Short: Create/extract XBox game ISOs (xISO) Author: Fredrik Wikstrom (OS4 port) Uploader: Fredrik Wikstrom Type: util/arc Version: 2.5 Architecture: ppc-amigaos http://sourceforge.net/projects/extract-xiso Currently works best when used with absolute unix-style paths (i.e. /Work/test.iso instead of Work:test.iso). FTP and burning is disabled in this port. Changes: (01-Apr-2009) - Fixed some problems in the extraction code -- original readme -- extract-xiso v2.5 Added a few patches from sourceforge, fixed some bugs. extract-xiso v2.4b2 by in: Fixed some buffering problems in the ftp library and added beta support for CD/DVD burning on MacOS X. run the program with -h to see the command-line options for burning. I also added progress callbacks for UI implementors, of course you'll have to be writing your UI in C or you won't be able to use this feature. extract-xiso v2.3 by in This is a maintenance release only, fixed a bug in the path generation code. Thanks to Hydra for submitting a fix. extract-xiso v2.2 by in New in this version: * Finally ported the code to Win32 as a command line tool! * Added automatic media check patching during xISO creation. * Fixed a couple of minor bugs and made a few optimizations. Please read the following carefully as I want to answer some support requests I get fairly commonly and let everyone know a few things that might be helpful. First, I hardly ever do any programming on the PC. I *think* I've got the code ported pretty cleanly and it's worked in my testing, but there may be some bugs. If you find that something doesn't work correctly, *PLEASE PLEASE* email me and let me know. If you can, please include the specific steps I would need to take to recreate the program. I'll do what I can to get it corrected. Ok, now for some answers to some common questions: ALL these answers assume you're running a modded xbox with an FTP capable version of EvoX running as your dashboard. extract-xiso assumes a default username and password of "xbox" and "xbox" respectively. Q: I purchased an XBox DVD game and am worried that it might become scratched. How do I make a single legal backup so that I can protect my investment? A: One way to do this is to use an ftp client to copy the files from the D: drive of your XBox to your hard disk, say to a folder called: C:backup (unix and mac users think /backup) Then you would run: PC Users: exiso.exe -c C:backup Mac/Unix Users: extract-xiso -c /backup this would create a file in the local directory called backup.iso which you can then burn to a DVD. Q: Ok, that's great, but doesn't extract-xiso support builtin ftp? A: Yep. Assume your xbox is at xbox.mydomain.com, or 10.1.2.3 if you don't have DNS support. Then you would do: PC Users: exiso.exe -f xbox.mydomain.com -c d: backup.iso Mac/Unix Users: extract-xiso -f xbox.mydomain.com -c /d backup.iso An alternate form if you have a different ftp username and password might be: extract-xiso -u username -p password -f 10.1.2.3 -c /d /backupdir/backup.iso Note that there really isn't much of a difference between the PC version of this tool and the unix version. With respect to specifying paths on the xbox, you can either use unix style paths or DOS style paths, it shouldn't matter. What this means is that F:GAMES on the xbox can also be thought of (or written ) as /f/games/. Q: How do I extract files from an xISO I backed up? A: The command lines for extraction are listed later in this document in other tutorials, and you can always just run the tool with no arguments for help text. Read on! Q: What's the point of "rewriting" xISO's? A: Let's say you formerly created your backup with another tool, such as one that emulates GDFIMAGE.EXE. Well what you will have then is an xISO that is *maximally* inefficient. You can read below to see just what I mean by that. Naturally you want your DVD to perform as well as it can so that when you restore your game it plays as fast as possible. To rewrite the xISO as an optimized xISO then, you would issue: extract-xiso -r backup.iso This will do its magic and you will be left with two files, backup.iso, which is now the optimized (burnable) iso, and backup.iso.old, which is your old backup image. If you include the -D option to the rewrite command above, the old image will be deleted (if no errors occur) after the operation. Q: I rewrote the xISO to optimize it and it's a different size now. What gives? A: It is normal for a rewritten xISO to shrink or grow by a few kilobytes. This is due to end-of-sector buffering and is nothing to worry about. If you need more convincing, run extract-xiso with the -l option to list both the old and new xISO and compare the file/byte counts at the end of the lists. Q: I burned the xISO to a CD/DVD but it doesn't work, what gives? A: PC users: Make sure that the DVD is burned as "CD Mode1 (Blocking 2048) DVD". I have been told that some recorder programs detect the image as a CD Mode 2 XA image with 2352 byte sectors. If burned this way the image won't work. **NOTE** If anyone can tell me how to write the xISO so that burners autodetect the 2048-byte sector format please let me know and I'll incorporate it into the program. As of now I've been too lazy to look it up. Mac Users: Launch Toast, click "Disk Image", click "Select Image...", turn *OFF* "Auto detect format", select the .iso image and choose OK, click OK to accept the defaults of 2048 byte sectors, burn. Q: Cool app dude, will you make a GUI for platform so that I can use my mouse and don't have to use the command line? A: Nope, I've got better things to do. Since extract-xiso runs on linux, freebsd, macos-x, and now windows, should I write 4 GUI's? Nah. Anyone who wants to implement a GUI around my tool should feel free to do so. The source code is opensource and you can get a copy by emailing me if you for some reason can't get it through the normal distribution channels. Q: So I bought this xbox and now I want to pirate games, can you help? A: Get a life. Q: Dude, like I typed some stuff and I don't think your program works, can you help? A: See answer to previous question. Q: I'm running operating system , and I ran your tool which crashed. I took notes of the exact error message that the program reported, and I re-ran it to verify that it happened again. Here are the exact steps I took which caused to problem to recur: . Could this be a bug? A: Thank you, I'll look into it. Q: Do you answer questions in the xbox-scene forums? A: Yep, when I can, but sometimes I forget to look there for weeks at a time :) Q: On the Mac, I get this error about "_asprintf: unresolved symbol". What gives? A: You need to run the MacOS X installer CD and install the BSD subsystem. Ok that's it, enjoy!!