Modify and Re-sign Wii isos

[SleepyPrince]

OMG I have an idea, cant we like, patch the USA version of No More Heroes to work on PAL!?

Depends if someone can do it on a JPN NMH ISO.
Then it would be possible on PAL.

You can play the US version straight on a Jap Wii

 

[soliunasm]

OMG I have an idea, cant we like, patch the USA version of No More Heroes to work on PAL!?

Depends if someone can do it on a JPN NMH ISO.
Then it would be possible on PAL.

You can play the US version straight on a Jap Wii

Oops. I thought he said about the ash --> blood thing.
Nevermind me.

 

[bailli]

I wish people would stop asking questions about NMH on PAL.
This isn't as easy as editing an (almost) text file or exchanging some audio files.
I think to find the reason why so many games don't boot on PAL consoles is only found if somebody
compares main.dol (or maybe another program file) using a disassembler.
(I would suggest the main.dol from a game that is released in every region but doesn't work in a different region).

Since my ASM knowledge is somewhat limited (okay let's say nonexistent) I have no chance of finding the difference.
My only guess is that this has something to do the way some part of the graphics interface is accessed since the only
(obvious) difference between NTSC and PAL console is their video output standard.
(But that doesn't explain why NTSC-U/J fails on some games too...)

 

[energypsx]

to pgon69 & gjac1
Wii Chess PAL step by step:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=765...t&p=1010560

 

[mwaddoups]

The reason games fail between JAP and US is due to games checking the language your wii is set to, and attempting to change to that language - it doesn't find Jap language on a US disks and promptly fails

. I think this is an easier problem than those with PAL problems, although that's only a theory.

 

[gjac1]

Region locked is kind of like the new disk checking coding, and just like with the 360 , some games have it and some dont..On 360 games ALL EA games are region locked which means they contain a check that most other games dont, we have to find this similar check in Wii games....

I am currently looking at several files extracted from the US versions of No More Heroes and Zack & Wiki , i chose these 2 games because one of them works on a PAL console (Zack) and the other one doesnt (NMH)

The information we need to find is probably going to be in the main.dol files however finding the area of data we need to edit to over ride the region check is proving pain staking.......

 

[bailli]

Hm if it really is an intentional check of the consoles region it might be easier to find than my idea.

@gjac1
Could you email me the main.dol from NMH (US)? I PM'ed you my email address.

 

[mwaddoups]

The key is almost definitely somewhere in the main.dol files. I'm working more on games which don't work on JAP consoles (e.g. DQ swords, fire emblem, SMG) so if anyone happens to have .dol files for any region of DQ: Swords/Fire Emblem let me know - I have seen some evidence in the SMG files which I would try editing, but I'd expect similar hex strings in all JAP main.dols searching for the JAP language (for example) and don't have access to any other games which fail to load on JAP consoles.

 

[aardvarks]

The key is almost definitely somewhere in the main.dol files. I'm working more on games which don't work on JAP consoles (e.g. DQ swords, fire emblem, SMG) so if anyone happens to have .dol files for any region of DQ: Swords/Fire Emblem let me know - I have seen some evidence in the SMG files which I would try editing, but I'd expect similar hex strings in all JAP main.dols searching for the JAP language (for example) and don't have access to any other games which fail to load on JAP consoles.

i have 77 game iso's on my pc, a mix of pal an usa. which dol files do you want?

 

[gjac1]

aardvarks , if you have NMH NTSC-U could you upload the main.dol file for that and post the link ?? i think there is something wrong with the uploading part of my internet, i cant upload or send anything :s

If more people have access to that file it might help alot

 

[aardvarks]

aardvarks , if you have NMH NTSC-U could you upload the main.dol file for that and post the link ?? i think there is something wrong with the uploading part of my internet, i cant upload or send anything :s

If more people have access to that file it might help alot

havent got that one but i could get the game an post it to you tomorow. if that helps?

 

[gjac1]

We have got it now thanks

Posts merged

here is what i have found so far....

I compared NMH main.dol to 3 others , Zack, SSBB and Wii Chess.....

It relates to the area of hex that is edited to fix the drive check (figured it might be possible seeing as its an area that is checked at boot) , if you goto the drive check area for Zack, SSBB and Wii Chess , all 3 of them look the same, like this :

3C 03 F8 00 28 00 00 00 40 82 00 0C 38 60 00 01 (Zack has the 04 byte as it doesnt have the new drive check)

and all 3 of them games boot on a PAL machine (Zack NTSC-U : SSBB NTSC-J : Wii Chess PAL)

Now take a look at the difference in the first set of 9 pairs of bytes in this string which appears in a game that is not region free NMH :

41 82 00 0C 2C 00 00 02 40 82 00 0C 38 60 00 01

Could it be as easy as changing these bytes in the NMH main.dol to match the other 3 ??

 

[Kaerfn]

We have got it now thanks

Posts merged

here is what i have found so far....

I compared NMH main.dol to 3 others , Zack, SSBB and Wii Chess.....

It relates to the area of hex that is edited to fix the drive check (figured it might be possible seeing as its an area that is checked at boot) , if you goto the drive check area for Zack, SSBB and Wii Chess , all 3 of them look the same, like this :

3C 03 F8 00 28 00 00 00 40 82 00 0C 38 60 00 01 (Zack has the 04 byte as it doesnt have the new drive check)

and all 3 of them games boot on a PAL machine (Zack NTSC-U : SSBB NTSC-J : Wii Chess PAL)

Now take a look at the difference in the first set of 9 pairs of bytes in this string which appears in a game that is not region free NMH :

41 82 00 0C 2C 00 00 02 40 82 00 0C 38 60 00 01

Could it be as easy as changing these bytes in the NMH main.dol to match the other 3 ??

Nope, just tried it and it just boots to a black screen on my PAL Wii =/

 

[gjac1]

Nope, just tried it and it just boots to a black screen on my PAL Wii =/

Crap

, thanks for trying it Kaerfn......

 

[awofadeju]

oK ive tried modifying the jap version but i eitehr get a disk that freezed my wii...a game that boots up but then gets a black screen or a the game remains in jap.

Using the smg languge switch as my base 4 my idea i thought fire emblem did something similar but i was wrong.

Pik showing usa files

Pik showing jap files

as you can see there are slight diffences between the two versions unlike smg had.

 

[SleepyPrince]

Here are the difference between USA & Jap Bomberman Land

I was trying to make the US version to run on Jap
As there are much more files in the US and they are larger than those in Jap
I was crazy enough to replace the US main.dol with the Jap main.dol

and......it runs on a Jap Wii without crashing at all!
The game is in English now
but it's not a 100% success:

this mini game is actually very easy, just swap a few times and you will get the answer right

anyway, I don't know what the result means
too bad this is the only game that works with this method AFAIK
DQ and Fire Emblem will still result in black screen

 

[SleepyPrince]

Tutorial for MySims to show English on Jap Wii

I did it with a US version disc
but I think other versions are the same (or similar)

locate (2nd partition) > ROOT > GameData > Text > wii
you will find a list of files:
simswii_XXX_XX.str
simswii_XXX_XX.xml

extract simswii_eng_us.str & simswii_eng_us.xml
replace simswii_jpn_jp.str & simswii_jpn_jp.xml with the 2 above
(or other languages you like)

truncha sign it and it's done

Only the Wii game channel and in-game logo will still be in Jap
but who cares...

 

[FAST6191]

Been following this (although not saying much) since it started. Some very interesting developments.

"Region free" such as SleepyPrince has done it is also interesting, it seems it is now confirmed it is the binary that does the damage but what I would be interested in is to take this further and isolate it.

My suggested hacking route is disassembly (there is nothing else other that brute force but that will not be viable here) but I say find a game that works with the existing region free and try to find the area of the binary (my guess is it will be in the first section following IO routines (assuming they follow the general convention of being at the start) or an immediate jump or two from it or an overlay(if they exist)/"dll" function called at the start) that reads the sector of the disc that we know deals with this sort of thing, better yet we know this area is unsigned (and by extension readable to a plain read) or maybe even as part of the header loaded into the main memory.

 

[professa]

hi all

to those of you who have worked on smg

back when smg came out i decided to sidestep the whole issue of failing wiikeys and 1.9g and miss out on the game
so far my wii firmware has only updated to 2.1E (i have cut legs wii and have never updated wiikey firmware although only installed 6 months ago so could be anything up to 1.6b)

so now i've followed the tutorials and altered my iso and signed it
the disc produced still wants to update my firmware

my question is it 100% 1.9g that risked messing up your wiikey
or is 3.1E risky too

and does brickblocking the trucha signed iso undo trucha's work

any help would be great

thanks

 

[SleepyPrince]

anyone got a documantation on fst.bin?
I figured some of it:
they are in 0xC sectors followed by filenames after 0xC(# of files)

(type) 00 00 (filename offset) (unknown 4Byte) (File/dir size 4Byte)

type: 00 = file, 01 = dir

Anyone knows what the unknown 4 Bytes are?
I tried to compare it with truncha signer offset but they doesn't match