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Kameo Kinundrum

 
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
Posts: 580

PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:33 pm    Post subject: Kameo Kinundrum Reply with quote

Ouch, that was painful...

I'm looking for some advise. Here's the background:

I've been told by my company that they plan on moving me across the country sometime between the end of the month and January. They're not paying any expenses. Whatever, i can live with that.

I have some stuff laying around that i'd like to do something with, but i haven't decided what. One of the items is a copy of Kameo for the Xbox1.

When i received the disk, it didn't work. There's not a scratch on it, but the files all show as 0 bytes. I can get the table of contents to show up, but none of the files will copy. I've tried the disc on about a dozen systems and they all show similar if not worse results.

I see two options at this point, i can either toss the disc on ebay for a dollar with a big ol' warning that it doesn't work or i can try sending it to a data recovery shop and see if they can pull anything off of it.

Problem is, i don't have the cash to pay for data recovery right now. If there's some interest out there, I would be willing to take up a collection towards the costs and then give whatever is recovered to the community. No watermarks, no bullshit.

I don't know what is on the disc, it could be a two level demo that was given to the press or it could be a full build.

Thoughts?
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Blitzwing
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

can you read the data at all? ie is there any data attached to those files or is it all zero's?
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

the Xbox DVD file system is really kind of fucked up. With a beta like this, you can only read it on an xbox itself unless you screw with the firmware on a PC dvd player and force it to read raw sectors without a Table of Contents.

It would take me a few months to throw together a software/hardware combo to do a raw read on my own.

It's hard to say if the data is any good, but if you flip the DVD over you can see the data track fills about half the disc.
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PACHUKA



Joined: 28 Feb 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds pretty worthless. =\
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Carnivol
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Joined: 21 Jun 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does it show anything at all when showed into the mouth of an XDK?
(Or in a regular Xbox with some sort of custom dashboard.)

Also, I guess if you were gonna do a forced reading of it on a PC, the best would be to have an Xbox drive (or compatible with a custom firmware) or something hooked up to a PC running with one of those ripping apps, I guess.
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

on some xboxes it will show the entire directory tree, on others it doesn't even recognize there's a disc in the drive. Some of the xboxes that show the files will show their actual size, others show all the files as 0kb.

It looks like the disc is really borderline.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, in that case, are you even able to boot the disc on an Xbox that actually displays file sizes?

Are you able to access/copy files through the Xbox Neighborhood on one of those boxes?

Sounds like the disc might have seen the best of days and is slowly decaying or something, or evt. your entire supply of XDKs are doing so :D


If there aren't too many files in general, I guess the "best" would be to hook up neighborhood and try to salvage as much as possible through the use of several Xboxes that are able to actually recognize a filesize. By copying one file at a time from the disc. And if you bump into a file that it refuses to copy, then swap to another Xbox/Drive and try there.

When all is done, try to mark up anything that hasn't been copied, or whatever, and then try to create an ISO ripping setup with a compatible drive and make a rip, if it gives read errors, try another couple of drives and do a couple of rips with each... And then, evt. after wasting days worth of boredom on it, send it to some recovery thingy :/ (But best would be to see if some executable data can be recovered and test booted first, just to see if it's even something playable. Not that something unplayable isn't a nice little dust collector, but it's just that I guess people in general would be more willing to chip in on something they hope will actually work.)


Also, if you have access to a 360 XDK, those "might" (depending on the disc, I guess) read the data of it too. Guess some of those might pack a better DVD Rom than some of the old Xbox Debug Kits.


I'd offer to give a hand with this time consuming affair, but then I'd have to be damn lucky with that one and only Xbox Debug Kit that I have. You could probably try to contact Dot50Cal, I know he has a 360 Debug Kit + I think he has some compatible PC drive that can be used for Xbox/Xbox360 disc ripping (At least he used "something" to rip some discs for me and some for himself at one point.)
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I should point out, i've tested this disk on more then a dozen xboxes, and not one is able to copy a single file off of it. It drives me crazy because the disc itself is in perfect condition.

I really think the only hope of reading it is to send it to data recovery and they can take a magnetic image of it and attempt to get the files off of it that way.

It's either that, or toss it on ebay for a penny and see if someone else wants to try.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Guess you might be sitting there with a bad burn.

Your best hope of ever breathing some life into that is probably through some data recovery service or through attempting to back it up with a device that isn't limited by the Xbox's hatred towards read errors (or whatever it is that prevents it from doing what you'd expect it to do.)

If everything fails, at least you've got a nice coaster with a bit of a back story there.
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ProgrammingAce



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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i've made some money by ditching a bunch of other betas, so i'll probably just sit on this one for a while longer
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pcGTW_Webmaster



Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't waste too much time on it and better throw it away. Burned DVDs aren't reliable at all. They can go bad already a few weeks after burning, and unlike with hard disks, you can not recover the damaged data, only copy the still-readable data. If the filesystem is damaged, as it seems to be the case with your disc, then you can't even copy the intact data (that is, if there still is any intact data).
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Bu||et



Joined: 27 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pcGTW_Webmaster wrote:
Don't waste too much time on it and better throw it away. .


That's the attitude!

Seriously though, my memory is a bit scratchy but I'm pretty sure a burnt build won't have the funky FATX filesystem or whatever they used, nor the trippy backwards spinning disc thing. They're just regular DVD's. See if you can create an ISO image with a PC, as someone may be able to recover from that.
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ICEknight



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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pcGTW_Webmaster wrote:
Don't waste too much time on it and better throw it away.
He has (at least the remnants of) an interesting prototype, why tell him to throw it away before attempting to recover the data?


I mean, seriously, why?
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Unfortunately microsoft used a style similar to XDVD-FS for some of their internal burns they didn't want to leak.

When read in a standard PC drive, the disc appears to be blank. Even the usual methods for dumping a retail disc provide unreliable results.
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pcGTW_Webmaster



Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bu||et wrote:
That's the attitude!


Because I know what I'm talking about. A burned DVD that has degraded over time can not be recovered, that's a simple fact. The damage is caused by chemical reactions inside of the disc. If the disc is still readable, you can copy the intact files, but if it isn't even readable, you can really only throw it away.

Your "create an ISO image with a PC" tip, in general, is of course not wrong (well, being nitpicking, it is. A RAW image would be needed), but that doesn't work for an Xbox disc, neither retail nor prototype. And the image would still contain all the damaged data. So as bad as it sounds, the prototype is lost.

Also quite interesting how people jump into discussions only to rant at someone's opinion. Seems like it's more acceptable these days when an owner of a damaged prototype disc mentions in passing that he may just list it on ebay (a damaged prototype, nice way to make money!) than when someone says that a degraded burned DVD can not be recovered and is a case for the trash can. I lost two or three prototypes this way as well. That's life.
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ProgrammingAce



Joined: 26 May 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 11:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Honestly, i would have no ethical issues with listing this disc on ebay as long as i make the buyer fully aware they will probably never get a file off of it.

Either way, the disc has *some* value. People buy discs they can't use all the time. If i can get a buck fifty in the process, so be it.

I'd have a much harder time justifying throwing out the disc just due to it's historical value.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know what these dead sea scripture rolls say, so I'd better just throw onto the camp fire.


Anyway, PA, if you're seriously considering just getting rid of it, I'd love to give it a new home. But only if it looks really nice + at least a picture of it actually displaying "something" while inserted in an Xbox can be provided.
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Bu||et



Joined: 27 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pcGTW_Webmaster wrote:
but that doesn't work for an Xbox disc, neither retail nor prototype.


Actually, it does. Internally burnt builds are burnt with regular DVD burners. Unfortunately as ProgrammingAce mentions, this particular disc wasn't burnt for internal testing use.

ProgrammingAce wrote:
Honestly, i would have no ethical issues with listing this disc on ebay as long as i make the buyer fully aware they will probably never get a file off of it.

Either way, the disc has *some* value. People buy discs they can't use all the time. If i can get a buck fifty in the process, so be it.

I'd have a much harder time justifying throwing out the disc just due to it's historical value.


As a final thought, you could always take a last ditch shot at getting the disc put through one of those crazy scratch removing machines. I know there's no scratches, but as far as I know the proper machines remove a layer off the bottom of the disc, making it readable again. If it's a chemical thing, who knows, it could work. It'd be worth a shot at least, if you are at ends meets with the thing.
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