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[chuxterofdoom]

Ok I've been going thru all the tuts and there seem to be different ways to do this but this has worked great so far for me.

This is a Wxripper SSMerger and Burn Tutorial that assumes you have flashed your drive and ripped the security sectors already.

If you haven't flashed your drive or extracted the Security Sectors from the games yet then visit the Guides
HERE


ITEMS NEEDED:

1. SPARE DVD ROM.  (MAYBE A SCREWDRIVER TO TAKE IT APART).

2. LARGE DUAL LAYER DVD MOVIE.

3. XBOX 360 GAME (DUH!)

4. DUAL LAYER DVD BURNER (Mine is an NEC ND-3550A)


SOFTWARE NEEDED:

1.  WxRipper 1.2.0.42

2.  SSMerger 1.7b

3.  CloneCD  5.2.8.1 is what I'm using.

Ok it's pretty simple.  You need to take the cover off an old DVD-rom drive.  This is so you can swap the DVD's without pressing the eject button.  You may be able to use the Emergency Eject hole but it may not work on all drives and you run the chance of messing up the drive itself.


I took apart an old DVD-rom I had laying around and hooked it up to an external usb enclosure.  
I did this because it's easier to disconnect from the computer when not in use.  If you have it connected to the computer thru the IDE channel then that will work also.  I'll call this drive the "ripper" drive.


Ok here we go.
I used the T2 Extreme Edition DVD as my Large TOC disc but any DVD over 7.4 gigs should work.

1. Place the DVD movie in the ripper drive using the eject mechanism just like you would normally.

2. Wait for the Computer to recognize the DVD.  It will probaly ask you to play or install some software.  Just hit "Cancel".

3. Ok now start Wxripper.  I'm using the latest. Wxripper 1.2.0.42.

4. Make sure you have the "ripper" drive selected.


5. Click the Stop drive button.  Your DVD movie should stop spinning in the "ripper" drive.


6. Ok now swap it with your X360 game without pressing the eject button.  Make sure you place the white circular device back on or the game will spin out of control on our next step.


7.  Now, click the spin disc button.


8.  Give it a couple of seconds to spin and then goto Hotswap and "Find magic Number" or click the magnifying glass button.  
You should see the Wxripper screen fill up with numbers.

9.  Ok now click on the save layout button next to the "ripper" drive letter and save the layout and name it whatever you want.  Ex. cod2.lft


10. Now find the layout you saved and open it with Wordpad.  Just right click and open with... and select Wordpad or Notepad.  Either will work.

11.  With the layout opened in wordpad you should have something like this...

QUOTE

C19408
D1072
C109344
C1783936
J341120
C1783936
J0

12. Change the first 3 lines so they start with the Capital letter D.  Like this...

QUOTE

D19408
D1072
D109344
C1783936
J341120
C1783936
J0

13. Ok now save the file and go back to Wxripper which should still be open.

14. Click on the Load Layout button that is next to the save button and select the layout you just edited.  You should see the same lines that you finished editing in the Wxripper window now.


15. Now just goto File>Start Dump.. or click on the Green button with an arrow and save the iso as whatever your game is called  something small like, Cod2, Graw,Prey,Stsrow, etc. and save.


16.  Ok now you can go grab a coke or a smoke cuz it'll take about 20 minutes.  

17.  Now when that finishes it will show "Done" in Wxripper and the Disc will have stopped spinning.

18.  You should now have an .iso about 7.4 gigs in size it may differ a bit.  If your close then that's fine.



Now we move on to the merger.  You can close Wxripper if you want we won't need it anymore.

1.  Now open SSmerger 1.7b.  Everything should be at the default settings which is fine.

2.  Click on the .iso section and load the iso you just made with Wxripper.  It should say that it is Wxripper size which is fine so press OK.


3.  Click on the SS file section and load the ss.bin for this particular game.  It must be the correct one for the game or it will not work.
ss file section

4.  Now just click the big yellow merge sign and almost instantly you should get a confirmation that it is done.  Just press Ok and close SSMerger.
SS Merger Button

Ok now we have the game.dvd and game.iso wherever you saved them. "game.dvd and game.iso" will be whatever you named the iso in wxripper.

1.  Now just put in a blank dvd+r dual layer disc in your burner.  Not the ripper drive that is taken apart unless you are using that same drive to rip.

2.  Open CloneCD and click the second button from the left which is the "Write from image file" button.
Write from image button

3.  On the next screen click "browse" and select the game.dvd file on you hard drive.  Then click "Next" on the bottom right.
2nd screen

4. Ok now select the burner your going to use and click "Next"
3rd screen

5.  On this final screen select the speed for the burn.  I recommend 2-2.4x for the burn.  Click "OK". and Go grab another Coke or Smoke cuz it'll be about 35min.  
4th screen

Don't do anything else on the computer that might screw up your burn like playing Battlefield 2 or something cuz then you'll probably end up with a coaster which sucks.

Once the Burn is done.  Pop that sucker into your modified 360 and it should boot right up.

My 360 has a Hitachi 46DH drive and I flashed it using the Birdy_Hitachi-LG_friendly_Flasher_v2.2_with_Xtreme_v1.3_and_2.0 with the mediacheckv2fixed patch.

My burner is an NEC ND-3550A and I used Verbatim 8x discs.

Let me know if I missed anything and if you have as much success as I did.  Good Luck.

[chuxterofdoom]

Has anyone found this any more useful than I have.  Post your results.

[Jobeesh]

Would you suggest reflashing my xtreme 1.2 drive with the new 1.3 firmware? I'm getting reading errors on my games every time I have to modify my layout file.

[wafflezone]

I've tried editing my layout files with notepad and even editing them from scratch but they seem to never change anything. It always just uses the default settings.

[chuxterofdoom]

did you load them when you get back to wxripper?

[Jobeesh]

Well, on your request I followed your guide.  I dummied my first three sectors in my layout and I got an error in the last one marked with a C.  I accidentally rebooted my computer and don't feel like running through the whole damn thing again to tell you where the error was but what do you suggest I do?  Every time I modify a layout my game does not work!  Even with birdie 2.2 with the media patch.  I'm getting very frustrated and wasting a lot of money.  9 disks.

[wafflezone]

QUOTE(chuxterofdoom @ Sep 21 2006, 02:16 AM)

did you load them when you get back to wxripper?

Of course I did

[wafflezone]

Can you post the layout files for popular games so I can just use those instead? A lot of games seem to use the same layouts.

[arcane100]

In my opinion I would go buy yourself a new drive for ripping.
I tried for a week to get my old DVD drive working, updating firmware - dummy lines and all the rest of that stuff.  In the end after trying 4 or 5 new drives ( I work in a PC store) , I settled on a Sony that works with no errors and with no messing around, just straight ripping.
I changed no other hardware or software apart from that drive and I went from unreliable rips to perfect rips every time with no changing settings, this tells me the hardware is a big part of the issue.

The drive I have now is a Sony DVD/CDRW combo drive CRX320EE and I have ripped Blazing Angels WWII, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and others with no issues at all. Also the drive doesnt need to be opened up, I use the eject hole.

This saved me loads of cash on wasted coasters, the drive cost me less than a pack of 10 Verbatim disks, well worth it in my opinion.

[wafflezone]

QUOTE(arcane100 @ Sep 23 2006, 09:49 PM)

In my opinion I would go buy yourself a new drive for ripping.
I tried for a week to get my old DVD drive working, updating firmware - dummy lines and all the rest of that stuff.  In the end after trying 4 or 5 new drives ( I work in a PC store) , I settled on a Sony that works with no errors and with no messing around, just straight ripping.
I changed no other hardware or software apart from that drive and I went from unreliable rips to perfect rips every time with no changing settings, this tells me the hardware is a big part of the issue.

The drive I have now is a Sony DVD/CDRW combo drive CRX320EE and I have ripped Blazing Angels WWII, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and others with no issues at all. Also the drive doesnt need to be opened up, I use the eject hole.

This saved me loads of cash on wasted coasters, the drive cost me less than a pack of 10 Verbatim disks, well worth it in my opinion.

It has nothing to do with the DVD drive (Pioneer 111D), the software is not doing anything with the layout files I am feeding it. It just continues to use the default settings no matter what I do.

[runestar]

Wow, this is the best guide I have seen yet. Seen a couple others but they seems to leave out the information of hitting hotswap again after putting in the other disc and saveing the file and then editing it. Tried their way and came out with a ripped 7 meg file. I knew something was wrong. This seems to be a great way for the Hitachi/LG drive users. I am hoping so much that this will work. Been working on this for 2 days straight. ARGH.. and then come across your tutorial. I love it, so far.

[runestar]

I rip my SS from the disk with Getss but when I put them in SSmerger they are in red. I found in another forum that red means it isn't reading it correctly. I am using the firmware 2.3 for the hitachi with f900. Ripping the iso was no problem and seems to work absolutely correct. But the SS seams to be wrong. What am I doing wrong?

[red lights of def]

QUOTE(wafflezone @ Sep 24 2006, 05:59 AM)

It has nothing to do with the DVD drive (Pioneer 111D), the software is not doing anything with the layout files I am feeding it. It just continues to use the default settings no matter what I do.

 im using a Pioneer 111D), and found out its no good for this job so i got a Pioneer 112d and its ok!!