Hdl dump

hdl_dump is a cross-platform software that allows you to manage the contents of your PS2/APA formatted hard drive. This guide goes over installing and extracting games with it for use with OPL.

Using hdl_dump on Linux

Compiling and installing

On Linux, you need to compile hdl_dump yourself.

1. Download the hdl_dump repository from the projects GitHub page by pressing the green <> Code button and selecting "Download ZIP".
2. Extract the contents of the ZIP and open a terminal in the new folder, then enter make RELEASE=yes.
3. hdl_dump will compile, you might get a few warnings, but that's okay. When it's done, make sure it works by typing ./hdl_dump.

Modifying your hard drives contents

Make sure your hard drive is already formatted as APA (the filesystem used by the PS2). Connect the HDD to your PC. You can use an IDE or SATA to USB adapter, depending on your drive. You can also connect the drive directly.

You then need to find out which device your PC recognizes it as. You can use Gnome Disks for example to see all connected drives. You can tell which one is the APA formatted one because your PC won't recognize the filesystem, thus showing the content as "unknown". Take note which device is the correct one. The name will be something like /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc, depending on how many drives you have connected. You can check you found the correct drive by typing ./hdl_dump toc /dev/yourDrive in a terminal in your hdl_dump folder (you might also need to use sudo). If hdl_dump recognizes the HDD and shows its contents, you found the correct one.

Installing games

1. Before you can install a game, you need the game's ID. You can find it out by typing ./hdl_dump cdvd_info /path/to/your/game.iso. The ID is the 4 letter code followed by an underscore and 5 numbers.
   • If you have spaces or parenthesis in your path or your games file name, you need escape them by typing a \ in front of these symbols. Using " doesn't always work.
2. Determine if your game is a CD or DVD game by looking at its file size. If it's below 700 MBs, it's a CD game, if it's above, it's a DVD game. Most games came on DVD.
3. Install a game with the inject_cd or inject_dvd commands. This is the scheme you have to follow for a CD game for example: ./hdl_dump inject_cd /dev/yourDrive gameNameInOPL /path/to/your/game.iso gameID UDMAmode.
   • Replace /dev/yourDrive with your devices name as you found out earlier.
   • Replace gameNameInOPL with the name you want so see in OPL later. You can also use characters here that are not allowed in file names.
   • Replace /path/to/your/game.iso with the path and name of your game ISO. If it's in the same folder as hdl_dump, you can also write ./game.iso.
   • Replace gameID with the ID you determined earlier.
   • The UDMA mode determines how fast data can be read from the HDD. A higher mode means that games load faster, but some games may not work. You can leave it at the default of 4 by typing *u4. You can also change this in OPL later.
4. This is how the command to install a game could look like for you (see how spaces were escaped with \): ./hdl_dump inject_cd /dev/sdc Midnight\ Club\ -\ Street\ Racing /home/user/games/Midnight\ Club\ -\ Street\ Racing.iso SLES_500.71 *u4
5. Your game will begin installing. If you get a permission denied message, use the sudo command.

Extracting games

hdl_dump also supports copying games from your HDD to your PC. For this, the extract command needs to be used. First however, you need the games name as saved on the HDD.

1. Use the hdl_toc command by writing ./hdl_dump hdl_toc /dev/yourDrive into a terminal, replacing /dev/yourDrive with your drive name.
2. Now that you have the name, you can extract the game by following this scheme: ./hdl_dump extract /dev/yourDrive gameName /path/to/savelocation/output.iso
3. Again, don’t forget to use backslashes \ when the name or output file will contain spaces or parentheses. For example, the final command could look like this: ./hdl_dump extract /dev/sdc Burnout\ 3\ -\ Takedown /home/user/games/Burnout\ 3\ -\ Takedown.iso

Deleting games

Deleting games again is even easier since it can simply be done from OPL itself. In OPL, go to the settings and enable Write Operations. Back at your game list, you can delete games by pressing Triangle and selecting delete.

Disconnecting the HDD

Before disconnecting your HDD from your PC, its a good idea to power it down first. You can do this by typing udisksctl power-off -b /dev/yourDrive. When disconnecting or reconnecting the HDD from your PS2, also don’t forget to turn the PSU off with the switch on the back.