Status on Micro SD Mod + FW 500?

[aiwa]

Hi guys. I just moved over from the Neo Geo X Forum because I got turned off by all the haters turning every Neo Geo X thread into a trollfest.

Anyways, I have been having the Mega Pack sit sealed on my desk since its release. I have a 370 model with a modded micro SD adapter. I'd like to give the update a try (I know it's dicey), but I don't want to lose the ability to play my games under Unibios. It's a bit pathetic, but the cheat menu is great for casual play with friends and family.

Long story short, what's the latest status on custom roms under firmware 500? From what I can gather from various forums, it does not work. Has anyone managed to do it yet? Is there reason to believe the upcoming "firmware fix" from Tommo will make a difference?

[danthor]

Thus far, nothing. I'm keeping my thumb on a number of different NGX hack forums, though! I'm in the exact same boat. Mine is still a v370, My Mega Pack has been sitting on my shelf waiting to finally be actually used for more than a case, and I very much would like to do the update, but I'm still not sure I'm ready to let go of Unibios! So.. not pathetic at all! As soon as I see anything come up, you can bet I'll be posting it here, though!

I'm hoping the fix they're working on will get set things right for everyone who's had trouble with the update so far. Too early to say, though! 

PS - Welcome to the boards, man!

[aiwa]

Thanks for the update! Too bad there's no good news though.

I've also seen custom firmwares floating around that address some of the issues the official firmware update was meant to resolve. Are there any software-only hacks yet that allow one to upgrade the firmware on a 370 or do all these hacks require a 337 with the internal micro SD? I'd prefer a stock firmware, but if Tommo cannot get their act together, I would not mind using a community firmware.

[danthor]

Jul 20, 2013 23:51:26 GMT -5 aiwa said:

 all these hacks require a 337 with the internal micro SD? 

Bingo. A 370 will afford you the use of the Modded SD adapter, but as for bios and firmware changing.. As far as I know you need a 337. If I see any info to the contrary, I'll gladly link it!

[superfrick]

Jul 20, 2013 23:05:36 GMT -5 danthor said:

Thus far, nothing. I'm keeping my thumb on a number of different NGX hack forums, though! I'm in the exact same boat. Mine is still a v370, My Mega Pack has been sitting on my shelf waiting to finally be actually used for more than a case, and I very much would like to do the update, but I'm still not sure I'm ready to let go of Unibios! So.. not pathetic at all! As soon as I see anything come up, you can bet I'll be posting it here, though!

I'm hoping the fix they're working on will get set things right for everyone who's had trouble with the update so far. Too early to say, though! 

PS - Welcome to the boards, man!

What hack forums? Where are they? Are any of them in english? I would really, really like to have a working X again.

[danthor]

The one I see as the most active is this french community, here;

x-community.grafbb.com/c9-neo-geo-x-forums

Lots of hack stuff here (use Google translate) but so far nobody's got anything for getting around the v500.

[tmosteel]

Jul 24, 2013 8:00:44 GMT -5 danthor said:

The one I see as the most active is this french community, here;

x-community.grafbb.com/c9-neo-geo-x-forums

Lots of hack stuff here (use Google translate) but so far nobody's got anything for getting around the v500.

I still can't believe there has been no progress on figuring out the changes in the 500/501 firmware update. What really doesn't make sense is that while the adapters don't work, the Ninja Masters card still does. So why does the X recognize Ninja Masters but no longer recognizes the adapter?

[crujones4life]

Jul 24, 2013 19:40:59 GMT -5 tmosteel said:

Jul 24, 2013 8:00:44 GMT -5 danthor said:

The one I see as the most active is this french community, here;

x-community.grafbb.com/c9-neo-geo-x-forums

Lots of hack stuff here (use Google translate) but so far nobody's got anything for getting around the v500.

I still can't believe there has been no progress on figuring out the changes in the 500/501 firmware update. What really doesn't make sense is that while the adapters don't work, the Ninja Masters card still does. So why does the X recognize Ninja Masters but no longer recognizes the adapter?

Maybe they have changed file names or file types or changed file paths. They could have added something in new firmware to recognize ninja masters especially.

[tmosteel]

Jul 24, 2013 20:03:19 GMT -5 crujones4life said:

Jul 24, 2013 19:40:59 GMT -5 tmosteel said:

I still can't believe there has been no progress on figuring out the changes in the 500/501 firmware update. What really doesn't make sense is that while the adapters don't work, the Ninja Masters card still does. So why does the X recognize Ninja Masters but no longer recognizes the adapter?

Maybe they have changed file names or file types or changed file paths. They could have added something in new firmware to recognize ninja masters especially.

crujones4life-

What's up man?  How's the adapter been working for you?  I'm hoping this gets figured out soon so I can update my X and not lose it (adapter).

As far as the changes, I think maybe you're right about having the X just recognize Ninja Masters, as its just one game.  I don't think the file types would change as that's based on the emulator they used, isn't it?  Could be folder name changed or maybe even some kind of check in the firmware for only those specific games (like some kind of security check digit or flag). 

[crujones4life]

I'm good. No adapter as of now cause I updated...it will get sorted.

[danthor]

I theorize they changed the way files are either named, or laid out on a card. They likely have a new parameter in there looking for specific files on Ninja Master's, hence how it still works. But the other cards, I have a thought about the new Firmware. The save files! See, since they're not stored locally on the NGX, and actually stored on the collection volume/Mega Pack cards themselves (whether you're saving from a built in game or not) that COULD have changed either the naming convention, or at least the file hierarchy to accommodate the new save files.

[aiwa]

A little update from my side. I got curious about what's on the Mega Pack card, so I got myself an SD to micro-SD adapter. By daisy-chaining that with a modded micro-SD to SD adapter, I created an adapter for attaching Neo Geo X SD cards to a PC.

I can read the Ninja Masters card easily under any OS. It contains a single FAT partition. Everyone here probably knows the contents of that card, so let's move on.

The Mega Pack card is more interesting. It holds 3 partitions. One is a vfat partition that contains a single 700MB file called 'sys_update_file'. We can safely assume that is the firmware upgrade.

The second partition is 105 MB large and cannot be mounted. It appears to be some proprietary format. I'll investigate a bit more once I have more time.

The third partition is 944 MB and contains the new games. There is a single folder called 'card_game' with the following contents:


aof3.aes          game14.png  game7.png                 mslug2.aes
bjourney.aes      game15.png  game8.png                 samsho3.aes
blazstar.aes      game1.png   game9.png                 savagere.aes
card_rom_key.txt  game2.png   game_card_configure.conf  sengoku.aes
game10.png        game3.png   garou.aes                 shocktro.aes
game11.png        game4.png   kizuna.aes                ssideki3.aes
game12.png        game5.png   kof96.aes                 tophuntr.aes
game13.png        game6.png   lastblad.aes              wh2j.aes

It appears that all the games are AES encrypted. Also, the game_card_configure.conf file contains binary junk, which suggests it is encrypted as well.

card_rom_key.txt is a 600 byte file with the following contents:

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

I'm not really an expert on this, so I can only make an educated guess what is going on. It appears that Tommo has AES-encrypted the games and the .conf file to prevent piracy of the ROMs.

Looking at the contents of card_rom_key.txt, it is obvious that this is a simple hexadecimal binary-to-text encoding. That is 600 characters worth 4 bit each, which yields a 300 byte = 2400 bit number. My educated guess is that this contains a 2048 bit RSA public key (or equivalent), the RSA (or equivalent) encrypted AES 256 key for the game files, and a few bits of padding.

The private key that is necessary for decrypting everything is most likely hard-coded into the firmware. So the break the scheme, one would have to reverse engineer the firmware file. Once the private key is known (which *must* be in the device somewhere), it would again be possible to create custom ROM cards.

I also suspect that Tommo is using the priorietary format partition on the card to implement a couple of extra indirections to make reverse engineering harder. Probably nothing an expert cannot crack, but alas, I'm not a cracker.

[crujones4life]

Impressive detective work! Lets hope the right people see this...

[danthor]

So it is the layout of the data that changed. Interesting. I think the unmountable folder is the save files for the games. I hope this leads to more!

[segaklon]

Aug 24, 2013 1:23:46 GMT -5 segaklon said:

Hi, I would greatly appreciate you to come up that information extracted from the Megapack order to start working with it.

thanks