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PS2 Sony PS2 DTL-T10000 Tool rescued and restored

dickibow

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Hi Everyone,

I found an old PS2 DTL-T10000 for sale on Facebook marketplace several months ago and it was advertised as untested and sold for spares/repair.

During this period of time the UK was under its strictest level of C19 lockdown so I couldn’t justify driving a round trip of 320 miles to purchase it. Anyway, luckily for me once the restrictions were lifted I contacted the seller again who said it was still available and it was mine if I came to collect. Knowing how fragile these things are (I’ve owned two before but many years ago), I opted to collect in person.

The seller worked at the local recycling centre and somebody came up to him with two of these machines (a DTL-T15000 and my DTL-T10000). The person said that his employer had asked him to bring these computers in for disposal. Luckily, the seller who was big into general gaming (maybe not dev stuff so much), took the machines and later on ‘rescued’ them.

The DTL-T15000 was already sold when I arrived to collect the DTL-T10000 but still, I was happy with the price. The negatives were that the machine was sold untested as spares/repair. There were no cables or other ancillaries, and the vertical stand was missing. The machine was also extremely dirty.

I packed the DTL-T10000 safely into the boot of my car and off I drove. When I got home the first thing was to inspect it.

D5-EF153-C-6048-4-C61-999-E-9-EACE4157714.jpg


The model number is DTL-T10000H A. This is one of the latest revisions of T10k models I’m led to believe. The manufacturer sticker on the rear dates the console from 2003 which was well into the PS2 lifecycle. I cleaned the casing with warm soapy water and cotton wool buds for the grooves. It cleaned up quite nicely, considering how difficult the rubberised coating texture is to maintain.

I then powered the console up and the power/reset lights turned on, and to my surprise (and relief) the disc tray opened and closed without issue. No hard drive light came on though, and the console just continuously beeped. This meant the POST wasn’t completing. Googling the symptoms of the beeps in conjunction with the BIOS manufacture suggested the memory was bad, so I opened the console up to clean and reseat the memory module.

086-B08-C1-B850-459-E-857-A-EBBF6-F324-A51.jpg


There is a nice SCEA asset tag “if found” sticker on the rear which is peeling a little bit, but the main warranty sticker was still intact on the rear, so I lightly peeled the top part off and opened up the PC side. I peeled off the single-use copper interference tape (this was brilliant because it meant that nobody had been inside the machine before) and slid off the metal panel to expose the insides.

5-ED4-DBFD-32-F4-449-A-B0-A3-69-F4505-CF5-E7.jpg


The first thing I noticed was that both hard drives were still present, and that there was a DTL-T14000 SN Systems DVD emulator installed - what a result!

E643-F51-E-2-B12-4673-AF87-CB9-F9-C2-EB543.jpg


I removed the RAM which was a single 128Mb stick and cleaned it gently with a piece of plain white paper. The paper removed a thin layer of black grime and then I re-inserted it and tested the machine again.

A60-D0545-4-FF1-4-BFA-B19-F-D176-C2-C31-AEC.jpg


The good news was now that I had a picture. There were two errors displayed. The first error regarding the floppy drive was actually a result of the second error relating to the CMOS. Basically the CMOS battery had died at some point and the BIOS has reverted back to its default manufacturer settings which were now asking the TOOL to boot from a floppy drive which obviously didn’t exist. I entered the BIOS and made the necessary adjustments to allow the machine to boot remotely as it was designed to have been and retried.

E13782-F9-82-B4-40-F9-A939-3-D7-E2847-CEC4.jpg


The machine was now booting properly and it started to boot Red Hat Linux 6.2. There was a failure loading the drivers for the DTL-T14000, but I ignored that for the time being assuming that I might need to install something at a later date. I logged in and the machine had the host name preset of “PirateToolUK01”. Strangely by this time I had noticed that the TV screen wasn’t displaying the network information. There was a signal, but nothing showing. I changed the DIP switch on the rear of the machine from NTSC-PAL, and vice versa, but still nothing, even after a reboot. Weird…

Anyway, I decided to try and run a disc based game anyway. I had a PS2 preview code version of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 5 so I popped it into the disc tray, and tried to launch it via dsedb on the command line. The command wasn’t recognised. In fact, none of the ds* commands were recognised. I was gutted…..I had no idea why and frantically started googling. I found an old assembler thread where somebody had experienced this before but the the thread drew a blank and despite the efforts of the community I don’t know if the problem was resolved. I also noticed that the ‘CD/DVD Drive’ light did not illuminate despite the TOOL being in DVD/TOOL mode. Anyway, I put the console away for a week or so to have a think….

About a week later I thought I’d see if I could get the machine to boot-up properly without failing to load that SN System psxss driver. Then I remembered that because the machine was unplugged I had to reconfigure the BIOS settings again. That’s it…..off I went to the local supermarket to get a CR2032 battery!!

I carefully removed and installed the new battery and reconfigured the BIOS settings and booted the machine up. And then, just like that, I noticed that there was no error for the psxss driver. Also, I noticed that the TV screen came alive with the network information. The ‘CD/DVD drive’ illuminated green too. Shall I try and boot that game….? Sure, why not. Guess what….the dsedb command worked fine and the game loaded first time! Amazing!!! I was so happy!!

Now that the TOOL was working as intended, I installed SSH2 so that I can remote in from my laptop without having to use a monitor. I also installed ProDG for PS2 on my XP dev laptop but I can’t get it to register with the crack/keygen. If anyone has any ideas about that I’d be grateful to hear from you! I also installed CodeWarrior for
PS2 which is working.

Please excuse the mess, but I was excited that the network info screen had appeared! :ROFLMAO:
EE16-B294-868-C-435-B-8-E73-722-E48465428.jpg


Was the dead battery really the cause of all the previous failures? It was a new one to me anyway. The controller ports and memory cards worked perfectly too. I was so happy that I had a fully functioning TOOL….the only thing letting it down now was the lack of vertical stand.

I knew there was a thread on here about a member whose TOOL had been absolutely destroyed during shipment and he was determined to 3D print the plastic housing. I reached out to @hermesconrad (big big thanks!!!) and he very kindly sent me the 3D print file for the triangles that formed part of the stand, and also a technical drawing of the metal base plate. I sent the file to a 3D printing company within the UK and opted to have the triangles printed at 200dpi in a blue coloured PLA with a 20% infill.

Whilst the triangles were being printed, I sourced a 2mm thick sheet of mild steel and began fabricating the base plate. I use the term “fabricate” very loosely. Basically, I trimmed it to the correct size and drilled the holes in the appropriate places as to attach the plate properly, and affix the newly made triangles which arrived just a few days after placing the order. The quality of the print was superb and I was pleasantly surprised by the finish of the outer surface of the triangles. They are quite glossy and there is a light diagonal weave if you look closely. I initially planned to sand and paint the triangles, but after opening the package and seeing them for the first time I thought these were perfect and didn’t require any additional work at all!

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I went to a local hardware shop that has pretty much every type of screw and fixing you could ask for. I took him the sample of a screw from the TOOL which is the same type that is used to attach the stand to the base of the machine. I bought some of those and also a bag of very tiny self-tappers that would be used to attach the triangles to the top side of the base plate.

Here is the end result - what do you think?

CA1546-A6-3563-4-C63-821-F-B672-D92-EB812.jpg


BA352857-4-E58-44-AD-8-A85-B340-D8846-ECB.jpg


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DAE12-C1-D-52-E1-4648-9-C8-E-ABC5020356-CF.jpg


PS2 TOOLs are very rare these days and need to be saved if the opportunity arises, so I’m lucky that I found this one. They can also be problematic and/or temperamental so hopefully this thread can assist others. At least it might direct someone to change the CMOS battery. They should read very close to 3 volts using a multimeter. Anything lower than 2.9 should be replaced.

My very special thanks go to:
@hermesconrad for the vertical stand files and advice.
@Port187 for his tips/advice and chat.
@unclejun and Parris for the disassembly guide.
 
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hermesconrad

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Love your work, glad to see it was saved and in the hands of a good owner. Great job
 
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slycooper124

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hello, im very happy to see this got saved, it looks great for its condition. I know information is scares but I did manage to make a guide with most of the info from the assembler games archive before it went down. I would like to offer my help and knowledge since I am also a tool owner there is a few thinks that need to be don to your tool that I learned along my travels. also congrats on the DVD emu card, ive been looking for one for years and no one is willing to part with it. im also assuming you would like to keep yours too. anyway. here is my guide. https://www.obscuregamers.com/resources/tool-ps2-instruction-manual-and-command-guide.12/

please feel free to reach out. I would like to help you set up your system so you can run your tool to the best and longest of its capabilities.

slycooper124
 
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FrostWolf

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i would also like to point out there is another model of the PC board that does not have the 2032 battery
 

slycooper124

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Yes your options are a coin cell battery or a non replaceable Dallas clock battery chip. The Dallas chips are very rare to die.
 

Tokimemofan

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Anything on the dvd emulator? Over the years many previously lost games have turned up on them including the Twisted Metal Harbor City on mine
 

dickibow

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I’ve tried to view the HDD contents of the DVD emulator this afternoon but the SN Systems software says there is nothing on it (empty) so I ran the diagnostics software which fails on step 1 and reports that there is no DVD emu HDD present.

Perhaps it’s dead? If so, I’ll get another HDD for it. Or perhaps it’s just blank?

I’m going to extract the HDD from the TOOL anyway and take a raw image of it just in case.

Also, when the HDD is removed if it’s dead maybe I can recover some data…. so for now, watch this space and I’ll report back.

P.S I tried this with the machine in both “CD/DVD drive” and “Emulator” modes set on the front panel switches and the same results each time.

63-FC522-D-C00-A-4-E3-F-8-E96-C04-E250-BAE29.jpg


1-C746964-E03-D-4-F2-E-ADBC-CE1-CA673-F7-A3.jpg


95-DD9265-406-B-45-E0-8-C2-B-A91-B7-CAF3-A31.jpg
 
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Tokimemofan

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It’s probably blank however I would personally switch out the drive in case it becomes possible to extract deleted content
 

dickibow

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It’s probably blank however I would personally switch out the drive in case it becomes possible to extract deleted content

I thought it was blank too, so I just tried to create a new image of a DVD based game and I got an error saying that the disk was full and there’s not enough space. That suggests to me it’s not formatted or something. I’m expecting it to be dead to be quite honest.

Either way…..I don’t think there are any long lost games on this one!

Thanks for your help and advice.
 

hermesconrad

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a simple way to tell if theres data, do a drive dump and then 7zip the image, see how small it is, if its full of zeros it will probably compress down to kb's and youll have your answer
 
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slycooper124

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I’ve tried to view the HDD contents of the DVD emulator this afternoon but the SN Systems software says there is nothing on it (empty) so I ran the diagnostics software which fails on step 1 and reports that there is no DVD emu HDD present.

Perhaps it’s dead? If so, I’ll get another HDD for it. Or perhaps it’s just blank?

I’m going to extract the HDD from the TOOL anyway and take a raw image of it just in case.

Also, when the HDD is removed if it’s dead maybe I can recover some data…. so for now, watch this space and I’ll report back.

P.S I tried this with the machine in both “CD/DVD drive” and “Emulator” modes set on the front panel switches and the same results each time.

63-FC522-D-C00-A-4-E3-F-8-E96-C04-E250-BAE29.jpg


1-C746964-E03-D-4-F2-E-ADBC-CE1-CA673-F7-A3.jpg


95-DD9265-406-B-45-E0-8-C2-B-A91-B7-CAF3-A31.jpg
hey where did you find the DVD emu program? im always looking for stuff for my tool ps2 and i plan to have that emu card so if you can share the program or tell me where in the sdk it is, id be very grateful. thanks
 

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Reading this thread got me motivated to give my T10000 a go to see if there was anything of interest on the HDD’s. Last time I had it running was probably 14 years ago and at that time I just wanted to have a quick play and see it running, which it did beautifully.

However, since then both hard drives have failed. Both spin up but the heads make clicking noises then shut down - neither are recognised by the TOOL or other machines. I’m gutted to say the least.

2 questions if I may;
1) does anyone have any HDD recovery skills or advice that I can try to rescue the original drives?
2) if I get two new 30gb HDD’s, can anyone point me in the direction of some disc images so I can be the TOOL running again?

Thanks guys
 
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hermesconrad

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Reading this thread got me motivated to give my T10000 a go to see if there was anything of interest on the HDD’s. Last time I had it running was probably 14 years ago and at that time I just wanted to have a quick play and see it running, which it did beautifully.

However, since then both hard drives have failed. Both spin up but the heads make clicking noises then shut down - neither are recognised by the TOOL or other machines. I’m gutted to say the least.

2 questions if I may;
1) does anyone have any HDD recovery skills or advice that I can try to rescue the original drives?
2) if I get two new 30gb HDD’s, can anyone point me in the direction of some disc images so I can be the TOOL running again?

Thanks guys

Original drives probably only have sdk files on them unless your kit has the dvd emulation hardware installed, it's probably not worth fhemoneyto get recovered but maybe someone here is able to help out anyway.

As for drive images, don't bother getting new hard drives instead get cf to ide adapters and use those instead, they are light and won't fail on you. Drive images can be found in the other DTL thread

'PS2 DTL-T / TOOL thread' https://www.obscuregamers.com/threads/ps2-dtl-t-tool-thread.1172/post-23247

That post I linked to has my mega link with my hdd images, feel free to use them
 

slycooper124

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Reading this thread got me motivated to give my T10000 a go to see if there was anything of interest on the HDD’s. Last time I had it running was probably 14 years ago and at that time I just wanted to have a quick play and see it running, which it did beautifully.

However, since then both hard drives have failed. Both spin up but the heads make clicking noises then shut down - neither are recognised by the TOOL or other machines. I’m gutted to say the least.

2 questions if I may;
1) does anyone have any HDD recovery skills or advice that I can try to rescue the original drives?
2) if I get two new 30gb HDD’s, can anyone point me in the direction of some disc images so I can be the TOOL running again?

Thanks guys
I have pre setup images i can share to you that has all network info setup and the admin password set to default. I also setup a user account on the tool so you can telnet into the tool. I can also give you a copy of my Ubuntu VMware vm that is preset with the files to run opl on the tool. Let me know if your interested.
 
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Gameboi64

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One thing's definitely for sure about these being temperamental. Got mine back in 2017 and have been using it ever since mostly for DVD-Rs and NTSC-J games I have and while I love it to death, it sure does feel like it's falling apart. I have to keep a disc in the tray at all times, including when I shut it off, just to prevent the tray from jamming. The laser I used to think was faulty as I'd burn off games and they'd just print the "illegal disc" error in dsedb, only to find out that DiscPatcher 3 is... well, not a very solid piece of software. I've also been able to load external ELFs (as I run from an ubuntu laptop, though fortunately the SDK tools work through new versions of linux), including one from an old AG user who helped me get IQ Remix+ running. Don't ask me why it was broken, but he knew how to get it working on the TOOL. I also had to overwrite the network screen files and working with all that FTP stuff was definitely a hassle, and I still have not yet backed up the HDD. The memory card slots don't flap like they used to and the disc tray eject button has worn off over the years (not to mention I should probably poach a laser one of these days and get that drive band replaced), but all this really does come with time taking its toll.

All this said, I still love my PS2 in an ATX cage and while I haven't been doing my best with taking good care of it (dusting, cleaning out, that sort of thing) I still feel like it's one of the best purchases I've made period.
 

slycooper124

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Yea mine is the same way, not as bad though. I have issues of it reading a disc, I constantly get this is not a playstation 2 disc after using disc patcher 3. My controler port were damaged some time ago on the ribbon cable so it dosent recognize a controller on those ports. Im currently using pademu with opl running via dsnet on Linux. I've had to reglue some pieces of the aging plastic but all in all it works great after I fixed the dead hdds. I have made a command guide that im trying to fill in with more commands from other users since there is very little info about the tool. Let me know if anybody here wants to see the guide or add stuff to it. Ill drop a link if requested.
 

Gameboi64

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Yea mine is the same way, not as bad though. I have issues of it reading a disc, I constantly get this is not a playstation 2 disc after using disc patcher 3. My controler port were damaged some time ago on the ribbon cable so it dosent recognize a controller on those ports. Im currently using pademu with opl running via dsnet on Linux. I've had to reglue some pieces of the aging plastic but all in all it works great after I fixed the dead hdds. I have made a command guide that im trying to fill in with more commands from other users since there is very little info about the tool. Let me know if anybody here wants to see the guide or add stuff to it. Ill drop a link if requested.

As far as the DiscPatcher3 stuff goes, your best bet is to go into a hex editor, take 0x1370 bytes starting at 0x7000 in the ISO file with data from the same place from an actual master patched disc (cook up one with CDVDGEN or one from Hidden Palace), fix up the title and such, and you're on your way.
 

slycooper124

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As far as the DiscPatcher3 stuff goes, your best bet is to go into a hex editor, take 0x1370 bytes starting at 0x7000 in the ISO file with data from the same place from an actual master patched disc (cook up one with CDVDGEN or one from Hidden Palace), fix up the title and such, and you're on your way.
Hmm, I hope there's a guide or video because I'm not a programmer and I dont fully know how to do that. Does the error when running a disc via 10 100, this is not a playstation 2 disc mean that the laser is bad or its incorrectly patched? I've have a video from Hermes showing him running a retail disc but I get the same error when I try it.
 

Gameboi64

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Hmm, I hope there's a guide or video because I'm not a programmer and I dont fully know how to do that. Does the error when running a disc via 10 100, this is not a playstation 2 disc mean that the laser is bad or its incorrectly patched? I've have a video from Hermes showing him running a retail disc but I get the same error when I try it.

Most likely, it's due to the fact that it's incorrectly patched. Running games via the reset 10 100 command isn't something I usually do either, I usually do 2 100 or 2 0. If it's throwing that up for every disc, then there's a good chance that the laser is just not doing very hot anymore, though.
 

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