New dreamcast dumping program (test please) (Page 1 of 3)

No jamjam, SOHD-167T seems to be limited on the firmware side, it is returning the WRONG sectors in any way!

I guess they locked it for using LBA higher than ~450075 (99:59:74), or 0x6DE1B.
Using a higher LBA numbers leads to interruption and the drive reads wrong sector ranges in some way.

Thank you both.

@iRobot: I'll make a switch or check a device string to read the last bit in a big lump on the lite-on.

@amarok
Try just 'j', the second parameter is treated as a single character and passed to startstop.exe. Not handled very well at all, just a quick workaround until I can get to grips with windows api, and just use #:#:# OR drive letter.

If ddump doesn't work I doubt this will be any different, sorry. The usb probably is the problem. I'll look into getting usb drives working, probably over my head for now though.

If by do it like isobuster you mean work with your drive, it might be possible. If you mean the way it dumps or does something, let me know the difference.

The SH-D162D might work with partial reads past that point. The program does try reading sector ranges a lot, and the way it cycles through the sections every pass seems to help. If it's like the lite-on though, I'll handle it the same way.

That was the first thing I tried. Same result.

Hehe, all I can say is that ddump is the only dumping tool that doesn't work with my USB adapter (well, okay, neither does dcdump, obviously ). CloneCD, Alcohol, IsoBuster and so on, they all work just fine.

No, it's not like the Lite-On. The SH162D reads sectors above 450.000 correctly, it just refuses to start reading at ~495.000+.

@tossEAC
Try what Pikmin says, vcredist_x86.exe. Google "visual c++ runtime" incase your computer needs a slightly different version. Beyond that, it should have everything (just startstop.exe and akrip32.dll in same directory as DCDump.exe). Works on xp sp3, haven't tested with anything else.

As for using:

• Run ddump.exe with no parameters to get a list of all your devices. Find your dreamcast dumping device, and note the #:#:#

• Also get the drive letter of your device

• Then follow the dreamcast guide until it says use CDRWin, and instead use DCDump with parameters
  DCDump.exe #:#:# drive_letter

For example my drive is 0:0:0 with drive letter d so the commandline would be
DCDump.exe 0:0:0 d

It will then start dumping the disc in sections, you'll see it says what it's doing. The dump and temp files get saved to the same directory as the program.

@amarok
The program exits before using the drive letter so it isn't the current problem, but for future reference.

CloneCD, Alcohol and Isobuster are commercial grade programs, that need to be robust and work everywhere with everything. They probably have profiles to work well in every situation. It's wishful thinking to expect homemade programs to have the same level of robustness. The main problem here seems to be that you can't find a usb device with #:#:# without some extra steps. If I can't get it to work, maybe when source is available someone else can.

@Pikmin
Read errors for every read attempt, no successes at all? If there is a successful partial read you should see " - Initial dump" or " - Match: ...". Yes please try more tests, thank you

i have tried running it without any options and all i get is this:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Pikmin\Desktop\DCDump (0.1a)>DCDump.exe
Usage: DCDump.exe #:#:#

Help: DCDump.exe -h

C:\Users\Pikmin\Desktop\DCDump (0.1a)>

(both on Win7 x86 & x64)

Ok, new version (0.2a) which adds the ability to change some options. If resuming from a previous dump, don't change the commandline options from what they were (as it may not resume or clean up files if options result in different sections to original options).

Usage: DCdumper.exe #:#:# drive_letter [options]

[options]
-h      - This help.

-c#     - Set cut-off sector (after which disc is dumped in one lump)
          Min: 44990 (all at once)  Max: 549150 (no cut-off)  Default: 549150

-dt -df - Set whether or not to delete temporary files when creating dense.bin (default true)

-i#     - Set number of sectors per section
          Min: 26  Max: 504161 (all at once)  Default: 10289

-p#     - Set maximum number of passes
          Min: 2  Max: 100  Default: 10

@Pikmin
I was talking about ddump, the program to dump safedisc discs. I'll rename to DCdumper to avoid confusion.

@tossEAC
Try the new version with option -c400000. Also, if it gets to the end of execution and hasn't dumped everything, there's no need to delete anything (unless it ended badly and didn't write a file properly). The program will resume where it left off.

-c400000 should also be used by "Lite-On SOHD-167T", to avoid the LBA errors.

Another suggestion for an option aswell as the other suggestion, would be to have it read three sections, then verify three sections, to avoid the drive going from the end to the start, which it doesnt do very well.

I just got a disc to dump section 1-49 initial dump, no read errors, but then when it went back to the start to verify, section 1+2 had read errors, im hoping all other sections get matches, as dumping the first two sections is not as big a problem as dumping the last two.

I fail to see the difference between faking a read from 50000, or trying to dump a different section then going back to the section with a read error (which is what it does currently). It doesn't matter if there are read errors, as long as any two times it gets dumped with the same hash (after the match it doesn't try again). However I can implement it if it is necessary, and I can see how it may be if there is one section left which errors, as there is nothing left to jog it.

If it says initial dump, it read the section for the first time, hash stored. Nothing to compare against so it may have been read wrong.
If it says read error, the read error has been caught, hash not stored. Likely it errored in the same way CDRWin wouldn't start to read anything. Not a major problem.
If it says match, the read just done matches one of the previous successful reads. Rejoice etc
If it says non-match, it was read, and there were previous reads, but the current read doesn't match any of the previous. All or all but one of the reads so far have errors.

How about reading from start to finish, then from finish to start? I assume the big jump from end to start may screw it up sometimes atm, this way may be more gentle and have the desired effect.

DOES this help, If it says initial dump, that means the drive has read the disc thats all, but good, but may contain errors.

If on the verification pass it says match, match, match.... sit back and relax.

If it says no match, then this is a big problem as its 99% certain that the discs scratches are causing the problem.

But if it says read error, then this is not because of scratches, its more to do with the drive, gdrom and software.

If you have a read error on SECTION 1 and 49, I Really dont think the samsung drive can read section 1 then go to section 49, Im pretty sure this is impossible. Not without reading somewhere in between, which could be the fix you need. By maybe telling the programme if it needs section 49, then try to start reading before that, but only read to memory then once it has found its position the read could be moved up one section untill it finds its position and repeated untill you get to the section you actually need ie. 49

So if section 1 and 49 read error. Then even after the tenth pass, it will just keep saying read error on and on.

But the first section is easy to fix just read it with cdrwin.

The 49th Section, is more difficult.

You can tell CDRWin to read from 477128-549150 then split it into 24199728 byte packages, and just keep the ones you need.

477128 was the highest position I could find that CDRWIN would start from, higher and you just get an error.

Does that make a bit more sense now jamjam

JamJam could you help me with this aswell if at all possible.

I have a xml file which i need to remove certain lines quickly

Example.

    <Event InTC="00:00:33:17" OutTC="00:00:33:19" Forced="False">
      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0089.png</Graphic>
    </Event>
    <Event InTC="00:00:33:19" OutTC="00:00:33:20" Forced="False">
      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0090.png</Graphic>
    </Event>
    <Event InTC="00:00:33:20" OutTC="00:00:33:20" Forced="False">
      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0091.png</Graphic>
    </Event>
    <Event InTC="00:00:33:20" OutTC="00:00:33:22" Forced="False">
      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0092.png</Graphic>
    </Event>

I would like a tool that could remove all the lines that have this one thing in common.

    <Event InTC="00:00:33:20" OutTC="00:00:33:20" Forced="False">
      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0091.png</Graphic>
    </Event>

You see on this example I have InTC="00:00:33:20" & OutTC="00:00:33:20" and the times are both the same, I Want all lines from this xml to be removed if InTC = OutTC. You will probably need to find a way to remove the two lines below the lines with identical times to make it work. ie.

      <Graphic Width="1241" Height="966" X="47" Y="63">Ep 1_exp_exp_exp_0091.png</Graphic>
    </Event>

Would this be hard to make a programme to do this, if not do you need an example xml to try it on, this would save me hours and hours of work and make me very happy, and I'll find a few games I have dupes of and you can have them when you send me that drive, I have a few xbox games i could send if that will be a help, I dont have the space to keep all the games I have so getting rid of ten xbox games will at least make 10 spaces for games I havent got.

hi, jamjam

i tried DCdumper.exe 0.2a but it would just crash on my PC (XP SP3)

usually programs would use SCSI Pass Through Interface (SPTI) to communicate with drive
(SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT / SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT_WITH_BUFFER)
it has least problems
and you can get handle with CreateFile, so only letter is needed - it shouldn't matter if its USB or ATA or SATA
there are good examples in Kris Kaspersky's book
http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php … ;view=next
(look for RAW reading through SPTI
there should be precompiled examples and .c files that came on CD with the book somewhere on web too,
but if you can't find those PM me and i'll send them to you)
and on Truman's homepage
http://www.cdtool.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/workshop.htm

good luck

Ok, xml monkey bitch is not needed

And BTW I got that disc I turned to jello to dump perfectly using your amazing tool, thats one off the list, it was Urban Chaos btw.