Saturn iso creation from extracted files.

[WaSTeD]

Hello, i'm trying to mod a couple SS games, but i can't manage to get a workable iso with the modified files.. I'm always stuck with a "Disc Unsuitable for this System" error :banghead:

Is there a reliable method to create a working saturn iso from files? Or maybe a way to add or extract them directly?

Thanks in advance :)

[alphagamer]

ISO & MP3 burning Howto V 1.0
Written in 01/2000 by Morpheus
Find me on #segaxtreme (The_Morph)

0) Preface
1) Software required
2) Preparing the files
3) Burn, Baby, Burn!
4) Annotations for experienced users

0. Preface

I wrote this Howto to help all you people out there to create proper working
CDs from the
ISO and MP3-Files you got from Segaxtreme. Note that for the Sega CD (Mega
CD in Europe)
additional hardware may be required due to country lock-out mechanisms.
Many of the Sega CD files can be converted with SCDCONV 2.50 or higher.
Please feel
encouraged to report success/failure in converting to the author of SCDCONV
and
Segaxtreme staff. The more people contribute the better the site will be.

DISTRIBUTION
Feel free to spread this Howto in any non-commercial manner, as long as this
document is
not altered in any way and proper credit to the author is given.

DISCLAIMER
THE INFO CONTAINED IN HERE IS NOT PROVIDED TO ENCOURAGE SOFTWARE PIRACY IN
ANY WAY.
THE SOLE PURPOSE IS TO HELP PEOPLE SAVE THEIR EXPENSIVE AND SOMETIMES
UNREPLACEABLE
ORIGINAL SOFTWARE.
THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ABUSE OF THIS HOWTO. ANY HARM TO YOUR
HARDWARE,
GAMING CONSOLE OR PC, SOFTWARE AND WHATSOEVER IS SOLELY YOUR OWN FAULT. THIS
HOWTO IS
PROVIDED "AS IS", NO RESPONSIBILITY IN ANY WAY WILL BE PUT INTO EXISTENCE
THROUGH
USING THIS HOWTO.


1. Software required
I use a genuine selection of fine software which is reliable, easy but
powerful and last
but not least very stable.

This set consists of:

a) CDR-Win (currently rather use 3.7f as the new 3.8a is still beta)
Fantastic cd-writing software for Win9x, NT and Win2k.
Get it at http://www.goldenhawk.com
Along with it get the Adaptec ASPI-Layer 4.57 (IMPORTANT, 4.57 works best,
newer 4.60
performs not that well). You will find info on how to obtain this ASPI on
the above
mentioned website.

Hint: If you don't own an Adaptec SCSI Host, install a AHA 1542 (non-PnP
version), then
install the Adaptec ASPI and remove the 1542 afterwards. The ASPI is a
system component
which won't be removed by this.
Adaptec provides a tool called ASPICHK.EXE which can show the installed ASPI
version.
You'll find info on this at Goldenhawk, too. Or just visit http://www.adaptec.com...

b) WinAMP 2.50 or higher
WinAMP is now Freeware, it can be obtained from http://www.winamp.com
I use it to convert the MP3 to WAV. Main purpose is MP3 playing but why
installing a
second program if your player can do it just as well? [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

c) Windows Notepad for Cuesheet Editing
CDR-Win needs a so-called cue sheet in order to create the disc we want.
This is a plain
text file. So use the DOS "EDIT" or the Windows Notepad to create such a
text file.
You will find a sample cue sheet included in this FAQ.
Hint: The CDR-Win helpfile contains detailed information on additional
commands which
we don't need but come in handy when doing advanced projects. CDR-Win is a
very powerful
software, but requires some knowledge for complete use.

d) SCDCONV 2.50 for Sega CD (Mega CD in europe) ISO-files.
Usage of this tool is self-explaining and really easy.


2. Preparing the files

First uncompress the ISO image. It usually comes as ZIP or RAR archive.
If you have a Sega CD file use SCDCONV to check if the country settings are
the same
for your image and your console. Due to country-lockout mechanisms,
"foreign" CDs will
be rejected. A special module exists to avoid this. It's called CD-X. Hard
to get
nowadays, though. So first try SCDCONV.
Second, convert MP3 to WAV.
NOTE: Ensure that you have enough space available. WAV requires ten times
the space your
MP3 files consume.
To convert them, start WinAMP. Drag&Drop or double-click or whatever all
MP3-Files. Check
the playlist for the right sequence of tracks as it might be difficult to
correct this
later. Hit CTRL-P for WinAMP's configuration screen. Select Plugins, Output.
Select the
DISK-WRITER plugin, click CONFIGURE. Select a directory where the WAVs
should be written
to. Click OK, double-click the first track in the playlist and WinAMP will
start to
convert all MP3-Files in the playlist to WAV.
NOTE: Be sure that the equalizer is turned OFF, as its adjustments will
affect the WAVs
written to disk. Check also that the repeat button is off. Otherwise WinAMP
will create
the WAVs over and over again.
Third, create the CUE SHEET.

Here is the promised sample cuesheet:
======CUT======
FILE DATAFILE.ISO BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2048
INDEX 01 00:00:00
POSTGAP 00:02:00
FILE TRACK02.WAV WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE TRACK03.WAV WAVE
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE TRACK04.WAV WAVE
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE TRACK05.WAV WAVE
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
======CUT=====

The structure is rather simple. Each FILE command declares a data file which
CDR-Win
shall write to your CD-R. Simply replace the "DATAFILE.ISO" with the name of
your ISO
file. Please see the annotations below if you got an older CD-writer or have
some file
which is no *.ISO file.
The data track comes first. The audio tracks are track 2-x. If you got no
audio tracks,
simply remove all lines except the first three. (So first line to kill is
"POSTGAP...").
If you got less than 4 audio tracks, remove the according "FILE/TRACK/INDEX"
blocks.
If you got more than 4 tracks, just add further blocks following the example
above.
Note that only the first audio tracks needs a PREGAP command. All following
tracks don't
need it.

Now save your finished work. Copy all files into one directory, all WAVs,
the ISO and the
CUE file.


3. Burn, Baby, Burn!

Now it's time to start CDR-Win. Click on the leftmost icon in the upper row.
Click on "load cuesheet" and browse to your directory. CDR-Win will now
parse your
cuesheet and tell you the number of tracks, indexes length of cd and
estimated time
for writing. Be sure to DESELECT "open new session", "simulation" etc.
Adjust writing speed if necessary. If you're ready, click on "Start".
CDR-Win will now
start writing your CD, and you'll soon be able to play your backup.
NOTE:
On the Sega Saturn you need a modboard to avoid the copy protection and a
4+1 or similar
module to avoid the country lock-out. There are some swap tricks for this,
though. You
may find them at MAMEWORLD for example.


4. Annotations for experienced users

If you got an older writer, it may be necessary to convert your ISO to RAW
format first.
The CDR-Win help file lists the writers which require this. If you have one
of these,
you'll need to download the DOS-version called DAO. It employs a little tool
called
ISO2RAW which can do this conversion. You will need to change the cue sheet,
too. Replace
the MODE1/2048 with MODE1/2352 in this case.
If you got a file which is not named *.ISO you may be in need of a hex
editor to cut out
the additional data that the according program added to the file.
The start of a sega ISO is always "SEGA[blablabla]". So look out for this.
In most cases
the header is only about 128 or 256 bytes in size.
Nero for example (file extension NRG) adds 512 bytes, 128 in front of the
image, and
the remaining 384 bytes at the end.
Calculating these is easy: If you got the number of bytes at the start,
simply cut them
out and save the new file. Now calculate how many bytes at the end are
superfluous,
simply by calculating filesize-2048*(int(filesize/2048)).

especially the last part may be interesting for you!

[st!]

Do you insert "ip.bin" from original iso you're modding? That might be the reason.
In case you didn't know, I mean first +/- 8192 bytes, preferably in mode1/2048 format.

[WaSTeD]

Yeah, actually i had all wrong lol. Thanks both for the tips :icon_bigg

Now i have the isos working :nod:

[karsten]

are you translating something or what?

[retro]

Hmm, interesting. I've been trying to write files successfully to a CD that's readable in a Saturn, albeit not pre-formed ISOs, but this info could be quite useful.

I asked over at SegaXtreme, but didn't get a reply and that was a week ago. It seems there's not much happening over there in the Saturn dev forum, at least... and when there is, it's mostly people STILL trying to crack the ring :rolleyes:

Thanks!

[WaSTeD]

are you translating something or what?

Nope, i'm just toying with some games. I will post anything interesting.

Hmm, interesting. I've been trying to write files successfully to a CD that's readable in a Saturn, albeit not pre-formed ISOs, but this info could be quite useful.

I can write a step by step method if you want :nod:

[WarHampster]

I can write a step by step method if you want :nod:

That would be awesome!

[retro]

Yeah, that would be cool, thanks!

[WaSTeD]

Ok, this is what i did:

You will need isobuster:
http://www.isobuster.com/
And mkisofs, that is part of cdrtools:
http://smithii.com/files/cdrtools-latest.zip

1- Extract the contents from cd or iso.
2- Modify whatever you want.
3- Extract the ip.bin with isobuster
· Right-click on the session
· Select "extract from-to"
· Select Start LBA = 0 and End LBA = 29 *
· Save as IP.TAO **
· Rename IP.TAO to ip.bin

4- Create a folder "game"
5- Inside "game" create a directory "cd"
6- Copy ip.bin to the "cd" folder
7- Copy mkisofs.exe and cygwin1.dll to the "game" folder
8- Create a file makeiso.txt
9- Write this to makeiso.txt:
mkisofs -quiet -sysid "SEGA SATURN" -volid "GAMENAMEHERE" -volset "GAMNENAMEHERE" -publisher "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -preparer "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -appid "GAMENAMEHERE" -abstract "ABS.TXT" -copyright "CPY.TXT" -biblio "BIB.TXT" -generic-boot ip.bin -full-iso9660-filenames -o GAMENAMEHERE.iso cd
·Obviously, write the game name in GAMENAMEHERE ;)
·I had to write the full path to the files, for ex. c:\game\mkisofs and c:\game\cd\ip.bin , do it if it produces a 0 sized iso.

10- Copy all game files to the "cd" folder
11- Rename makeiso.txt to makeiso.bat
12- Run it, it should create a working ss iso.

* I don't know if that works for all games, but for now it worked for me.
** The original method called to edit the file, but it worked for me unedited.
From the source: "Take a hex editor, open IP.TAO remove all bytes beyond the IP.BIN. The IP.BIN is located at the start of IP.TAO, you can see where it ends there starts a big block of zero bytes. In my case (european E0), the zero bytes start at hex offset 0x12B0. Once you found the offset, mark all bytes after that offset and delete/remove them. Save the file as IP.BIN."

As you can see, most of the method is "stolen" from :
http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn-patching-enemyzero.html

The autor deserves full credit for it :) mine is "somewhat" simpler and generic.

Hope it helps and sorry for my not-as-good-as-i-wish english ;-)

[retro]

That's great, thanks!

I'm not sure whether it will help me, as my files are in Virtual CD format. If you look on the DTS CD, you'll find a VCD folder with a sample in it. For example:

• IP.BIN
• TEST.BIN
• TEST.PVD
• TEST.RTI
• TEST.SCR

There may be other files, too, sometimes. In the Virtual CD environment, you would build these into a .DSK file to be read by the equipment. Would the method from rockin-b work with these files?

[WaSTeD]

That's great, thanks!

I'm not sure whether it will help me, as my files are in Virtual CD format. If you look on the DTS CD, you'll find a VCD folder with a sample in it. For example:

• IP.BIN
• TEST.BIN
• TEST.PVD
• TEST.RTI
• TEST.SCR

There may be other files, too, sometimes. In the Virtual CD environment, you would build these into a .DSK file to be read by the equipment. Would the method from rockin-b work with these files?

Mmh, i don't really know, never tried VCD. But the image building should be similar.

[retro]

Well I tried it, ignoring the bit about extracting the IP.BIN because of course I'm not copying from a CD so there isn't anything to extract, but also because I have what I assume is a good IP.BIN that came with the files.

When I create the ISO, it has only the IP.BIN inside, and no files!

[WaSTeD]

Well I tried it, ignoring the bit about extracting the IP.BIN because of course I'm not copying from a CD so there isn't anything to extract, but also because I have what I assume is a good IP.BIN that came with the files.

When I create the ISO, it has only the IP.BIN inside, and no files!

Check the path of the files, i had similar problems with that. Look at the second point at the step 9.

[retro]

Ah, it was my mistake, put the files in the wrong directory - oops!

Well, I haven't tried it on a Saturn yet, but tried it in a couple of emulators. The demo file flicked up a screen on one emulator then went back to the CD dashboard, and crashed the other emulator! I'll have to give it a try on a Saturn.