use special programs to access the file system. In my case I am trying to use PFS Shell, which stands for "Playstation File System Shell". There's also a program with a GUI, but it has a known bug of causing all connected drives to be converted to Playstation File System so I don't want to risk that.

I'm not aware of any other software, but am open to suggestions if anyone else does.

 

[Elliander]

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[Elliander]

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[Elliander]

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[scroeffie1984]

what i used long time ago ,dont know if there is a newer version out there ,i have a internal hdd in my phat ps2 1.5tb
https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168

if you have a ps3 slim you can stil play ps2 and ps1 games from the hdd !!

 

[Elliander]

what i used long time ago ,dont know if there is a newer version out there ,i have a internal hdd in my phat ps2 1.5tb
https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168

Unfortunately, WinHIIP has some serious reported bugs hence why it's marked as obsolete in places. If it works for you, great, but I would only try that as a last resort and only from a computer that I don't mind reformatting if it gets screwed up.

if you have a ps3 slim you can stil play ps2 and ps1 games from the hdd !!

That's what I use doing with my PS3 FAT, but after it died and I couldn't even recover my saves I decided that for my next setup I would use a PS3 for PS3 games only. I made sure to get the latest slim model that can be modded with the lowest risk of dying, but nothing is a guarentee with those consoles so I'd like to minimize wear on a real PS3 as much as possible going forward.

 

[scroeffie1984]

Unfortunately, WinHIIP has some serious reported bugs hence why it's marked as obsolete in places. If it works for you, great, but I would only try that as a last resort and only from a computer that I don't mind reformatting if it gets screwed up.



That's what I use doing with my PS3 FAT, but after it died and I couldn't even recover my saves I decided that for my next setup I would use a PS3 for PS3 games only. I made sure to get the latest slim model that can be modded with the lowest risk of dying, but nothing is a guarentee with those consoles so I'd like to minimize wear on a real PS3 as much as possible going forward.

?? what are you trying to do just play ps2 p1 games from hdd than u can use your ps3 slim with cfw ! if u want to use a ps2 with internal or external hdd than u can use winhip there are other programs that wil work ,

 

[HideoKojima]

(snip. comment posted itself several times when I clicked send. Please delete this one.)

Don't spam... Jk

 

[Elliander]

?? what are you trying to do just play ps2 p1 games from hdd than u can use your ps3 slim with cfw ! if u want to use a ps2 with internal or external hdd than u can use winhip there are other programs that wil work ,

Yes, I understand that I CAN mod the PS3 to run PS1 and PS2 games, but I specifically purchased a PS2 so that I wouldn't have to do that and that's what I am trying to mod right now.

Like I said, WinHIIP has some serious bugs, but reading more about it the bugs seem a bit easier to understand. Per the link you provided:

"Once back into the Windows desktop, start Winhiip with Admin Privileges and click "Select Drive". At this point, watch yourself: Winhiip will NOT show this drive as a (PS2) drive in the pull down menu because the MBR is toast. It will show up as a (PC) drive instead, so make sure you choose the correct drive. You can easily ruin another drive at this point - especially your Windows boot drive!"

This explains the reports of users having their own windows hard drives get converted to a Playstation filesystem meaning that as long as I don't select the wrong drive by mistake it shouldn't destroy my computer, but if I do make that mistake I'd never be able to boot my computer again. Now that I know the cause of the bugs I am more inclined to try this program, but I'd still rather try getting PFS Shell to work first if at all possible.

EDIT: Plus, if I understand correctly, WinHIIP can only add up to 255 games and can't add other files needed to run those games, like POPSTARTER, right? If I could even just add a few that would be fine as long as I can add the utilities needed to run them as well.

 

[Elliander]

I found a solution: They changed the syntax in later versions, so accessing now requires getting the DeviceID. In Windows PowerShell I used the following command:

wmic diskdrive get Caption,DeviceID,InterfaceType

Which told me that the deviceID was:

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE11

Which means I had to use the following command in PFS Shell:

device \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE11

After doing that I was able to gain access. Guides regarding installation of POPSTARTER were just out of date apparently.

 

[GDX]

You can also use PFS Batchkit Manager, it makes it easier to use PFSSHELL and HDL_DUMP

https://github.com/GDX-X/PFS-BatchKit-Manager