Misc Obtaining Data from an ISO with Predominantly .bin Files

[vasculan]

Right now, I am simply trying to extract audio and MIDI files from a LocoRoco2 ISO. I'm not looking to change the game or music just yet, I just want to access the files. While I was able to find some information, I am stuck.

Going through it on the computer reveals that, besides a folder in USRDIR of all the cutscenes, all that's inside of it is .bin files. I'm aware that a lot of the data should be in the EBOOT, so I checked that, the decrypted version obtained from PPSSPP, and the BOOT. Viewing these .bins in a hex editor shows directories where files should be stored, but I can't access the files I need.

 

[rantex92]

Right now, I am simply trying to extract audio and MIDI files from a LocoRoco2 ISO. I'm not looking to change the game or music just yet, I just want to access the files. While I was able to find some information, I am stuck.

Going through it on the computer reveals that, besides a folder in USRDIR of all the cutscenes, all that's inside of it is .bin files. I'm aware that a lot of the data should be in the EBOOT, so I checked that, the decrypted version obtained from PPSSPP, and the BOOT. Viewing these .bins in a hex editor shows directories where files should be stored, but I can't access the files I need.

you will need to look into game extractors like Universal Extractor 2 RC4/dragon unpacker or magic unpacker but idk if they support psp games/bins since bin files arent always the same but sometimes you could get lucky with total commander and plugins

and yeah sadly there is no all in one program solution

 

[vasculan]

I did try using Universal Extractor after you suggested it. It did unpack the ISO, but like I said before the image file is full of bins. I assumed that I was supposed to try that on the individual .bin files as well? When I tried that, a few things happened:

• For the decrypted PPSSPP version of the EBOOT, the program said that it couldn't be unpacked but that it likely came from an ELF file. The same happened when I tried this on the ISO's BOOT file.
• For the Data .bin, the system mentioned that it recognized it as a game file, and listed a handful of titles. I'm grateful that they had a list, but none of them matched the one I'm working from. As a result, the program was unable to extract from it. This also happened when I tried it on the encrypted EBOOT.

I'll keep trying with different systems. I'm thinking of trying dragon unpacker next, but the game I'm working with isn't on the site's list of supported games, so I'm a little hesitant.

 

[vasculan]

Dragon UnPACKer was next. It's true that on the website about 284 games were supported without having to use the Hyper Ripper, so I tried a vanilla run and a Hyper Ripper test. On a vanilla run, the system would not load the ISO, but examining the individual bins reveals that the system doesn't immediately recognize it (it supports CBINs).

The Hyper Ripper is another story. That has a few file formats it can sift through, so I tried it on the EBOOTS and BOOT and got nothing, but I tried it Data and it found one MOV. I forgot that how the files were stores might not match up to what the system is capable of finding. It didn't find any MIDI files and there were no WAV or MP3s it found that way either.

 

[sudeki300]

just use UMDgen

 

[vasculan]

just use UMDgen

I used UMDGen before I came to ask on the forum. Examining it on that program gave just what I said: the cutscene files in one folder (as pmfs), and the rest as .bins in their respective folders. Is there an extra step I should take from there?

 

[sudeki300]

I used UMDGen before I came to ask on the forum. Examining it on that program gave just what I said: the cutscene files in one folder (as pmfs), and the rest as .bins in their respective folders. Is there an extra step I should take from there?

cant remember off the top of my head as it's been years since i used it, have you tried extracting the iso with winrar or renaming the .ISO to .ZIP and extracting in windows?

 

[vasculan]

cant remember off the top of my head as it's been years since i used it, have you tried extracting the iso with winrar or renaming the .ISO to .ZIP and extracting in windows?

Yes, I've done so, and It gave the same results. I should have done this before, but this is what I'm working with, for reference. (The screenshots use UMDGen because it was open at the time)

 

[sudeki300]

Yes, I've done so, and It gave the same results. I should have done this before, but this is what I'm working with, for reference. (The screenshots use UMDGen because it was open at the time)

i have no trouble finding the music file in BoF3, they will be atrac3 files,see below:

 

[sudeki300]

Yes, I've done so, and It gave the same results. I should have done this before, but this is what I'm working with, for reference. (The screenshots use UMDGen because it was open at the time)

try using the layout tab to locate where the audio files are:

 

[vasculan]

Layout tab only shows one AT3 file, and that I think that's the menu music. No other AT3 files show up. The game itself has all its files and music working, so I just assume it's compressed into the EBOOT, but sifting through the ISO gives me just that.

 

[rantex92]

Layout tab only shows one AT3 file, and that I think that's the menu music. No other AT3 files show up. The game itself has all its files and music working, so I just assume it's compressed into the EBOOT, but sifting through the ISO gives me just that.

so you still couldnt find any other music tracks? are there some .psarc/arc files sometimes those are use as archieve hence the name playstationarchieve (.psarc)

 

[ChiefReginod]

The BIN extension basically means nothing. It could be an executable, a packed file, compressed, text, audio, video, etc. On top of that, even if you know for a fact that it's packed, there are a million and one different container formats and they're usually designed for the needs of specific games (although some developers reuse the same formats for multiple games).

Most likely even if you find a way to extract the audio, it will be in some obscure format. People spend a lot of time and energy adding support for various proprietary audio formats to plugins like Game Emu Player and vgmstream. There's a good chance someone has already ripped the soundtrack for the game you mentioned. You're unlikely to find any MIDI files, however.

 

[vasculan]

Thank you. Now I do see that looking through the .bin files willy nilly was a bad idea since I didn't even know what to look for. But in the future, if I did try to look through an ISO with a lot of .bins like this one, would it be better to use something like quickbms on it?

 

[rantex92]

Thank you. Now I do see that looking through the .bin files willy nilly was a bad idea since I didn't even know what to look for. But in the future, if I did try to look through an ISO with a lot of .bins like this one, would it be better to use something like quickbms on it?

iirc you will need the correct skript for bms there should be one for psp on xentax/zenhax

 

[ChiefReginod]

Thank you. Now I do see that looking through the .bin files willy nilly was a bad idea since I didn't even know what to look for. But in the future, if I did try to look through an ISO with a lot of .bins like this one, would it be better to use something like quickbms on it?

As far as unpacking the ISO goes, it doesn't make a difference what tool you use. You'll get the same files from it.

QuickBMS is useful for unpacking various packed file formats. So, if any of the BIN files are actually container files, it could be useful. But as said, you would still need a script for that particular format since it varies per game.

One thing to try is to open the BIN files in a hex editor and check the first few bytes. Look up "file signatures", aka "magic words" or "magic bytes." Sometimes you can determine what the file actually is from this identifier.

 

[vasculan]

As far as unpacking the ISO goes, it doesn't make a difference what tool you use. You'll get the same files from it.

QuickBMS is useful for unpacking various packed file formats. So, if any of the BIN files are actually container files, it could be useful. But as said, you would still need a script for that particular format since it varies per game.

One thing to try is to open the BIN files in a hex editor and check the first few bytes. Look up "file signatures", aka "magic words" or "magic bytes." Sometimes you can determine what the file actually is from this identifier.

I know from looking at the DATA.bin and the BOOT.bin that the former begins with GPRS, while the latter begins with ELF.

 

[vasculan]

I did find a pseudo solution to the specific problem I had: courtesy of this post by TheSandKid, it advised to look through the debugger of PPSSPP and create a dump file from it, or to use PSound and find and convert the music from there. I'd still like to be able to learn how to find the music files within the original ISO and its bin files, but this is a good start.

 

[ChiefReginod]

Even though you seem more interested in the technical nitty gritty of ripping music from PSP games, I just thought I'd mention that there IS a dump of this particular soundtrack out there if you look around.