November 26, 2006
After months of wondering if i would ever get this right, I have finally made some working backups. I have a hitachi 47dj flashed with Maximus-Garyopa_XTRM-HITACHI_v2_3_Stealth_Rev2. I used the Xeno Connectivity Kit (a very worthwhile investment) to hook it up.
Hitachi 47dj
Xeno Connectivity Kit
Maximus-Garyopa_XTRM-HITACHI_v2_3_Stealth_Rev2 (used included getss.bat to extract security sector)
WxRipper 1.2.0.42
SSMerger 1.7b
ImgBurn 2.1
BenQ DW1640 with BSQB firmware
Verbatim DVD+R DL
First I used wxRipper to dump the iso. WxRipper is THE only way to successfully dump game data from a hitachi as far as i know. The xtreme/isobuster method does not work because the hitachi cannot be unlocked to view the game partition. There are many guides on how to use wxripper, but i'll explain how i did it anyways.
Take the top off of a dvd drive. Get a movie that is around 8GB. I used Memoirs of Giesha (7.85gb). Put the movie in the drive and start up wxripper. Click on stop drive to make the disc stop spinning. Now switch out the movie for the 360 original (i've done NBA Live 06 and Madden 07). Do this without hitting the eject button. Once you have it switched, click on spin drive and let it start spinning. Now find the magic number. Save the layout file and open it with notepad. Change the letters at the beginning of the first three lines to a capital D. Here's what my layout file looks like
D19408
D1072
D109344
C1783936
J342400
C1783936
J0
It gave me no errors and said "done" after each line. I also found that the layout was the same whether I found the magic number before or after I switched the movie for the 360 original.
Once you have saved the new layout file, load it in wxripper and start the dump. It took me 20 minutes and came out to be 7.05GB for both games.
Next you need to get the security sector from the original. Hook up the hitachi drive to your computer and get it into modeb. A connectivity kit makes this very easy. Then restart the computer. Put in the original now and wait at least 20 seconds to let it get spinning. Start up the command prompt (start>run>cmd) and run the getss.bat file from wherever you extracted your firmware to. Now you have an ss.bin file.
The next step is to merge your dumped iso with the ss.bin. You will need SSMerger 1.7b. You don't have to change any settings in it. It will change your iso, so I would recommend copying the iso that you dumped to a backup directory. When you select your iso file, it will ask you if you want it to check the online database. Click yes and wait a few minutes as it checks.
It should recognize your iso file as a game. When you load the ss.bin, it will probably be red, leading you to believe that you have an incorrect ss.bin. IGNORE THIS. That just means that nobody has reported your ss as a working one. Now click on the giant merge button and it will create a game.dvd file. It also changed the size of my iso from 7.05 to 7.17gb.
You are now ready to burn. Download ImgBurn 2.1 and click on tools>settings. Then go to the Write tab. Under Options on the right side under Layer Break click on user specified and then next to "sectors in L0" type in 1913760. Now click ok.
Before you burn, you also need to set the booktype for your burner. ImgBurn can do this. Go to tools>drive>Change Book Type. Select your drive model and then I set every booktype to DVD-ROM.
Now select the game.dvd file that SSMerger created (its a very small file) for your source. Set the write speed to 2.4x. Click burn and watch it go. I used Verbatim DVD+R DL's for burning.
The game worked for me as soon as I popped it in. It only took me 2 months and countless coasters to get here. Hopefully this will help some of you that are going through the troubles that I did. Don't commit suicide........just keep trying.