PS2 HDDChecker

I believe that there is a bug in HDDChecker, which prevents PFS partition checking from working correctly. So for now, I suggest not using this to check PFS partitions (particularly large ones) - although the other functions should be fine.
If the partition is small enough (I suppose that's why there are seemingly no complains about this), the in-memory buffer is used instead.

Its fsck module was originally based on the one from HDD Utility Disc v1.00J, which used a new _tmp partition to store the temporary bitmap. However, this was changed in later versions of the HDD Utility Disc to use the data region of __mbr, which is mostly unused (except for the MBR program itself).
To avoid the MBR, Sony adds 0x00020000 (64MB) to the LBA to access. Unfortuately, since my version was upgraded from the early design, this step was missed out. It's been like that ever since the feature was made.

Given the formula to compute the number of bitmaps:
Code: 
bitmapCount = (sectors >> 20) + (0 < ((sectors >> 3) & 0x0001FFFF));
2²⁰ * 512 = 1MB * 512 = 536870912 (512MB).

There are 5x bitmap buffers. So the partition would need to be larger than 2.5GB, before it starts writing to the HDD.
 
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Hi! Do you recommend low level formating the HDD with your tool or with a PC? I think it should work well in both ways but is just to confirm it, because I need a LLF on my PS2 hardrive.
Thanks!!
 
Such thing like low level format is not possible since around 30 years now. Firmware prevent it because there is also service area located on disk. You probably misleading with: full format. Full format on PC, overwrite everything by zeroes. I don't know if HDDChecker doing that too, if yes, then there is no differences. At the end, You must quick formatting it on PS2 anyway to make APA partitions.
 
Ok, thanks!! Finally I´m formatting it with the PS2. I wish when it ends uLE will recognize the HDD as "not formatted" and be able to format it in PFS, because I don´t want to use WinHiip anymore.
 
All PS2 application (i.e HDDChecker or uLE) will format + create base partitions so should be recognized by all programs which reading/writing to HDD in PFS space.

Yes, instead of WinHIIP, use HDL Dump/Dumb.
 
Yes, I can confirm that, just finished one hour ago without errors and told to format the hardrive to create the base partitions. Now the HDD is working well. Thanks!!
 
Hi! Sorry to revive an old thread but I just want to know if it's normal for the error checking option to spend an hour or more on the "please wait" screen? Also tried to zero-fill disk and the time estimate given was more than 24 hours. My disk is a sata HDD 1TB already formated with uElf.
 
Is totally normal to spend more than 24 hours zero-filling the hdd, I formatted a 500GB hdd and lasted for 13 hours more or less so your 1TB disk might last much more.
The checking option screen I can confirm it because i haven´t tried, maybe the problem is the hard drive.
 
The hard drive is brand new and was now going on 3 hours to check for errors, wouldn't even turn off on the reset button, add to press the power button on the back. Is there any difference in using HDDChecker or HDDManager from uElf?
 
@RamboT The more partitions, the more sub-partitions in chain to check. The larger HDD, the longer time to read all data.

@Maculo
  • Let's assume that Your HDD has 500GiB, which means 512000MiB (it is probably 500GB but I'm to lazy to calculating real size :P).
  • Let's assume that NA keeps full UDMA4 speed all the time.
  • Let's assume that write speed of this HDD is ~60MiB/s (in theory 6400rpm drives should be 120MB/s but that's also depend of write technology used (read about CMR, PMR and SMR) and other various of factors like sector number (speed will be larger the far away is from center of disk) etc. etc.).
Then let's do some basic math: ;)
Code: 
512000 / 60 = x
x / 3600 = y
"y" value representing expected hours.
 
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Oh I get it now. Unfortunately HDDChecker still freezes or takes forever but it's alright, I'll just use uLaunchElf. Thanks for everything.
 
Hi, all! Recently HDDChecker after each check and optimize display a message "Error There was a problem accessing the disk. The operation cannot completed." What can I do to fix this?
 
TnA said:
Did you use an image to install FHDB?
Click to expand...
No, I'm use FMCB.
I noticed that the files from the partition "+OPL" could not copy to my MASS storage. And in HDDManager (ule util) partition "+OPL" was wrong negative size. Then I remove this partition, but get same error in HDDChecker. Most likely the hard drive will soon come to death?
 
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