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Announcements       Thread starter mcmrc1       Start date Jan 12, 2016 at 11:56 PM       10      
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Some updates for the good old PS2 from Liu Woon Yung :)

FMCB has been updated to FMCB installer v0.97 (FMCB v1.95), maybe some one will try it :)

It is a tool only to run homebrew for the PS2 without Chip !!! But there is also a Homebrew called ESR to run PS2 games :)

Preface

This is an Free Memory Card Boot (FMCB) installer. It was previously known as the "Unofficial FMCB v1.8C" installer.

No part of it was directly re-used from FMCB v1.7 itself, but parts of it were based or referenced from the code of FMCB v1.7.

The files in the fmcb-install folder are from Jimmikaelkael's PS3MCA project. Of course, I didn't include the questionable files which Sony claimed as a breach of their copyright.

Since FMCB v1.9 was born, the FMCB installer has been used for installing both versions of FMCB (v1.8C and v1.9x).

How to use this

Download the archive linked to in the downloads section

Extract the contents into one of these places:
A USB device
A CD/DVD
A Memory Card (Not the memory card that FMCB will be installed to)

Launch the installer with your Playstation 2 console

Option name - Description

Install - Performs a normal installation of FMCB
Multi-Install - Performs a "multi" installation of FMCB. A multi-installation can boot on all consoles of any region, and not only on the console it was installed with.
Uninstall FMCB - Removes a normal installation of FMCB from a memory card.
Uninstall MI - Uninstalls a multi-installation, turning it back into a normal FMCB installation.
Format MC - Formats a Memory Card.
Dump MC - Dumps a Memory Card to an image installer's directory.
Restore MC - Restores a Memory Card from an image located in the installer's directory.
Shutdown - Switches off the Playstation 2 console.
Exit - Exits the installer and returns back to the OSDSYS menu.

As of 2014/06/29, FMCB v1.8C will no longer be circulated from here as the FMCB v1.9 appears to have achieved proven stability.

Changelog for FMCB

Changelog for v1.95:
  • Fixed alpha blending for the hacked OSD.
  • The FMCB version number can now be accessed through the %VER% variable in FREEMCB.CNF, for the top and bottom delimiters.
  • Updated for use with the latest PS2SDK.
  • Updated to build with the new PS2SDK, for stability. This includes the use of the new USB modules.
  • Changed all KELF/KIRX files to type 01 (Update files), for compatibility with Debugstation consoles.
  • Changed PSX updater module to be loaded from a memory card instead.
  • DVD video disc sector reading is now enabled by loading a dummy DVD player-flagged KIRX from a memory card.
  • Cleaned up sources and corrected (non-critical, disassembly-related) mistakes in the v1.00 and v1.01 kernel patches.
  • Added FSCK tool for FHDB.
  • Removed HDD support for the PSX, allowing FMCB to boot on a PSX that has lost its HDD unit.
Changelog for the installer

Changelog for v0.97:
  • Updated to be compilable with the latest PS2SDK revision.
  • Compiled with the latest PS2SDK revision for stability.
  • Updated to support FMCB v1.95.
  • Enlarged output buffers for S-commands within SECRMAN to 16-bytes, as CDVDMAN can assume that these output buffers are 16-bytes long.
  • Added support for DEX units.
  • Revamped the GUI.
  • HDD unit will only be shut off if HDD support is disabled.
  • Changed fonts to the Google Noto fonts.
  • Added warning messages for users of unsupported consoles (ROM v2.30) and for users with HDDs that need maintenance/replacement (for FHDB).
2016/01/10 re-release:Re-compiled to fix broken strings table, large files can now be copied properly to the HDD unit (copied in blocks) and fixed size computation of the unused areas of the HDD unit by making it compliant with the homebrew APA driver.

Known bugs

I think that I've fixed all of them by this release. :)

Known bugs:

None!

Additional notes

I've spent slightly over a hundred hours working on this, and I hope that it works well.... but of course, anything could go wrong - so I have provided a memory card dumping and restoration facility within the installer.

A dump of a memory card in slot 1 will get saved as mc0.bin, and a dump of a card in slot 1 will get saved as mc1.bin.

The file will be saved to the directory where the main executable of this installer resides in.
Caution! You can only make one dump of a card from each port. Making additional dumps will overwrite the previous dump.

During development, I have sent 2 out of 3 of my cards to their graves and damaged the filesystems of all of them too. Thank goodness for the dumps that I made at the beginning of this project!

(I seriously don't know what's wrong with those damaged cards... they were hardly used and now they cannot be detected at all).

Supported installation media:
  • USB devices
  • The CD/DVD drive (Assuming that your console has a modchip or you are using a program like ESR)
  • Memory card.
Warnings against potential pitfalls

!!! WARNING !!! If you make a multi-install, do not delete any of the B*EXEC-SYSTEM folders or any of the OSD*.elf files inside them!

Doing so might result in SEVERE data loss. Do not delete uninstall.dat from the SYS-CONF folder either, or you will probably be stuck with the multi-install files forever.

Lastly, read the included README file for more details.

Notes regarding the sources

The sources have been released. :) Check out the downloads section below.

Within the sources, I have created:
  • SECRMAN, a clone of the Sony Security Manager (SECRMAN) module that has card-binding functions (SecrDownload*).
  • SECRSIF, a clone of the Sony Security Manager SIF RPC server.
  • MCTOOLS, a RPC server module that provided misceallenous functions for the memory cards like dumping and restoration, and filesystem manipulation.
  • UDNL, the Updater module. Used for updating the IOP with newer modules (Which is only SECRMAN for this installer).
Hopefully, they will be useful for the homebrew community after their release.
Supported languages

For more information on supported languages and how support for languages can be completed, click here. A template for translating this software is provided in the downloads section of this page.

Supported languages and their translation status Language - Status

Japanese* - Unassigned
English - Completed and built-in.
French* - Translated by ShaolinAssassin.
Spanish* - Translated by ElPatas. Original translation by pool7.
German* - Translated by Delta_force.
Italian* - Translated by master991.
Dutch* - Translated by port187.
Portuguese* - Translated by gledson999.

* Not updated for v0.97 (2016/01/09) and later.

Downloads/links

Spoiler

Note: The source code for the FMCB installer gets updated with the FMCB releases as well, as it contains the FMCB binaries. The installer itself might not receive updates in every release.

If anyone wishes to link to the file(s), please just link to the home page. If the link(s) go down, I'll try to re-upload the resource(s) somewhere else.
PS2_Free_MCBoot.jpg
 

Comments

Thanks again @mcmrc1, promoted to the news also... I had to put it in our Random Stuff forum since we have no designated PS2 section as it's a legacy console. :D
 
There is one thing missing there, to install this your console MUST be pre-moded with chip or needs to have previous installation of FMCB to be able run unsigned code ;)
 
To me this things issues seems to be taking out the actual file system drivers from the card enabling it dead kinda like cobra usb early days.
 
Thanks! It's good to know there are people still working on PS2! I have a chip on mine and some boot loader in the memory card but I've already forget all about it :) Some day I have to launch Persona 4 again and try to finish it for good.
 
There is one thing missing there, to install this your console MUST be pre-modded with chip or needs to have previous installation of FMCB to be able run unsigned code ;)
That is not actually true anymore. If you have one of the Sony PS2 Memory Card Adaptors, you can run software on windows that can create the Free McBoot card for you. This was how I made my card and for several other friends. I bought the adaptor for about $5 off ebay.
 
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