I've been playing around with Waninkoko's save game tools which is great, but its a lot of hassle to backup/install saved games, especially if I want to take them to a friends place where running homebrew might be a bigger hassle. So I started looking around the saves and this is what I've got so far.
Firstly, I started with Eledees. Datel has a freely available powersave for it which is 'unprotected' so this was an excellent choice to start with. So I made a backup of my original save using the extractor. I then deleted my save and copied over the datel one, which I then also copied off with the extractor. As a reference to what was common between saved games, I also make a copy of the Excite Truck save.
I noticed that between Eledees and Excite Truck there were only 2 common files, FILELIST.DAT and BANNER.BIN. As the file lists are small, I had a quick look, but there wasn't much that could be changed in them. The two eledees saves had the files in a different order, but it was unlikely that made any difference. This obviously left only the BANNER.BIN.
I assumed that it would merely be a flag near the top of the file so I compared the 3 files and these were the first 16 bytes of each:
CODEOriginal Eledees:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 11 AA AA 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN....ªª......
Powersave Eledees:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN............
Excite Truck:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 00 55 55 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN....UU......
Only 3 bytes difference between them. As Excite truck used 2 bytes, my initial reaction was that the byte 0x07 was important, but firstly, I replaced the first line of the original eledees save with the powersave one. I copied this back to the Wii and sucess!! My original save could now be copied to SD from the Wii menu.
Being impateient, and rather than playing around with Eledees, I quickly copied my Mario Kart save and had a look at it:
CODEMario Kart:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN............
Now this looks oddly familiar to the Eledees save, but what is this, byte 0x07 is different. I changed this to a 00 and copied it back. Once again, sucess!!
Looks like this is the key. Unfortunately, I don't have any other locked games to test (well, I have GH3, but the extractor cannot copy that currently). If anyone has dumped their saves of other protected games, can you open up the BANNER.BIN and post the first 16 bytes?
I am currently unsure why Eledees has 11 and Mario Kart has 01, but changing these both to 0 has made no noticable difference so far (I've only checked the saved games still worked with the games breifly).
Bytes 0x08 and 0x09 seem to relate to the animation of the games icon in the Wii menu. Mario Kart's icon is static and so is the Powersave. The original Eledees save was animated, but became static when I replaced it with 00 02. The Excite Truck icon is also animated. Perhaps it relates to the number of frames?
Hopefully this is helpful to anyone who is keen to play around. If you find anything new, please post it here for all to enjoy.
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Update:
I went back to the Eledees save and modified this again. This time, rather than changing byte 0x08 and 0x09, I left them as AA AA. This keeps the icon animated. More importantly, I changed byte 0x07 from 11 to 10 instead, hence only changing a single bit. The save can still be copied! Since I don't know what the other bits are for, it is probably a good idea from now just to change the single bit rather than the whole byte.
-------------------------------------------
For the lazy:
Command line app to edit the bit:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/387074/
Usage: sgunprot filename
eg. sgunprot BANNER.BIN
Firstly, I started with Eledees. Datel has a freely available powersave for it which is 'unprotected' so this was an excellent choice to start with. So I made a backup of my original save using the extractor. I then deleted my save and copied over the datel one, which I then also copied off with the extractor. As a reference to what was common between saved games, I also make a copy of the Excite Truck save.
I noticed that between Eledees and Excite Truck there were only 2 common files, FILELIST.DAT and BANNER.BIN. As the file lists are small, I had a quick look, but there wasn't much that could be changed in them. The two eledees saves had the files in a different order, but it was unlikely that made any difference. This obviously left only the BANNER.BIN.
I assumed that it would merely be a flag near the top of the file so I compared the 3 files and these were the first 16 bytes of each:
CODEOriginal Eledees:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 11 AA AA 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN....ªª......
Powersave Eledees:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN............
Excite Truck:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 00 55 55 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN....UU......
Only 3 bytes difference between them. As Excite truck used 2 bytes, my initial reaction was that the byte 0x07 was important, but firstly, I replaced the first line of the original eledees save with the powersave one. I copied this back to the Wii and sucess!! My original save could now be copied to SD from the Wii menu.
Being impateient, and rather than playing around with Eledees, I quickly copied my Mario Kart save and had a look at it:
CODEMario Kart:
00000000h: 57 49 42 4E 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; WIBN............
Now this looks oddly familiar to the Eledees save, but what is this, byte 0x07 is different. I changed this to a 00 and copied it back. Once again, sucess!!
Looks like this is the key. Unfortunately, I don't have any other locked games to test (well, I have GH3, but the extractor cannot copy that currently). If anyone has dumped their saves of other protected games, can you open up the BANNER.BIN and post the first 16 bytes?
I am currently unsure why Eledees has 11 and Mario Kart has 01, but changing these both to 0 has made no noticable difference so far (I've only checked the saved games still worked with the games breifly).
Bytes 0x08 and 0x09 seem to relate to the animation of the games icon in the Wii menu. Mario Kart's icon is static and so is the Powersave. The original Eledees save was animated, but became static when I replaced it with 00 02. The Excite Truck icon is also animated. Perhaps it relates to the number of frames?
Hopefully this is helpful to anyone who is keen to play around. If you find anything new, please post it here for all to enjoy.
------------------------------------------
Update:
I went back to the Eledees save and modified this again. This time, rather than changing byte 0x08 and 0x09, I left them as AA AA. This keeps the icon animated. More importantly, I changed byte 0x07 from 11 to 10 instead, hence only changing a single bit. The save can still be copied! Since I don't know what the other bits are for, it is probably a good idea from now just to change the single bit rather than the whole byte.
-------------------------------------------
For the lazy:
Command line app to edit the bit:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/387074/
Usage: sgunprot filename
eg. sgunprot BANNER.BIN