I tried two different hard drives on my CFW fat PS3; can't read NTFS no matter what I do.

[DaddyLongLegs]

Hello all!

I swear I tried to fix this on my own for hours before coming here for help!

I took the time to re-rip my PS3 collection and I put them all on a 5tb external laptop drive (I also have my PS1 and PS2 collection on it too).

I am using Rebug REX 4.84 and I have cobra mode enabled in the Rebug toolbox (( read somewhere this needs to be done to get NTFS detected). I put some of my rips in the PS3ISO folder and my PS3 refuses to read the drive at all.

I tried in Multiman, WebManMod, and Irisman, and none of them show the drive. To narrow it down, I tried another drive (a 1TB external) and that isn't detected either. I ran PrepISO a bunch of times and it's not making a difference. Mutliman won't even show the drive when I use the file browser.

Is there anything else I should try? The drive is plugged into the rightmost front USB port. It never had issues reading my fat32 drive. Any ideas would be really appreciated.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

I should also mention I can get pvd_usb000 to show up in Multiman's file manager, but when I open it, it just shows the loading circle forever

 

[jcorrea]

Hello all!

I swear I tried to fix this on my own for hours before coming here for help!

I took the time to re-rip my PS3 collection and I put them all on a 5tb external laptop drive (I also have my PS1 and PS2 collection on it too).

I am using Rebug REX 4.84 and I have cobra mode enabled in the Rebug toolbox (( read somewhere this needs to be done to get NTFS detected). I put some of my rips in the PS3ISO folder and my PS3 refuses to read the drive at all.

I tried in Multiman, WebManMod, and Irisman, and none of them show the drive. To narrow it down, I tried another drive (a 1TB external) and that isn't detected either. I ran PrepISO a bunch of times and it's not making a difference. Mutliman won't even show the drive when I use the file browser.

Is there anything else I should try? The drive is plugged into the rightmost front USB port. It never had issues reading my fat32 drive. Any ideas would be really appreciated.

Is your hdd using MBR or GPT? PS3 has problems to read GPT drive AFAIK.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

Is your hdd using MBR or GPT? PS3 has problems to read GPT drive AFAIK.

I read the release notes of the latest version of webmanmod and it says this:

"
prepISO 1.28 now supports exFAT GPT format and fixes creation of fakeISO for exFAT content (mp4, avi, pkg, etc)"

So I think GPT should not matter any more. If I am not mistaken it has to be GPT if it's over 2TB?

 

[Berion]

The question is if GPT is supported globally, or only exFAT is read from it. Logically thinking, if supported, then no matter what file systems are put on it from supported range (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS).

No, it is not mandatory. Only Windows forcing users to using GPT if detected drive capacity is larger than 1TiB.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

The question is if GPT is supported globally, or only exFAT is read from it. Logically thinking, if supported, then no matter what file systems are put on it from supported range (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS).

No, it is not mandatory. Only Windows forcing users to using GPT if detected drive capacity is larger than 1TiB.

Are you saying exFat might be read only if it's in GPT?

 

[Berion]

I don't know, but that is theoretically possible. I don't use PS3 for a long time now and I'm not familiar with current software.

I just point what is worth to test to check this. Or You can wait for @aldostools answer, the Swiss knife army men who implementing it in WebMAN MOD.

 

[bguerville]

I am not sure how far gpt support goes in wMM but in any case, we are talking support at wMM/prepISO level only.

When talking about partition type & formatting support, there are 2 different aspects that should not be confused as they don't really overlap:

1. Game mounting

Afaik Aldo implemented fake iso creation on gpt exfat, in this case the fatfs library (supporting gpt) only serves to the creation of tiny descriptor files in /dev_hdd0/tmp to be used with rawseciso for game mounting by wMM.

With wMM (and in most, if not all, projects supporting ISO actually), iso game mounting bypasses the file system layers altogether, it relies on the rawseciso module which can read from any storage device as long it has the data related to sector mappings to do it, in other words, if it knows exactly where to find the iso data on the disk.
prepISO (and prepNTFS before) scans the connected USB storage devices using ntfs/exfat libraries & for each iso it finds on supported partitions, it creates some sort of map file (stored in a specific folder in /dev_hdd0/tmp), this way, when you use wMM to mount a game, wMM reads the corresponding "map file" for that game and then feeds the "map data" to rawseciso which is in charge of accessing the iso data on the storage device in a "raw manner". wMM doesn't not need the ntfs and/or the fatfs library to mount the game stored on those types of partition.

2. File management

It's another story altogether. To add support for file management on ntfs on mbr, exfat on mbr/gpt etc.., wMM needs to implement all the necessary functions from the corresponding libraries directly.

A bit of history, ntfs support for game mounting was added in webman early on in the project, unlike ntfs support for wMM file management which is only a few years old.
The ntfs-3g Android ntfs library was first ported to PS3 by Estwald for the psl1ght sdk, the open source ps3 sdk, however that sdk does not support prx compilation, only self, so a few years ago, freddy & I ported it to the official sdk. A few weeks later, deank took the opportunity to implement the newly ported library functions in a ntfs sprx module for sMan & released its source. Aldo added it to wMM in the following weeks.

In regards to fatfs, I don't think Aldo implemented the library in wMM itself. I could be wrong, I haven't checked but if am not, it means that wMM does not support gpt/exfat in the file manager, only in game mounting & you won't be able to read/write the partitions.

TBH I think the next step at this stage is to implement ntfs/exfat & gpt support at kernel level, like a custom kernel module, so that at userland level, there would no longer be any need for devs to include libraries & specific functions in their homebrew to support various file systems for file management or game mounting.
It would not bring gpt/exfat or ntfs support to the entire system, the recovery mode or ps2emu among other features would still be limited to mbr fat32 of course but at least homebrews & the XMB would be freed from those fs constraints, devs would not need to implement support individually, fs related code would get smaller & easier to write, and users would get basic access to a variety of partition types at XMB level.
Better yet, it would be possible to make existing homebrews support the new partition types without needing extensive changes, unmount/mount routines (an argument passed in the mount/unmount syscalls describes the file system type) would need tweaked but afaik existing homebrews dealing in file management do not mount partitions on usb storage devices because those are auto-mounted, a dedicated thread monitors usb & automatically mounts every supported partition it finds on connected devices. Homebrews only have to mount custom partition types like ntfs or exfat if they support it so as long as the usb monitoring is made to recognise gpt/exfat & ntfs partitions & mounts them using the usual /dev_usbXXX naming convention, existing homebrews should detect them & use them as if they were actually fat32.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

That must be the most helpful reply in the history of the internet. Thank you so much.

Does it matter if there's no write support to NTFS/exfat? All the install stuff goes to the internal drive anyway, right?

I am thinking of just formatting my 5tb drive to exFat since I can't seem to get it working in NTFS format.

 

[bguerville]

That must be the most helpful reply in the history of the internet. Thank you so much.

Does it matter if there's no write support to NTFS/exfat? All the install stuff goes to the internal drive anyway, right?

I am thinking of just formatting my 5tb drive to exFat since I can't seem to get it working in NTFS format.

You are correct, the iso file acts as a BD disc, it's used for installation of game files on the internal hdd but, depending on the game, it is also used during gameplay, sometimes extensively, sometimes a little or hardly at all.

Regarding exfat, well, the fatfs library port to ps3 is pretty new and apart from wMM & Managunz (?), no other homebrew supports it yet afaik so personally at this stage, I would only use exfat when it is practical/convenient to do so but definitely not for my iso library storage.
I think if I were you I would stick to ntfs on MBR partition. You just need to set it up right & all backup managers will be able to mount games from it but also read/write files from/to it, except multiman which uses a different (read only) driver that does not work with all ntfs formatted disks, at least at my end.

To see if a ntfs/mbr partition is properly recognised on a ps3, I recommend using Irisman file manager or Managunz.
You need to know one important thing if you wish to use your ntfs partition with sMan or wMM. Because they use the ntfs sprx module made by deank & because that module has a limitation in the maximum number of ntfs clusters it supports for a single partition (a limitation which does not exist in the static version of the ntfs library that other projects like Irisman or Managunz use but which deank had to introduce to solve the memory availability issues in the sprx module that he encountered when developing sMan), you may experience issues if you are using ntfs partition sizes > 1Tb (I cannot recall the exact threshold, it may be 1.xTb or whatever rather than 1.0Tb), the default cluster size used by default when formatting on Windows is too low, the total number of clusters is higher than the maximum supported limit so sMan/wMM aren't able to detect the drive.
The source code related to this may need to be reviewed actually. I think that when a ntfs mount operation fails for a reason such as partition size, the user should be notified with a proper warning/error message so that he/she knows what's going on & what to do about it rather than just failing to mount.

Anyway here comes the good news, the fix is quick & simple!
Use a decent partitioning tool to change the cluster size, you won't even need to reformat or lose the partition contents.
I cannot recall the max number of clusters it's in the sMan & wMM projects, both include the ntfs sprx module source code, the value for the limitation can be found in one of the header files iirc.
If you can be bothered looking for it (github.com/aldostools/webMAN-MOD), knowing it would make it easy to calculate the minimum cluster size you need for the partition size you have.

Otherwise you can just do it like this:
If it's currently say 4kb, then try 8kb, and if ever the PS3 still doesn't detect the partition, try 16kb.. I am sure you get the drift, in all likelihood for 5Tb, if you are currently using the Windows default cluster size, I think doubling the cluster size once should do the trick, but if not double it again.


Also always avoid usb hubs & ready made external disks that sport custom partitions for internal features & the likes.
And don't worry about increasing the cluster size in your case, isos are big files & well suited to higher cluster sizes.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

Thanks so much again! This is the greatest forum ever.

I am not sure how to format a 5tb drive in Windows as MBR if Windows won't detect an MBR drive that large

WebManMod detected my GPT drive just fine, only if it was in exFat though. I am thinking of just formatting my 5tb drive to exFat using 8k clusters?

 

[bguerville]

Thanks so much again! This is the greatest forum ever.

I am not sure how to format a 5tb drive in Windows as MBR if Windows won't detect an MBR drive that large

WebManMod detected my GPT drive just fine, only if it was in exFat though. I am thinking of just formatting my 5tb drive to exFat using 8k clusters?

Yes of course that's a problem. I dunno what I was thinking when I spoke of a 5Tb partition on MBR, oh dear.. Lol
Historically, huge disks are not used for ps3 usage whether internally or externally because of the MBR 2Tb limitation. GPT/exfat support is very recent feature on wMM.

There is no ideal solution imho.
If you go ahead with GPT/exfat on 5Tb, you will only be able to use webMAN-MOD for backup manager & you will only be able to mount iso files from it, no file management.

Unless Managunz's file manager supports it. I haven't looked at recent activity in Zar's project. @sandungas ?

 

[DeViL303]

With wMM (and in most, if not all, projects supporting ISO actually), iso game mounting bypasses the file system layers altogether, it relies on the rawseciso module which can read from any storage device as long it has the data related to sector mappings to do it, in other words, if it knows exactly where to find the iso data on the disk.

Could support for GPT/NTFS be added at rawseciso level and then be used by all backup managers the way it is now?

TBH I think the next step at this stage is to implement ntfs/exfat & gpt support at kernel level, like a custom kernel module, so that at userland level, there would no longer be any need for devs to include libraries & specific functions in their homebrew to support various file systems for file management or game mounting.
It would not bring gpt/exfat or ntfs support to the entire system, the recovery mode or ps2emu among other features would still be limited to mbr fat32 of course but at least homebrews & the XMB would be freed from those fs constraints, devs would not need to implement support individually, fs related code would get smaller & easier to write, and users would get basic access to a variety of partition types at XMB level.

That would be even better of course.

 

[bguerville]

Could support for GPT/NTFS be added at rawseciso level and then be used by all backup managers the way it is now?

rawseciso is a module that doesn't care about GPT/MBR or file systems. It deals only with storage devices & sectors.
It isn't rawseciso which requires GPT or extra file system support, it's the backup managers themselves in order to create the games lists.
And to provide that custom support to a backup manager, there aren't many options.

1. Each dev implements his own code for each homebrew project to support whatever libraries he chooses. For instance, as they both started from scratch deank used PFS in multiman while Estwald decided to port ntfs-3g. Keeping in mind also that prx projects development has limitations that self projects don't have.

2. Someone creates a stable static or sprx custom library that other devs can reuse like Estwald libntfs library or deank's libntfs sprx. It helps standardising & promotes development. You can see that very often, when a new library gets ported, the features it provides get implemented in other projects.

3. We create a kernel module to add say libntfs functions & we hook all the fs syscalls to add ntfs support. It is the more difficult option no doubt but then we solve the problem once & for all, we add support with minimal impact for devs. Cobra & Mamba provide kernel plugin support nowadays, it was added around the time HEN came out iirc. So now it is a matter of putting that plugin together.. Lol

 

[Zar]

According to my tests, the PS3 doesn't seems to support hdd higher than 2GiB, the format doesn't matter, the lv2 function to read the raw data doesn't work, and i'm not good enough in RE to 'patch' it :s

GPT feature is a part of the exFAT lib, so it's supported only by exFAT hdds.

 

[bguerville]

According to my tests, the PS3 doesn't seems to support hdd higher than 2GiB, the format doesn't matter, the lv2 function to read the raw data doesn't work, and i'm not good enough in RE to 'patch' it :s

What function exactly?
sys_storage_read syscall?
Do you mean the start_sector argument?

 

[Zar]

yes, sys_storage_read doesn't works, I tryed lot of 'flag' argument but it never worked, so, I gave up.

Also, sys_storage_get_device_info doesn't works, It gives 0 as total amount of sectors, because it's probably defined as 'int32_t'

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

So I finally finished formatting my external 5tb drive to exFat with 8k clusters and nothing on the PS3 will read it. Irishman and MultiMan give me a black screen when I try to boot them with the drive connected, and WebMan Mod, if I choose "refresh games list and XMB" just gives me a black screen when it tries to reload the XMB.

 

[bguerville]

So I finally finished formatting my external 5tb drive to exFat with 8k clusters and nothing on the PS3 will read it. Irishman and MultiMan give me a black screen when I try to boot them with the drive connected, and WebMan Mod, if I choose "refresh games list and XMB" just gives me a black screen when it tries to reload the XMB.

Did you not read the post by Zar?
There seems to be a limitation at kernel level, nothing above 2Tb gets read from a storage device, it does not matter what userland library you use, a kernel limitation supersede any library capabilities.
Depending on the implementation, it may be patchable or just too complex to patch.
But as it's probably something to do with the type used to store data related to sectors (signed or unsigned 32bit integers for sector count for instance, that kinda thing), it's likely that easy patching won't be an option. To know for sure, reverse engineering of read/write syscalls is necessary.

 

[DaddyLongLegs]

Did you not read the post by Zar?
There seems to be a limitation at kernel level, nothing above 2Tb gets read from a storage device, it does not matter what userland library you use, a kernel limitation supersede any library capabilities.
Depending on the implementation, it may be patchable or just too complex to patch.
But as it's probably something to do with the type used to store data related to sectors (signed or unsigned 32bit integers for sector count for instance, that kinda thing), it's likely that easy patching won't be an option. To know for sure, reverse engineering of read/write syscalls is necessary.

Thanks. Even if I use FAT32 the limit is still 2TB? There ARE ways to format a fat32 drive to 4tb and higher.

If not, can I have two USB hard drives plugged in? One 2TB for PS3 games and one 2TB drive for PS1 games?