Hacking ncWBFSTool

[ChokeD]

Nice app, good start on something great. variety is the spice of life.

Keep up the good work.

 

[twig123]

What about support for RAR and ZIP files (I didn't see any mention in the Readme file)?

WBFS Manager has these, but lack support for password protected archives...
I would def. switch to this software if those features were added.

 

[zektor]

What about support for RAR and ZIP files (I didn't see any mention in the Readme file)?

Who is zipping or raring their backups tho? These are just too big for that, and I really don't think you'll get the maximum compression you would out of wbi/ciso anyway.



Well, I got home about an hour ago after running all sorts of tasks today (I thought I'd have the day to play with this and other things) but just started a massive extract. I am using a Verbatim 1TB WBFS formatted drive with 243 titles on it and extracting them to the .wbi format to an NTFS formatted Seagate 1TB drive. IT has been running for about an hour and has 30 titles extracted successfully thus far, and will most certainly be running well into tomorrow morning. If that is not a test of your app's extraction abilities, I don't know what is

My WBFS drive was detected immediately. I first extracted one game to ISO just to see its success, and was fine there. And, just checking the 30 or so WBI backups that have already been extracted I see no issue of any 0kb files as reported by the previous user. Note to him: Are you sure you have enough space available for extraction?

For a first release this is pretty polished....great job! After the entire extraction, I'll be adding the resulting WBI backups to a 500GB drive formatted WBFS. If all works well with the processes (I have a feeling it will from my earlier tests), this will be my main WBFS manager

Thanks again!

 

[CuriousG]

I'll look into DVDROM to WBFS as a future feature (not that I really see the point, I would just use my Wii and a USBLoader to rip a burnt game, but I will definitely consider it).

And I'm not sure what "BurnPatcher" (or bunpatcher

) is. Could you please explain in more detail, or give me a link or something.

I'm assuming it has something to do with trucha patching or IOS249 patching, but I have no experience with either of those.

--------------------------------

I'm still working with redia to fix his issue, once that is sorted out I'll be releasing an update.

I plan on working out any bugs people come across, as well as adding useful debugging output, before I get into adding more features.

=]

Have you even tried to compare speeds of ripping a backup straight from the Wii to USB Loader compared to say WBFS Intelligent v6? Big difference in speed.

 

[zektor]

Do people really rip that many backups? Personally I think I ripped one in my life...

I guess if you do not have download sources/high speed connection you would need something like this tho...


I have another feature request:

Would it be possible to make use of a titles.txt (http://www.wiitdb.com/) to rename the titles?

 

[CuriousG]

Do people really rip that many backups? Personally I think I ripped one in my life...

I guess if you do not have download sources/high speed connection you would need something like this tho...


I have another feature request:

Would it be possible to make use of a titles.txt (http://www.wiitdb.com/) to rename the titles?

It takes too long to rip an original or backup from the Wii. And downloading a full image would take at least an hour even on 10Mbps. Besides, most people started off using backups then moved on to USB Loaders. Why keep the old images taking up space on your computer? More often than not these days, I tend to get read errors without using Verbatim discs on the Wii so reading the backups from a computer solves that issue too.

 

[CuriousG]

How about an option to drag the ISO directly onto the Add Games icon?

 

[BedtimeGuy]

i'll probably use this once cover art downloading is supported

for now ill use wbfs manager (but this one has a sexy black menu...)

 

[warlord007]

Getting the same problem here nubecoder

first drive has 2 partitions 1 small 8GB ntfs and 103gb WBFS

but your tool cant see it as wbfs if i give it a drive letter it lets me pick it for formatting but then still wont see it in the dropdown box

ps running on windows 7 (x86) and run the app as admin, makes no difference

warlord

 

[warlord007]

just tried the USB mem stick trick and still no joy not seeing the drive

Tried on a partition on my 3rd drive and still wont see it

it may be because its the 4th partition on the drive.

i am moving stuff around now and will try a 300gb partition on the 3rd drive again (1st partition)

for some reason it let me format the 100mb windows system drive and sees that, its on drive 1 and first partition.

could it be that these are on a raid controller, but not raided ? but other wbfs software works fine with the drives

warlord

 

[redia]

Getting the same problem here nubecoder

first drive has 2 partitions 1 small 8GB ntfs and 103gb WBFS

but your tool cant see it as wbfs if i give it a drive letter it lets me pick it for formatting but then still wont see it in the dropdown box

ps running on windows 7 (x86) and run the app as admin, makes no difference

warlord

@Warlord007,
happy to see I am not the only one, lol
nubecode is working with me on this issue, and I am confident he will solve it pretty soon.

Cheers
R

 

[nubecoder]

but your tool cant see it as wbfs if i give it a drive letter it lets me pick it for formatting but then still wont see it in the dropdown box
I have PM'd you a test build to try.

just tried the USB mem stick trick and still no joy not seeing the drive
I think he meant that the USB stick was recognized, not that it made his other drive get recognized.

for some reason it let me format the 100mb windows system drive and sees that, its on drive 1 and first partition.
First of all I don't think you are running windows from a 100MB drive (typo I'm guessing), and secondly, I have specifically put in protection against formatting a partition that contains the SystemRoot.
CODEif (Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SystemRoot").StartsWith(this.driveToFormat.MountPoint, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ{ ncMessageBox.Show(this, "Format your SystemRoot drive, are you crazy?\nFormat aborted!", "Aborted"); }

I hope I misunderstood what you were saying, because formatting your SystemRoot drive = no more Windows

redia

nubecode is working with me on this issue, and I am confident he will solve it pretty soon.

I've just got word back from redia that the newest build is detecting his drive now. (This is the same build I sent to warlord007.)

Once redia does a few more tests and confirms it's working as it should I'll package up a new build for everyone.

Till then

=]

 

[redia]

Dear all,

I just finished my testing and reverted to nubecode as the drive detection is now working.
I tried on 3 different computers (2 xp and 1 vista)

seeing the reaction time of nubecoder I am pretty sure it won't be long

here are my preliminary comments

missing :
- export list of games to txt both from wbfs drive or regular folder
- handle titles.txt
- change game id
- change game name

option :
- when exporting a game allow a naming convention
for example :
%gameid%
%namefromdrive%
%namefromtitletxt%

clarification :
- how are you handling the disc partitions ? I mean are you copying the full disc ? ripping the updates ? ripping everything but the main partition ?
- same question when exporting...
- are you planning to add flexibility to this specific matter ?
- could you clarify the cluster issue between different HD ?

that's my first shot.
I tried your application and it rocks for noob users or simple task operations.
it goes straight to the point.

Cheers,
R

 

[warlord007]

nubecoder

YES i was talking about the windows drive 100MB

its the partition windows 7 makes to put its system files on (boot loader etc) but my system put them on an ide drive instead anyway

so nothing lost there anyway.

i should be getting 2 x 1TB drives tommorow that i am going to raid, so it wont be a massive heartache if things go terribly wrong.

i have sent you a pm with the results i got from the test version

warlord

 

[nubecoder]

missing :
1- export list of games to txt both from wbfs drive or regular folder
2- handle titles.txt
3- change game id
4- change game name
1- Already brought up by my QC tester (Simply Bob), forgot to mention it in the To Do list in the readme (will be added).

2- I agree, will be added to the To Do list.

3- Already on the To Do list.

4- Already on the To Do list.

option :
1- when exporting a game allow a naming convention
for example :
%gameid%
%namefromdrive%
%namefromtitletxt%
1- Seems like a good idea, will be added to the To Do list.

clarification :
1- how are you handling the disc partitions ? I mean are you copying the full disc ? ripping the updates ? ripping everything but the main partition ?
2- same question when exporting...
3- are you planning to add flexibility to this specific matter ?
4- could you clarify the cluster issue between different HD ?

1- At the moment it is Game partition only.

2- Same answer as above.

3- Shouldn't be to hard to implement, will be added to the To Do list. I'm not 100% on how it would work with the WBI / CISO format, but for ISO's it shouldn't be hard.

4- Cluster size, Block size, Sector size, I've seen it called many things, but to clarify...
The correct term is Sector size, it is the size of each sector on the hard disk.
Sector size is hardware dependent and cannot be changed.
The only sector size I have come across on all of my drives is 512 (meaning 512 bytes per sector).
Therefore I have not had the ability to test like I would have liked to.
The "wbfs_copy_disc" function I am using came from Pier-Luc Duchaine - (calimero100582 here @ gbatemp), I take no credit for it.
It is supposed to be able to copy on the fly between drives that have different sector sizes, but as I said, I have been unable to confirm this.

I guess the problem with different sector sizes stems from the libwbfs functions using the hard drives sector size when writing data.
I'm not all that proficient when it comes to lower level code, so I might be wrong, but this is how I understand it.
(Just FYI redia, all 4 of your drives I saw during the tests we did had a sector size of 512.)
QUOTE(redia @ Sep 9 2009, 06:35 AM)

that's my first shot.
I tried your application and it rocks for noob users or simple task operations.
it goes straight to the point.

Cheers,
R

I'm glad I was able to get it working for you, but why does everyone equate user-friendly with noobs?

I mean you don't have to be a noob to prefer a clean and easy GUI do you?

=]

 

[warlord007]

still trying the test version

deleted the disk 0 partition 2, not detected

create new partition (2) quick no format no drive letter, not detected

made active, not detected

added drive letter NO format, DETECTED

formatted wbfs , installed image.... working

seems to be better now mate

 

[redia]

The correct term is Sector size, it is the size of each sector on the hard disk.

lol

thanks for the clarification.
I never ran into any issue, but I know it could rise that's why I am bringing it to the table.

QUOTE(nubecoder @ Sep 9 2009, 01:59 PM) I'm glad I was able to get it working for you, but why does everyone equate user-friendly with noobs?

I mean you don't have to be a noob to prefer a clean and easy GUI do you?

and your application ain't user friendly !! it is noob friendly.. and that will be my last word... lol

seriously I get your point, and if we aren't using the same vocabulary we mean the same thing

I am a pretty good noob for quite a lot of things so I did not meant it as an bad thing

hit me with any test version you want I will test them for you.
until now I have not found any bug... nice work...

R

 

[jelbo]

I'm glad I was able to get it working for you, but why does everyone equate user-friendly with noobs?

I mean you don't have to be a noob to prefer a clean and easy GUI do you?

=]

To speak for myself: I also miss the 'advanced' features that redia mentions and quick access to them. I associate big buttons with noobs

I like one interface that shows me the current state of the drive and the options I have, not hidden beneath big buttons that pop up other windows.

 

[nubecoder]

What about support for RAR and ZIP files (I didn't see any mention in the Readme file)?
WBFS Manager has these, but lack support for password protected archives...
The problem I have with rar / zip archive support is time.

It's much quicker to extract as WBI (aka CISO) than it is to extract to ISO (also there's the progress reporting "flaw").

Add in the time to extract the archive, and you get the picture (even if it is done on the fly, it adds time).

I understand that some people like to keep their ISO's "untouched", but 1 to 1 adding / extracting is not currently implemented anyways.

I think the reason other WBFS managers don't have support for passwords when extracting from (rar or zip) archives, is that the dll's available don't support it (I could be 100% wrong here though).

It has been noted, but it won't be a priority, so don't get your hopes up.

still trying the test version
-- snipped --
seems to be better now mate
PM'd.

--------------------------------

Here's the updated to do list. (In somewhat prioritized order.)
To Do:
// User requested

• Add Wii Game direct from DVDROM support.
• Add game list exporting (both from wbfs drive or local game folder)
• Add support for titles.txt game name displaying.
• Add extract file naming options, for example : %gameid% / %namefromdrive% / %namefromtitletxt%.
• Add Wii Disc Partition option for adding and extracting, for example: GAMEONLY / GAME&UPDATE / ONE2ONE.
• Add option to expand main window to show currently installed games.
• Add drag and drop support to the add games button.
• Add on the fly bunpatching (re-encrypting decrypted discs).
• Add game cover downloading (if there is enough requests for it).
• Add auto extracting from rar or zip archives? (doubtful)

// Other

• Add truely useful debug output.
• Reverse engineer WBF file format (chinese WBFS compressed format)? (Or get my hands on some source code.)

No promises on any of these features, we'll see how it goes.

I plan on releasing a bug fix version later today.

My next priority will be implementing some nicer debugging output so it will be easier to find / fix the bugs that might arise in the future.

=]

Edit
QUOTE(jelbo @ Sep 9 2009, 08:30 AM)

I like one interface that shows me the current state of the drive and the options I have, not hidden beneath big buttons that pop up other windows.

While I agree quick access is nice, I think work flow is more important, and making a GUI have all the "advanced" features have quick access while keeping a nice easy work flow is almost impossible.

As for my program being noob-friendly...

OK, I'll accept that it is.

I guess my handle "nubecoder" can be taken both ways:
A coder for the nubes, or a coder who is a nube

=]

Another edit
I'm off to bed for a while. Anyone having any problems with the release posted in the first post, try this test build and see if it helps you at all.

 

[jelbo]

[*]Add auto extracting from rar or zip archives? (doubtful)
I wouldn't put much time in that as I see it as something not many will use and something that belongs outside of the program, being a user action.

QUOTE(jelbo @ Sep 9 2009, 08:30 AM) I like one interface that shows me the current state of the drive and the options I have, not hidden beneath big buttons that pop up other windows.

While I agree quick access is nice, I think work flow is more important, and making a GUI have all the "advanced" features have quick access while keeping a nice easy work flow is almost impossible.

As for my program being noob-friendly...

OK, I'll accept that it is.

I guess my handle "nubecoder" can be taken both ways:
A coder for the nubes, or a coder who is a nube

=]

Haha, well I'm happy to have a coder working on a cool tool like yours anyway