Hardware New App: NKit - Restore, Shrink and Preserve Disc Images in Playable (Formerly SWiiT)

[FMonty]

Hi Sorry, new to NKit. What is this attached recovery datfile used for?

Taken from the Nkit wiki:

"Recovery Files
The concept of recovery files is that by saving the bare minimum of information from Redump good images. NKit can recover many modified images.

• GameCube other tools that modify these images scrub and move (sometimes reorder) the files in the filesystem. NKit recovery files are the appldr.bin (a handful are used across all images) and fst.bin (unique per image, NKit stores some header info in these files also).
• Wii - other tools remove unused blocks or scrub them by wiping unused blocks with 00 or FF bytes. It is common for Non-Data Partitions are also removed to save space. NKit recovery files consist of the channel and update partitions.

NKit can extract the recovery files from images. Running this on a set of random Wii images may extract Update partitions that can be used to recover other images that have had them removed. The update partitions are shared across images. There's only a handful of unique ones."

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The recovery DAT file that has been attached above has been compiled by johnsanc. The DAT file contains checksum information (digital signatures) of the recovery files that he has. You can use the DAT file along with a rom manager such as clrmamepro or romulus to scan a directory of files and verify whether the files you have match the files listed in the database file.

 

[trazome]

Hi all,

Are the recovery files avalaible?
some are missing.

 

[nanook]

I created a new thread due to the app being rewritten and reaching a major version. I didn't want old bugs, exe names and config settings being confused with the new version.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/nkit-re...-and-gamecube-disc-images-as-playable.548479/

Thanks for the prompt @Bent

 

[nanook]

NKit 1.3 has been released

 

[RagoXXXX]

awesome!

 

[nanook]

awesome!

NKit v1.4 released. ;-P

 

[Konsti]

Hi @nanook I hope you are well and safe. I got registered here to thank you for your great work on NKit and congratulate you! As the confinement got me back to my original Wii, to get my kid busy and happier, I stumbled upon your took and must admit I am impressed.

Please, if you'd allow me a couple of questions on the mechanics and what you'd advise:

1. For backup purposes, is it safe and advised to convert iso to nkit.iso files, and remove the "update partitions" in general? These may result to a 200BM difference sometimes. I understand that these are kept in the \Recovery\Redump\Wii\ folder and those that are common are thus stripped. But as a rule, is it safe in general?

I ask because if ever this "recovery redump" folder is lost from my PC, one cannot go back to a fully-fledged ISO file, correct?

In this unfortunate case, can we still convert from a nkit.iso file that has no update partitions to a working .wbfs file, that would be good and playable? I am still using USB Loader GX (yes OK I admit I am an old timer, back in the Wii Hacks forum) Still talking Wii not Dolphin etc.

2. I was able to find via Google searching a rather recent Redump.dat file to be able to use the checksums, more specifically. However, I have a couple of EU ISOs that don't match that DAT file and obviously I get errors when converting to nkit.iso. Could be bad redumps but my belief is that the game itself (not the rubbish on the rest of disc) is intact.

Is there a way to create a WBFS from this non-confirmed ISO (due to wrong checksum in DAT file) and then validate the checksum of the WBFS itself? I would like to salvage those ISOs and not sure if NKit does a checksum validation of the end-result like in WBFS....

They are not really rare games that may be missing from Redump.org's archives...

Thank you again for your time and great work.