This thread is dedicated to ripping PS3 betas/protos via a PC Bluray drive. This is meant to educate for preservation of PS3 game builds if one does not have a modded PS3 or a DEX PS3. Credits to bdawg for bringing this tool to my attention and allowing this to be possible. I'd like to ask that this be stickied as well NOTE - THIS WILL NOT WORK WITH RETAIL GAMES, DONT BOTHER Now let's get started --Prerequisites-- 1) A PC 2) A Bluray Drive 3) A pre-final PS3 game 4) PS3 ISO tools --Optional Tools-- 5) Imgburn 6) Trueancestor's resigner 7) PS3 SDK (for fself eboot decrypting) 8) A PS3 8.1) PS3 CEX2DEX converted 8.2) PS3 DEX OFW 8.3) PS3 CEX/DEX CFW Table of contents 1) PS3 Generator Toolset 1.1) What are the tools? 1.2) What can they do? 1.3) Where can I get them? 1.4) Can you show how it works? 2) Ripping the disc (the good stuff) 2.1) Imgburn/PS3 Generator rip 2.2) ISO decryption/extracting 2.3) Rebuilding extracted ISO contents 2.4) Repackaging for non DEX systems 2 ALT) PS3 ripping methods 2 ALT Option 1) OFW DEX ripping 2 ALT Option 2) CFW ripping 1) PS3 Generator Toolset 1.1) Q: What are these tools? A: These tools are made by SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) for the PS3 disc mastering process. They were made to build, burn, and view PS3 disc image data as well as author the disc for developers when it was ready to be sent off to Sony for production. 1.2) Q: What can they do? A: With these tools, you can use a PC Bluray drive to rip the contents of a PS3 game and decrypt the newly made ISO file. The encrypting happens when the disc is read from a non-PS3 drive, making the new ISO file completely useless. 1.3) Q: Where can I get them? A: Sadly due to them being leaked files from SCE, I cannot directly link them. On Google, do a search for "PS3 Generator Tools 3.12" 1.4) Q: Can you show how it works? A: Yes I can show, that's why this thread is being made. As for explaining the deep down things, I can't say much. As for tool operation, you got it. 2) Ripping the disc (the good stuff) So you have yourself a build of a game before the final release? Good. We're gonna take that disc and load it into our PC's Bluray drive. 2.1) Imgburn/PS3 Generator rip So you've got your disc in the PC drive, so now what? Well you have 2 options; Use Imgburn to rip or use the tool supplied in the PS3 Generator tools. Spoiler --Imgburn-- 1) Load up Imgburn, and select option 2 - create image from disc 2) Choose your PC drive and try to save the ISO somewhere nice and accessible. 3) Volume label (filename) can be PS3VOLUME if you desire, but if it's a pre-final game I suggest you name it based on what game you're ripping ([Game][Region][Build-Type][Date] for example) 4) Once you've began the process feel free to do something to pass time as it may take a little bit. 5) Once complete, remove your disc and close Imgburn - we're done with this part. Spoiler --PS3 Generator Tool-- 1) In your folder there's a program called "ps3gen.exe". Open that up. 2) In the top right corner you'll see 3 icons. Pick the one in the middle with the magnifying glass labeled "Show". 3) A new window will pop up. Look near the top and you'll see 2 long drop down bars and 2 bubbles. Click the bubble with "Disc Drive" and select the drive your disc is in. Make sure nothing is open leading to the disc (like a file browser) as it will refuse to show any data. 4) When you see information of the disc show up, look for the button saying "Decrypt". Click that and you'll have a new box show up. 5) In this new window, you'll see a checkbox saying "Select all files and directories". Click that checkbox and select a folder on your desktop to extract the files. 6) It will take a lot of time and cpu power so just give it a bit of time. 7) Once done, feel free to close the tool. Spoiler 2.2) ISO decryption If you followed the method with PS3 Generator Tools you can skip this part. For those that used Imgburn, read. 1) With your newly made encrypted ISO, open up "ps3chk.exe" 2) Choose your ISO image from the drop down (wherever you've saved it). 3) Click the decrypt button. 4) In the new window, choose a folder where the contents of the ISO will be extracted to and check the box saying "Select all files and directories". 5) Begin the decrypting and wait as it will take a lot of time. Once done, close the tool Spoiler 2.3) Rebuilding extracted ISO contents So now you have the PS3 game build extracted AND decrypted. Good work. Now we're going to rebuild the ISO 1) Open up PS3 ISO Tools (v2.1 is what I use, v2.2 may be better) 2) Create a new ISO for PS3 ODE Firmware version 3.55 (should be selected before you choose what to do) 3) When selecting how the ISO is made, make sure NO BOXES are checked. We want to preserve it all and not patch anything (vanilla). 4) Select your directory for the extracted files. It will ask where the saved ISO will go. Choose wherever works for you. 5) Rebuild and wait for it to finish. Spoiler 2.4) Repackaging for non-DEX systems So you're running a non DEX Firmware, huh? No worries, we can fix this. 1) Grab the eboot.bin from the extracted files. Make a copy of it and place it in the PS3 SDK installation files. 2) Load up unfself.exe in a command prompt window (shift, right click, command prompt window) and type the following command "unfself EBOOT.BIN EBOOT.ELF" and hit enter 3) Take your newly decrypted eboot.elf and place it into truancestor's resigner root directory. 4) Load up the resigner, turn of compression (if needed, as some need this uncompressed), and resign to NON-DRM for CFW. 5) Take your new EBOOT.BIN file and replace your rip's one (Back it up in case issues happen). 6) Go back to 2.3 and change settings as you feel fit to work on your CFW machine. Spoiler 2 ALT) PS3 ripping methods So lets say you don't have a bluray drive in your PC but you have a modded PS3 or DEX PS3 (DECHA00A model tested. DECR models need testing). If you have one no problem. I DO NOT RECOMMEND CEX2DEX CONVERTED MACHINES DUE TO THERE BEING A GREAT ISSUE WITH THEM RIPPING PROPERLY BUT YOU ARE WELCOME TO TRY 2 ALT Option 1) OFW DEX Systems 1) If you have a DEX OFW system then you're going to need the PS3 SDK. We're going to be installing and using Target Manager (also known as TM). Once TM is installed you will want to wire the PS3 to your PC running it via an Ethernet cable. I can't briefly type up how to do this as there are many guides to do so - remember, Google is your friend. 2) From TM you can see a menu of items in the menu section of what you'd like to do. We're going to pick "File Explorer" and from there if connected we should see the PS3 files. Go ahead and pick the directory labeled "bdvd". Once in that directory you can select all files and folders and at the top of the window hit an icon with a green arrow on a paper to begin downloading to local machine. Choose an output directory and it will be placed on your desktop/laptop/wherever you sent the files to. 2 ALT Option 2) CFW Systems 1) If you have CFW then you're likely familiar with common methods of ripping. If not, install one of the managers out there (Multiman, Irisman, IrisMod, etc). In your manager of choice (I prefer Multiman or IrsisMod if Multiman fails) navigate to where your disc is showing up (should be pretty obvious). You're going to copy it to the hard drive (not as an ISO if you plan to use a flash drive for transferring) 2) If you plan to FTP it over you can use TM or FileZilla on the files like DEX OFW (could be ISO or just the extracted data). If you plan to use a flash drive, do know there is a 4gb filesize limit so exceedingly large files will give you trouble. What you would do is copy the extracted data over to your flash drive (should be simple with Multiman, Irisman may be less intuitive). If you're lucky Multiman may also break up the ISO into parts to allow flash drive copying, but you will have to relink the part files using PS3ISOTOOLS. 3) If you got lost on that part, just know that you can rip to the internal PS3 HDD or a Flash drive in extracted form or ISO form but limitations on filesystems may give issues if it's a large game. I hope that this was acceptable enough for a guide and I hope that this allows more beta/prototype builds to show up/ Cheers!
Just to clarify the situation: this step will not work at all with retail EBOOT. Maybe will not work with review/preview EBOOT that builded as retail. So this is only for completely non retail EBOOTs. This suggestion based on my tests. BTW all other steps works fine with retail.
Edited. The tools will refuse to handle retail games. It's good in this case as it prevents piracy a little more. You wouldn't be able to get to the eboot at all because it would be stopped immediately by the tool.
I have updated this to include a small section for those who do not have a PC bluray drive but do have a DEX or Modded PS3 (was per request as I'm sure people want to do this without upgrading hardware)