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Dreamcast Self-Boot Tutorial by Echelon 2000

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Dreamcast
 · 4 Mar 2018

 

__|_____ _________________________________________________________|__
| .|
: _ ___ _________ - E C H E L O N - .::|
___ ________ _______ __ / ___ ________________ _________ _________
_____ \/ / / / __ _____ \ / / _ \__\ _ \
/ / / | / \ / / // / _____ / / / //
// ___ // | // / // ____ / / / // / / /
\_________\________ / ___ / ___ /\________ /\____\_____ / ___ / ___ / ___ /
-rtx/art
__|_________________________________________________________ _____|__
| |
`- Proudly Presents:

Game.....: Dreamcast Self-Booting Tutorial (C) Echelon

Origin...: USA - NTSC - Filename.....: E-SELFBT.ZIP
Released.: September 19th, 2000 - Format.......: Toolset
Platform.: Sega Dreamcast (DC) - CD(s)........: You Choose

- --- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------>

Here's something that you have almost all been waiting for, the
ability to make your own games self-boot. Please note that this
tutorial is meant for somewhat experienced users, and it is not
a simple click and play program. Doing a simple program where you
just click buttons is very hard to do for self-booting disks as
they all differ so much. This tutorial will work and has been
tested to work with WinCE & CDDA games. It also explains in depth
how to go about booting both of the above. Follow the instructions
in TUTORIAL.TXT in this archive for more info on using this.

Please take prior notice that this WILL NOT work with all burners,
and it is not meant to. If cdrecord fails on you, do NOT bitch
at us, we did NOT write that program. Thank you.

- --- Group News --------------------------------------------------->

15 Releases and still going strong. We're here to stay folks.

- --- Releases ----------------------------------------------------->

Num Game Title & Publisher Origin Date
--- ---------------------- ------ ----
001 Flag To Flag CART Racing (C) Sega Sports USA/NTSC 09/04/00
002 Deep Fighter (C) Ubisoft / Criterion USA/NTSC 09/05/00
003 Grand Theft Auto 2 (C) Take 2 / Rockstar USA/NTSC 09/05/00
004 Capcom VS. SNK - M.F. 2000 (C) Capcom JPN/NTSC 09/05/00
005 Dino Crisis (C) Capcom JPN/NTSC 09/06/00
006 Vampire Chronicles For M.S. (C) Capcom JPN/NTSC 09/06/00
007 Carrier (C) Jaleco USA/NTSC 09/08/00
008 Blue Stinger (C) Activision / Climax USA/NTSC 09/10/00
009 Vigilante 8 Second Offense (C) Activision EURO/P-N 09/11/00
010 Marvel VS. Capcom: CoSH (C) Capcom USA/NTSC 09/11/00
011 Plasma Sword (C) Capcom USA/NTSC 09/13/00
012 Mortal Kombat Gold With CDDA (C) Midway USA/NTSC 09/14/00
013 NFL Blitz 2001 (C) Midway USA/NTSC 09/16/00
014 Dance Dance Rev.: Club Mix (C) Konami JPN/NTSC 09/18/00
015 ESPN Internat. Track & Field (C) Konami EURO/P-N 09/18/00
--- DC Self Booting Tutorial (C) Echelon ALL/ALL 09/19/00

- --- Greetings ---------------------------------------------------->

KALISTO, FAIRLIGHT, CLASS, DEVIANCE, MYTH, PARADOX, CCS, ACCESSION,
STATIC, MENACE, EURASIA, CAPITAL, LIGHTFORCE, AGGRESSION, UTOPIA,
NBC & RAZOR 1911.

- ----------------[ Echelon Dreamcast 2000 - You Will Believe! ]---->

 

__|_____ _________________________________________________________|__
| .|
: _ ___ _________ - E C H E L O N - .::|
___ ________ _______ __ / ___ ________________ _________ _________
_____ \/ / / / __ _____ \ / / _ \__\ _ \
/ / / | / \ / / // / _____ / / / //
// ___ // | // / // ____ / / / // / / /
\_________\________ / ___ / ___ /\ _______ /\ ___\_____ / ___ / ___ / ___ /
-rtx/art
__|_________________________________________________________ _____|__

Dreamcast Self-Boot Tutorial - (C) Echelon 2000!
------------------------------------------------

Introduction:
-------------

Since we find it a bit stupid to re-release nearly 200 DC titles over again,
and waste the bandwidth of FTP's and end-users, We thought we would release
a tutorial & toolset with which you can convert all of your old Utopia loader
games to the newer self-boot format.

Limitations:
------------

Self-Boot and Multisession code requires 3 Minutes of Overhead on the CD
you are burning. So, if you are burning to an 80 Minute CD, Your data
must be approximately 77 Minutes, If you are burning to a 74 Minute CD,
Your data must be approximately 71 Minutes. If the data is over this
size, Your burn will fail. Many end-users claimed they could easily rip
games and downsize them, but didn't know to read in GD-ROMs. So here is
your chance to prove your theories, Go ahead and rip down the games you
are trying to burn by 3 Minutes if they are Full CDs.

Tutorial for games without CDDA:
--------------------------------

1) Make a directory on your hard-disk called "selfboot"

2) UnZIP this whole file (E-SELFBT.ZIP) to the directory.

3) Download Win32 Binaries for CDRECORD & MKISOFS from:

ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/alpha/win32/cdrtools-1.9a03-win32-bin.zip

4) Unzip the file (cdrtools-1.9a03-win32-bin.zip) to the directory you made
on your hard disk earlier called "selfboot".

5) Insert the Utopia Boot-CD version of the game into your CD-ROM drive,
Copy over the IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN from the CD over to the "selfboot"
directory on your hard disk.

(Note 1: IP.BIN cannot be found on Accession releases, therefore Accession
releases cannot be made self-boot from this method.)

(Note 2: 1ST_READ.BIN might not be the exact name of the boot filename, If
you want to check what the boot filename really is on some games, open up
IP.BIN in a hex or text editor. Look on the top, It should say something
similar to: "V.001XXXXXXXX BLAH.BIN". If it says this, That means that
BLAH.BIN is the boot-filename, and this is the file that you should copy
over. If the game is using WinCE this filename will be 0WINCEOS.BIN.
This file will be referred to as BOOT.BIN from here-on. Please make sure
you don't think that BOOT.BIN is an actual file, It is just a alias as
this file can be named many things.)

6) OK, So now in your "selfboot" directory, you should have this tutorial
unzipped, cdrecord and all related cdrecord tools, and you should also
have copied over the IP.BIN and BOOT.BIN from the game that you
are working on.

7) Make a subdirectory called "data" inside your "selfboot" directory
and copy ALL game data files from the Utopia-BootCD game into this
directory. Also, delete the file IP.BIN from the "data" directory if
you already have it in the root of your "selfboot" tree. Also delete
the BOOT.BIN (generally 1ST_READ.BIN) from your data tree if
you have already put this file in the root of your "selfboot" tree.

(Note: All files that you copy from a CD will have Read-Only attributes,
You must take these off before continuing.)

8) Now, you have 2 ways of achieving the same thing for this step, I will
go over both ways and you can choose whichever you want. To start off
for both methods, insert a blank disk into your CD-Recorder.

1) CDRWIN Method:

a) Fire up CDRWIN.
Goto the first icon on the top left: "Record Disc"
b) Click the icon in the top right corner: "Load tracks"
c) Click add, then choose the file AUDIO.RAW in your "selfboot"
dir. This file was included in the E-SELFBT.ZIP archive.
d) Click the tab "Open New Session" near the bottom.
e) Burn this CD.

2) CDRECORD Method:

a) If your CD-Recorder cannot use the "Open New Session" option
in CDRWIN, You have one more way to do it, that may or may not
work.
b) In the "selfboot" directory you should have the cdrecord toolset
unzipped. You should see files such as cdrecord.exe, mkisofs.exe,
and cygwin1.dll.
c) Run the following command from a DOS Prompt:
cdrecord -scanbus
d) This should show you a list of CD-ROM and CD-Recorder units installed
in your system. Look for your CD-Recorder and find the SCSI Bus ID#.
It will be in format x,x,x. It will also be referred to as x,x,x for
the rest of this tutorial.
e) In your "selfboot" directory, run the following command to record
the 1st session of the disk:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -multi -audio audio.raw

You can optionally include "speed=x" after -audio, Where x is the
maximum speed that your CD-Recorder can record at.

9) OK, Now that you have the first session burned, it's time to move onto
the second. This is the crucial part so make sure you pay attention and
follow things closely. You should already have all game data files in the
subdirectory "data", except for BOOT.BIN and IP.BIN.

10) Read over the CDRECORD burn instructions. Find out the SCSI Bus ID# of
your CD-Recorder If you have not done so already. Run the following
command:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -msinfo

It will spit out a number in the form x,y. Normal values are 0,11700 or
0,11702 for a CD which only has AUDIO.RAW burned on the 1st session.

11) Run a DOS Prompt and goto your "selfboot" directory, You should have
an executable there called "BINHACK.EXE". In addition you should have
the BOOT.BIN (generally called 1ST_READ.BIN) and IP.BIN in this
directory.

Run the program BINHACK.EXE. When it prompts you for the Binary
file to modify, Pick the BOOT.BIN. If it detects that the BOOT.BIN
is a Windows CE Exectuable (0WINCEOS.BIN), It will not modify the
0WINCEOS.BIN. If it detects that this Executable is a normal
Katana Executable, It will ask you for the the -msinfo number that
CDRECORD gave you in the last step. It will then modify the
BOOT.BIN according to the number that cdrecord -msinfo gave you.
Next, It will ask you for the filename of the Bootsector. Here,
you should input IP.BIN. It will hack the IP.BIN for self-boot
purposes.

(Side Note: Only input the 2nd Number that MSINFO gave you,
Ex. If it gave you: 0,163012, Input 163012 when BINHACK prompts
you for the MSINFO number.)

12) Once the changes are made with BINHACK.EXE to the BOOT.BIN file, Copy
the BOOT.BIN over to the "data" directory's root. Please make sure
that you did not rename the file to actually be called BOOT.BIN.
It should still be called the original filename that you found out
from Step 5.


13) Now, you should have in your "data" directory, All game data files,
including BOOT.BIN, But it should not have IP.BIN. If you want to
dummy this CD, You must make a dummy now. You must make a normal
file dummy. Name this dummy "000DUMMY.DAT" and place it into the
"data" directory. Please note the overhead limitations of
Multi-Session & Self-Booting that were mentioned at the beginning
of the tutorial, and size your dummy accordingly. Your next step
is to run MKISOFS and make a ISO out of these files. Run the
following command while you are in your "selfboot" root directory:

mkisofs -C x,y -V ECHELON -l -o data.iso data

"x,y" should be the numbers outputted to you from cdrecord -msinfo
earlier.

14) Run "IPINS.EXE" from the "selfboot" directory, In a DOS Prompt.
It will prompt you for the Bootsector filename, Choose IP.BIN.
It will then prompt you for the ISO filename, Choose the file
"data.iso" which you just generated in the last step. It will
patch IP.BIN as the bootsector on data.iso.

15) You should now have a fairly large sized data.iso file sitting in
your "selfboot" directory tree now. It is time to burn this file.
You should still have the disk you burned the audio session to
earlier inserted in your CD-Recorder. You can do this with
either CDRWIN or CDRECORD, Just as the Audio Session Burning.

1) CDRWIN Method

a) Fire up CDRWIN.
b) Click the 2nd Icon from the Top Left: "File Backup and Tools".
c) For Backup Tool/Operation: Select "Record an ISO9660 Image File".
d) For Image Filename, Choose data.iso in your "selfboot" directory.
e) Under Recording Options, Select your CD-Recorder. Check the
following options accordingly:

Disc Type: CDROM-XA
Track Mode: MODE2
SPEED: Whatever You Want
Finalize/Close Session: Yes
Write Postgap: Yes
Open New Session: No
Test Mode: No
Verify Recorded Image: No

f) Click the start button and you are burning.

2) CDRECORD Method

a) In the "selfboot" directory you should have the cdrecord toolset
unzipped. You should see files such as cdrecord.exe, mkisofs.exe,
and cygwin1.dll.
b) Run the following command from a DOS Prompt:
cdrecord -scanbus
c) This should show you a list of CD-ROM and CD-Recorder units installed
in your system. Look for your CD-Recorder and find the SCSI Bus ID#.
It will be in format x,x,x.
d) In your "selfboot" directory, run the following command to record
the 2nd session of the disk:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -xa1 data.iso

You can optionally include "speed=x" after -audio, Where x is the
maximum speed that your CD-Recorder can record at.

16) You are done! Eject the disk and try it in your Dreamcast.

Tutorial for games with CDDA:
-----------------------------

1) Make a directory on your hard-disk called "selfboot"

2) UnZIP this whole file (E-SELFBT.ZIP) to the directory.

3) Download Win32 Binaries for CDRECORD & MKISOFS from:

ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/alpha/win32/cdrtools-1.9a03-win32-bin.zip

4) Unzip the file (cdrtools-1.9a03-win32-bin.zip) to the directory you made
on your hard disk earlier called "selfboot".

5) Insert the Utopia Boot-CD version of the game into your CD-ROM drive,
Copy over the IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN from the CD over to the "selfboot"
directory on your hard disk.

(Note 1: IP.BIN cannot be found on Accession releases, therefore Accession
releases cannot be made self-boot from this method.)

(Note 2: 1ST_READ.BIN might not be the exact name of the boot filename, If
you want to check what the boot filename really is on some games, open up
IP.BIN in a hex or text editor. Look on the top, It should say something
similar to: "V.001XXXXXXXX BLAH.BIN". If it says this, That means that
BLAH.BIN is the boot-filename, and this is the file that you should copy
over. If the game is using WinCE this filename will be 0WINCEOS.BIN.
This file will be referred to as BOOT.BIN from here-on.

6) OK, So now in your "selfboot" directory, you should have this tutorial
unzipped, cdrecord and all related cdrecord tools, and you should also
have copied over the IP.BIN and BOOT.BIN from the game that you
are working on.

7) Make a subdirectory called "data" inside your "selfboot" directory
and copy ALL game data files from the Utopia-BootCD game into this
directory. Also, delete the file IP.BIN from the "data" directory if
you already have it in the root of your "selfboot" tree. Also delete
the BOOTFILENAME.BIN (generally 1ST_READ.BIN) from your data tree if
you have already put this file in the root of your "selfboot" tree.

(Note: All files that you copy from a CD will have Read-Only attributes,
You must take these off before continuing.)

8) Make a subdirectory called "cdda" inside your "selfboot" directory
tree. Fire up CDRWIN and click the Middle Icon on the top row
called "Extract Disc/Tracks/Sectors". Choose your CD Reader in which
the original Utopia Boot-CD Game is inserted. Choose the Select Tracks
option at the top. As you will see in the Track Selection box at
the left, Audio tracks are represented by Red Circles. Click on Tracks
2 - X, where X is the last CDDA track. As you click on them they should
be outlined in black. For image filename input: "C:\selfboot\cdda\track",
Where C:\selfboot\cdda is the "cdda" directory inside your "selfboot"
tree.

9) The above step should have read in CDDA tracks 2 -> End and placed them
as WAV files named trackxx.wav inside your "cdda" directory. They should
start with track02.wav and go up to trackxx.wav where xx is the last
CDDA track on the CD.

10) Open up a DOS Prompt and switch to your "cdda" directory. Type in the
following command:

copy track03.wav track01.wav

After doing this, You should have generated Tracks 1 - 3, You should
now have 3 4-second dummy tracks as Tracks 1 - 3, and have real CDDA
from 4 -> End.

11) Now, you have 2 ways of achieving the same thing for this step, I will
go over both ways and you can choose whichever you want. To start off
for both methods, insert a blank disk into your CD-Recorder.

1) CDRWIN Method:

a) Fire up CDRWIN.
Goto the first icon on the top left: "Record Disc"
b) Click the icon in the top right corner: "Load tracks"
c) Click add, then choose ALL trackxx.wav files in your "cdda"
directory. Arrange them in order so they go from track01.wav
to the end. Click OK to add them to your disc layout.
d) Click the tab "Open New Session" near the bottom.
e) Burn this CD.

2) CDRECORD Method:

a) If your CD-Recorder cannot use the "Open New Session" option
in CDRWIN, You have one more way to do it, that may or may not
work.
b) In the "selfboot" directory you should have the cdrecord toolset
unzipped. You should see files such as cdrecord.exe, mkisofs.exe,
and cygwin1.dll.
c) Run the following command from a DOS Prompt:
cdrecord -scanbus
d) This should show you a list of CD-ROM and CD-Recorder units installed
in your system. Look for your CD-Recorder and find the SCSI Bus ID#.
It will be in format x,x,x. It will also be referred to as x,x,x for
the rest of this tutorial.
e) In your "selfboot" directory, run the following command to record
the 1st session of the disk:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -multi -audio \cdda\track01.wav \cdda\track02.wav etc.

Continue going with your track list until you have input all tracks
in order. If this whole command does not fit into your DOS Prompt,
make a batch file with this long command and run the batch file.

You can optionally include "speed=x" after -audio, Where x is the
maximum speed that your CD-Recorder can record at.

12) OK, Now that you have the first session (CDDA) burned, it's time to move onto
the second. This is the crucial part so make sure you pay attention and
follow things closely. You should already have all game data files in the
subdirectory "data", besides the BOOT.BIN and IP.BIN.

13) Read over the CDRECORD burn instructions. Find out the SCSI Bus ID# of
your CD-Recorder If you have not done so already. Run the following
command:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -msinfo

It will spit out a number in the form x,y. Values differ enormously
for games that have different amounts of CDDA burned to the first
session. Make sure you get the correct value.

14) Run a DOS Prompt and goto your "selfboot" directory, You should have
an executable there called "BINHACK.EXE". In addition you should have
the BOOT.BIN (generally called 1ST_READ.BIN) and IP.BIN in this
directory.

Run the program BINHACK.EXE. When it prompts you for the Binary
file to modify, Pick the BOOT.BIN. If it detects that the BOOT.BIN
is a Windows CE Exectuable (0WINCEOS.BIN), It will not modify the
0WINCEOS.BIN. If it detects that this Executable is a normal
Katana Executable, It will ask you for the the -msinfo number that
CDRECORD gave you in the last step. It will then modify the
BOOT.BIN according to the number that cdrecord -msinfo gave you.
Next, It will ask you for the filename of the Bootsector. Here,
you should input IP.BIN. It will hack the IP.BIN for self-boot
purposes.

(Side Note: Only input the 2nd Number that MSINFO gave you,
Ex. If it gave you: 0,163012, Input 163012 when BINHACK prompts
you for the MSINFO number.)

15) Once the changes are made with BINHACK.EXE to the BOOT.BIN file, Copy
the BOOT.BIN over to the "data" directory's root. Please make sure
that you did not rename the file to actually be called BOOT.BIN.
It should still be called the original filename that you found out
from Step 5.

16) Now, you should have in your "data" directory, All game data files,
including BOOT.BIN, But it should not have IP.BIN. If you want to
dummy this CD, You must make a dummy now. You must make a normal
file dummy. Name this dummy "000DUMMY.DAT" and place it into the
"data" directory. Please note the overhead limitations of
Multi-Session & Self-Booting that were mentioned at the beginning
of the tutorial, and size your dummy accordingly. Your next step
is to run MKISOFS and make a ISO out of these files. Run the
following command while you are in your "selfboot" root directory:

mkisofs -C x,y -V ECHELON -l -o data.iso data

"x,y" should be the numbers outputted to you from cdrecord -msinfo
earlier.

17) Run "IPINS.EXE" from the "selfboot" directory, In a DOS Prompt.
It will prompt you for the Bootsector filename, Choose IP.BIN.
It will then prompt you for the ISO filename, Choose the file
"data.iso" which you just generated in the last step. It will
patch IP.BIN as the bootsector on data.iso.

18) You should now have a fairly large sized data.iso file sitting in
your "selfboot" directory tree now. It is time to burn this file.
You should still have the disk you burned the audio session to
earlier inserted in your CD-Recorder. You can do this with
either CDRWIN or CDRECORD, Just as the Audio Session Burning.

1) CDRWIN Method

a) Fire up CDRWIN.
b) Click the 2nd Icon from the Top Left: "File Backup and Tools".
c) For Backup Tool/Operation: Select "Record an ISO9660 Image File".
d) For Image Filename, Choose data.iso in your "selfboot" directory.
e) Under Recording Options, Select your CD-Recorder. Check the
following options accordingly:

Disc Type: CDROM-XA
Track Mode: MODE2
SPEED: Whatever You Want
Finalize/Close Session: Yes
Write Postgap: Yes
Open New Session: No
Test Mode: No
Verify Recorded Image: No

f) Click the start button and you are burning.

2) CDRECORD Method

a) In the "selfboot" directory you should have the cdrecord toolset
unzipped. You should see files such as cdrecord.exe, mkisofs.exe,
and cygwin1.dll.
b) Run the following command from a DOS Prompt:
cdrecord -scanbus
c) This should show you a list of CD-ROM and CD-Recorder units installed
in your system. Look for your CD-Recorder and find the SCSI Bus ID#.
It will be in format x,x,x.
d) In your "selfboot" directory, run the following command to record
the 2nd session of the disk:

cdrecord -dev=x,x,x -xa1 data.iso

You can optionally include "speed=x" after -audio, Where x is the
maximum speed that your CD-Recorder can record at.

19) You are done! Eject the disk and try it in your Dreamcast.

-----------------------------------------------------
All Content & Code Written by Echelon Dreamcast 2000.

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