Hacking The road to creating the GCN Backup Loader

[FGOD]

yes there is but you'll need a sd gecko first then... and not everybody has such a device...

 

[Jacobeian]

something you might want to read first:

http://debugmo.de/?p=96#more-96


tmbinc describes the Gamecube Disc Encryption and somehow explain how the DVD firmware works
This clears up a lot of misconception about copy protection and also explain why software based attack is way more complicate that you might think first


THIS is real hacking and fascinating read (even if I'm not sure to have understood half of the article lol)

 

[FireFreek]

I think some people don't realise that piracy is a huge part of the economy in poor developing countries such as India or Bangladesh. They have thousands of shops selling pirated Dvds, games, etc. Think of those people(some without limbs) before you deny piracy. You could save a life.

(yes i've been there)

 

[Jacobeian]

I think some people don't realise that piracy is a huge part of the economy in poor developing countries such as India or Bangladesh. They have thousands of shops selling pirated Dvds, games, etc. Think of those people(some without limbs) before you deny piracy. You could save a life.

(yes i've been there)

are u serious ?

This is maybe the most pathetic excuse I've ever read
I don't think ANYBODY is thinking to save the third world when doing piracy, they only think saving their OWN money lol

 

[herculean1982]

I think some people don't realise that piracy is a huge part of the economy in poor developing countries such as India or Bangladesh. They have thousands of shops selling pirated Dvds, games, etc. Think of those people(some without limbs) before you deny piracy. You could save a life.

(yes i've been there)

people aren't going to be BUYING those gc backups for this loader, they're going to be downloading them off the internet. and unless the no-limbed indian has some sort of click-thru revenue from torrent sites - he's still going to be sat (balanced) there limbless and unhappy staring longingly at his pile of pirated gamecube games.

edit: i can't stop laughing at the idea of somebody with no limbs at all... and a big pile of gamecube games to sell.

 

[Phratt]

I think some people don't realise that piracy is a huge part of the economy in poor developing countries such as India or Bangladesh. They have thousands of shops selling pirated Dvds, games, etc. Think of those people(some without limbs) before you deny piracy. You could save a life.

(yes i've been there)

people aren't going to be BUYING those gc backups for this loader, they're going to be downloading them off the internet. and unless the no-limbed indian has some sort of click-thru revenue from torrent sites - he's still going to be sat (balanced) there limbless and unhappy staring longingly at his pile of pirated gamecube games.

edit: i can't stop laughing at the idea of somebody with no limbs at all... and a big pile of gamecube games to sell.

Actually, that limbless person is going to be selling the downloaded backups.

But I digress, Piracy in no way helps economies, they only personally help the pirate. When a person makes money or saves money, they are likely to invest it into selling more copies or just remain poor with a ahell of alot of games to use. The companies making the games sell less games, go out of business and then a depression is started.

Ima pirate, because im broke, I'm still killing the economy with every game i download and burn. But hey, the brightside is, the DVD industry must be through the roof!

 

[djdynamite123]

Ima pirate, because im broke, I'm still killing the economy with every game i download and burn. But hey, the brightside is, the DVD industry must be through the roof!

never thought of that, lol but hell your right hehe

 

[digitydogs]

although im not condoning or supporting piracy, it has been proven that piracy helps economies, because 1. people get guilty they are stealing and buy a few of X to make themselves feel better
2. People who pirate things not for a living have a tendency to buy things they use and like. be it movies music or games, mainly for the benefits of the original (high quality movie music, full speed games, what have you)

 

[david432111]

Yeah, I wouldn't have had many dvd's if it weren't for the backup loader. Though how can a limbless man have access to the internet?

 

[digitydogs]

havent you ever seen that youtube video of the guy working a computer with his mouth and a pencil?

 

[Phratt]

Yeah, I wouldn't have had many dvd's if it weren't for the backup loader. Though how can a limbless man have access to the internet?

Prosthetics?

Also, Pirates generally do more damage than they help. Its an unstoppable disease though, as exemplified by the music industry. If Hacking/modding becomes more noob friendly or more mainstream, Games may take the same effect. 30,000+ games sold may be considered a Hit in the next 10-15 years if security isn't tightened.

 

[Commadore64]

First gamecube suggestion:

It appears the drive itself does the authentication which a mod chip intercepts the "I am not an original disk" code and replaces it "I am retail" code (or headers or whatever)

Based on that theory
Non chipped drive:
Retail disk ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
Backup ----- Wii wont boot it - gc boot wont boot it

Chipped drive:
Retail disk ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
Backup ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
(***duh)

Since the difference is not only the medium (pressed disk retail vs burned disk backup)...
What happens if you open the Wii and mess with the sensor that pick up that the disk is small?
What I am getting at is, if there are sensors that say "this is not a 5.25" cd - go into GC mode" - if maybe tricking the sensors into thinking it is a 3 inch disk would make the backups run?

I know - not a software approach but it might be something to prove that the mios has nothing to do upto this point, thus we dont look at the mios for the fix. This would be more difficult. How would you trick the drive into responding to the burnt DVD as a retail GC?

There might be some proprietary IOCTL commands that could be sent to the drive to set the drives make it act like a GC disk is in there. Maybe Flatmii could monitor the traffic between the drive and mainboard to see if there is a difference between disk sizes....
Just a bad guess here

Now piracy issue:
It doesnt matter if you are a millionaire that can afford all the games from a store but downloads copies instead of buying them or a limbless Indian that is selling bootleg copies by getting 1 image for free and a DVD-R sleeve of 100 and burning 100 copies....
Point is that you are stealing. If you didnt pay for it you are stealing.
If the games are no available in your country but are in another and you download it and burn it - you did not buy it - it is stealing
If the video game system is no longer manufactured and you cant find the games at the local shop but you can on the internet --- unless the copyright owner of the game/rom has given the right to freely distribute the game -- you are stealing.

As far as the Gamecube backup loader is concerned - I have both retail Wii games and retail GC Games. IMO 98% of the games for the Wii suck and I have more fun hacking that I do playing some game that is either block shaped characters or weeble shaped characters collecting apples so they can buy a radio for their home (or something like that). I rent a lot of the games, if any keep my interest I will buy it. If my kids play a game and dont eject it within 3 hours, I will get that for them. I find it interesting on how it works on the inside or better yet why it doesnt work. Thats my reason for the GCN Loader hack to be continued

 

[Phratt]

Looks like we got ourselves another marcan.

Also, no one said it wasn't stealing. pirates steal.

I have no problem with you or your views but you got me a little ticked with the "98% of Wii games suck", Wtf would you buy a wii if you think it sucks so bad? I'm tire of going through this bit with everyone. I can legit name 80 good Wii games. and probably 40-50 that are considered "Hardcore".

 

[digitydogs]

phratt to the music industry example bad choice. Actually both the music industry and the movie industry are having record sales the last couple years, despite all the shouts of piracy is killing us. Yes i pirate software games and music. Before the economy cost me my job anything i actually liked i bought to support the producers and help ensure they keep making X. No most people don't do this. and yes piracy has its negatives. But most people who pirate would never have bought it in the first place. You can't loose sales or money from someone who was never going to buy your product to begin with. I really think we need a new term for pirating for the people who sell the shit black market style. They are the ones who are actually costing profits.
Wow i ranted. sorry bout that, now back onto topic....
anyone have any ideas about how to go about changing the one needed read command on the fly?

@ commadore. if you read the available info you would know that the disc size is not the issue. Its simply a matter of the code used to read the disc.

 

[caffeinekid]

Point is that you are stealing. If you didnt pay for it you are stealing.
If the games are no available in your country but are in another and you download it and burn it - you did not buy it - it is stealing

QUOTE(Phratt @ Jan 23 2009, 04:52 PM) Also, no one said it wasn't stealing. pirates steal.

Software pirates infringe copyright, they don't steal.

If you go into a store a steal a game of a shelf that is stealing.

If you download a game you are not stealing you are infringing the copyrights owned by the coders/publishers etc.

Maybe it's a silly distinction but it is one all the same.

 

[purechaos996]

ahh what the heck i through my idea in here.

this is my approach. ok we already can boot backups games on an unmodded gamecube via the AR/sd media or whatever it was. ok well knowing that we need to find a way to boot the wii into GC mode from the HBC. that may be hard i dunno im not a coder/programer at all. but if we succesfully find a way to boot into GC mode (maybe even give it a nice GUI that looks like the GCN menu with no disc) we could load a GC homebrew and that run the AR and then run Backups. so basically you would have to boot into GC mode then load a different homebrew then load the AR then load the gcbooter (i think it was called that i dont know i never owned a GC) then load the backup i know what your think too much work lol find a way to bypass the need for the ar and direcly load the GC booter homebrew

 

[nutta_nic]

@Commadore64

are you not the same dude on wiios.com, the biggest wii piracy site i can think of

EDIT
my 2 cents

a listener to a pirate radio station is not a pirate he's just a listener, and i'm not a pirate the people that upload the games are the pirates i'm just a listener too but i might br a copywrite enfringer i guess

 

[digitydogs]

people if your going to make a suggestion about the GC loader at least read up on it first. these ideas your throwing out are pointless as they dont adress THE ONLY issue left to solve. which is changing the read command for wii games, everything else has already been worked out and done.

 

[Hells Guardian]

If I'm not mistaken when the mios boots it acts as nothing more than a loader that loads the GC IPL which is stored within the system this is what does the reading of the disk. and since the read commands are differing between wii and GC disks the main issue is forcing one or the other. The problem with making an actual loader for this is that None have yet to find that solution for the command patching So unless one want's to bother actually reading up on this and offer constructive aid in the proccess buy a mod chip and STFU........

 

[Commadore64]

@Phratt and nutta_nic:
98% is an expression not an "on paper fact"
I bought a Wii because the kids wanted one and I was at a store that had one just before Christmas thats it plain and simple
Because I think 98% of the games suck does not mean my kids or neighbors or friends or members on this board agree with my thinking. I didnt mean to tick anyone off on purpose. And I enjoy and respect your guys posts in the other threads. I really do dig on hacking the Wii.
Yes I am a member of Wiiso but dont kill me because of my opinions and where I haunt.

I was just tossing my point of view more so against the people that demand a fix or piracy helps the economy or some stupid idea of "nintendo must die".

But I'd rather deal with GC loader matters - much more interesting.

@ commadore. if you read the available info you would know that the disc size is not the issue. Its simply a matter of the code used to read the disc.

Does this mean the mod chips convert that code on the fly?
I thought when the Wii boots up into GC mode - it zeros out memory and load GC IPL emualtion (hard to hack as memory is wiped out before it starts)
*I didnt see the drive sensor info yet - it was just a guess (a bad guess)