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GUI for Selfboot

OP
Ex0skelet0r

Ex0skelet0r

Unreal Assasin
yeah something like that but its not nessesary.i just have to create a code tha it will not binhacking the 1st_read.bin and the ip.bin and it will extract all the audio files and use them again without edit them or adding new ones.its simple i will make it. im working in another feature now (save setting feature)
 
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Whirlinurd

Whirlinurd

New member
I have tested several games until now. All the selfboot games I rebuild worked. Not counting the extra large first session. Not seen that one yet. I had two images that not worked with Exoboot. They were Hoyle Casino and Midway Greatest Volume 1. They did not have an 1ST_READ.BIN and/or IP.BIN. They had a 0WINCEOS.BIN and seem to be for WinCE. Not know what to do with those since they not work in Chankast.

The funny part of that 0WINCEOS.BIN is. When that data is used in Exoboot and everything is started the Exoboot folder is completely wiped exept Exoboot.exe and the data folder. All the files delete automaticly.

I have found an easier way instead of burning first to cd-rw. The image created by exoboot open it with Deamon Tools 2.29. That works. So why not use Deamon as source for Chankast because Chankast crashed when I tried. The cd is opened by windows so I used deamon virtual drive as source in Nero Burning Rom 6 and destination the image recorder. Use in Nero Disc Copy and as Read Options the 'Mixed mode or CD-Extra' setting. The new image works with Alcohol 120%. Not tested if the images work again with Deamon and Chankast.

Alcohol 120% and Deamon Tools 2.29 seem to work together without errors.

Edit
No binfinder finds nothing and says that the image does not contain any bin file. Maybe these games are to be run from the WinCE disk that comes with the dreamcast. That is possible.

I checked it for Hoyle Casino. It says 'No selfboot bin files found!'. The image freezes Chankast but is clearly already bootable since it shows the Sega grey screen.

Hoyle has a bin file but it is named 0WINCEOS.BIN. I can test Hoyle on a real dreamcast but I have to do it at my brothers house. He is using it now. Checking out. :yawn: Let you know if it really was bootable on the real thing.

Interesting note:
I was always told that dummy files are written at the beginning of the cd to speed up reading and the data is placed to the outside. This is true. Exoboot reads all the files from the cd and writes the files to a selfboot image. But the dummy file lost its meaning because it is now written within the rest of the files somewhere on the cd. So to perfectly burn a selfbootable cd with dummy.dat the dummy should always be removed and inserted again withing the iso at the right sectors moving the data to the outside again.
 
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OP
Ex0skelet0r

Ex0skelet0r

Unreal Assasin
Use BinFinder for Hoyle Casino and Midway Greatest Volume 1 and tell me if it founds the bin files

This is strange. why it tells you that it hasn't find any bin file if there is one.it should say that it hasn't find any bootable bin file..

EDIT:

All the files are deleted?? who is the stupid man that has create this program? :D . .this is happening because there isn't any bin files and the code from delete destinationdirectory\binfile.bin changes to destinationdirectory\ . thanx for the bug.i have just fix it

if Hoyle Casino hasn't any bin file and my program isn't creating a new one i can't understand how is bootable..i don't think that is bootable.can you test it on a real dreamcast?
 
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MasterPhW

MasterPhW

Master of the Emulation Flame
You're prog is better and better with each version! I've downloaded these new version now and try it out if I'm @ home! I will post bugs if I will find some! Great work and thanks that you have created these prog!
 
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B

bleeder

New member
The other night I removed the dummy's from a bunch of my games. If they werent build by exoboot, I mounted them in daemon and made the new image from exoboot. Then I would copy all the files from the cd except the dummy, put them in a directory and do the option of data to cd. Worked every time. I guess it used the same 00track.wav or w/e for each one, but it worked.
But the dummy files had alot of names besides DUMMY.DAT
0a.dat (i think it was) was a common one in echelon games, and the file contained all 7's instead of all 0's. Others were like 0DUMMY.DAT 000DUMMY.DAT or similar and others I can't remember.
 
Whirlinurd

Whirlinurd

New member
:huh: I am not really sure you are asking that about files that have the extension .dat are all dummy files. Yes, for most of the games there are other extensions used. It was NFL 2K2. There were other small files using the .dat extension in the root of the cd. By simple skipping the *.dat file will not work with that game. Offcourse you want it automaticly without the intervention of the user. It will be safer to look for the largest .dat file in the root on the cd. That also wouldn't work for NFL 2K2 because there aren't any dummy files on NFL 2K2 cd. To make it more complicated I also saw a echelon game with something like 00AA.ECH as dummy.

:whistling So how to solve this. To let the user manually exclude the dummy before the proces starts. If the user selected the 'skip dummy file' option then open a folder view of the source files and the selected file will be skipped when copying. This is only needed in the 'cd to cd or image'.

:plain: I also wanted to ask you something about the 'Date to cd or image'. Why can't I only select the hard drive partition Exoboot is installed on?

:bounce: I can understand that cd drives aren't going to work because files are changed in the source location. It will look interesting if I can choose the virtual drive, selecting the files I want to use as DATA. Exoboot then uses a configuration saved 'work' folder to copy the files there. After the image/cd is created the 'work' folder is cleaned. Offcourse this only works if a cd drive source is selected otherwise the files are copied from the hard drive to the 'work' folder again taking more space as neccesary.

:paperbag: I hope this all makes sense. Sometimes I am just rambling away. Hope this helps.
 
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N

nailclippers

New member
bug..?

I just got worms armageddon... it's an mds/mdf non-self boot and so I tried to run it through exoboot and I did options data to cd or image.. then I did make an image and set the name of it to worms and set the data folder as the folder with the data in it then hit ok and it opened up a dos window and then deleted everything in the exoboot folder except the data folder and the exoboot.exe.... did I screw something up or what?

The folder for exoboot has no spaces and I believe it's the latest one you have posted here.. but I might be wrong, a lot of this updating stuff is so mindless that I forget whether I updated or not :)
 
OP
Ex0skelet0r

Ex0skelet0r

Unreal Assasin
nailclippers: this is a bug of ExoBoot it's not your fault.i have fix this.wait for the next release.this is happening because your cd hasn't any 1st_read.bin file or something like that

Whirlinurd:Well the only solution is an option to delete automaticly the dummy files or not.If the user wants to select the dummy files all the dummy files (*.dat,*.ech) will be added in a list box and you can select some of them or all of them to extract them.

You can use CDmage in order to select the files you want and them extract them in a folder. Then use data to cd and select the folder

When you say select only the hard drive partition you mean that you want ExoBoot search all the folders in this partition in order to find ExoBoot folder? Except that, ExoBoot folder is the default folder selected when you open the data to cd mode.
 
A

Atch

New member
Exo, unfortunately, the dummy file can have several extensions : i already have seen some .DAT, .ECH, but also .BIN, and even dummy files without any extension... So i think the best thing to do would be to let the user specify the name of this dummy file ? My first idea was to automaticaly delete the biggest file of the CD, but it would raise problems for games like V-Rally2, which biggest file is an important data file, and not a dummy at all... So i maintain that a field in which the user specifies the name of that dummy file is for me the best option (and not hard to code :bouncy: ).

off topic :Another thing that made me failing my first attempts with exoboot : when i copied files from the cd (or virtual drive) to the /data folder, i forgot to remove the 'read-only' properties of these files, so that exoboot could't hack the 1st_read.bin lol. I just say that for new exoboot users that wouldn't think about such a simple step :happy: )
 
Whirlinurd

Whirlinurd

New member
Ex0skelet0r, about the 'data to cd image option'. No did not mean to search all the folders. Exoboot starts in the default Exoboot folder. Right under 'Step 2' there is an dropdown box where another drive can be selected. If I wanted to go to another partition, the folder view sticks in the default folder of exoboot. So if Exoboot is installed on e:\exoboot\. The other partitions such as C or D can't be browsed in. That's all that was basicly.
 
Whirlinurd

Whirlinurd

New member
Hi Ex0skelet0r. So I burned a dozen new games and visited my brother to add them to my collection there. Even played Metropolis Street Racer with my original Dreamcast Steering Wheel bought for 5 Euro at some toy store. The wheel is still as useless as when I tried it the first time. But gotta have it if it's dreamcast merchandise.

Ok, lets talk about Hoyle Casino without IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN where binfinder couldn't find any selfboot bins. I told you already that the game had a 0WINCEOS.BIN in the root of the cd. As I suspected already with Chankast the game also boots in the real Dreamcast and I played some Cho Gow Poker before turning it off again. Not having a clue how to play it offcourse.

I think it is not using a standard bin file with another filename. If that is true binfinder should find it anyway. I cannot explain it.

Edit:
Yes I know Chankast doesn't support WinCE games. To be more specific about it booting in Chankast. It did boot but only too the grey Sega screen and locked up there. Then you asked me if I could test it on a REAL Dreamcast because you wondered why a game with only a 0WINCEOS.BIN that Binfinder did not find could be selfbootable. So now you know that binfinder can not detect selfbootable games containing an 0WINCEOS.BIN file.
 
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mezkal

mezkal

Man on a mission
Whirli. No WinCE games are supported by Chankast yet. Check the sticky threads next time bro.

EDIT : 255 posts. Does the counter reset? LOL
 
OP
Ex0skelet0r

Ex0skelet0r

Unreal Assasin
Whirlinurd: can you supload the 0WINCEOS.BIN here?

mezkal: commodore 64?you say commodore 64? im still having one.
i have finished bubble bobble with my brother on commodore64
super wonder boy..last ninja..ahh

Well..i couldn't resist..Version 1,26 is here :) Now you can really do sellfbootable games with 2-3 clicks

ExoBoot Version 1,26:

Fixed a bug in mode 2 while selecting your hard disk source drive
Fixed a bug with games without a standard bootable bin file
Fixed a bug with the free hard disk space message
Added support to save your settings
some smaller updates
-----
Im releasing this small update now because it has some serious bug fixed and a very cool new feature, you can now save your settings.check this out.i'm going to work now in a new mode (Removing dummy files). When i say to save your setting's i mean to save cd-rom speed,cd-writer bus-id,destination folder etc so you don't have to enter them every time

Post any bug here guys (Please god please, no more bugs :D )

(i don't know about you guys but i'm starting and dislike the interface of my program..a lot of simple buttons..The save profile button and the default profile are useless i think because you can do the same thing by pressing the settings button but it's faster with the 2 other buttons.if you have any opinion about changing something in the interfece please tell me.)

I haven't upload only the ExoBoot.exe because there are some new files added

Enjoy guys. You're good words keep me updating it :)

EDIT: I have upload again 1,26 with the new exoboot.exe to avoid the free space message.
 
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S

Snake Plissk

New member
Hi Ex0, j have downoladed exoboot 1.26 but when j try to burn a self boot cd the program tells me that j havn't enought free disk space (no matter wich hd j select), and it's strange 'cause my 80gb haddrives are almost empty. Any clue?

thank you for your attention (and of course for your great software!)

P.
 
J

jeffkong

New member
Great work!!

As for interface suggestions. I suggest making ExoBoot not as long vertically. For any resolution below 1024x768 it's very hard to see fully, especially with the notes expanded.

Try to keep it simple, clean looking, and quick to use. That's my advice.
 
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