How can I convert dreamcast nrg file to cdi?

[MoeFoh]

Yeah, we've been down this road before. DJ6 & DT (recent) are not reliable after Windows 7. Padus is out of business, last release of DJ was April, 2006. On my Win7 computer, I had to rollback DT to version v4.49 (paid) for accurate mounting of images.

I did some testing then and found out DT11 could work with Win7 as noted in my old post.
https://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewto ... 93#p179593

[|darc|]

If anyone is in contact with either, point them to me!

Hi there I just so happened to visit today...

I'll do research in the coming days, but I feel that I can rule out daemon-tools because when mounting using daemon tools, imgburn makes correct bin/cue images, and ultra iso makes correct cue/bin, alcohol, clonecd but the nero image turns out single session. On the other hand Discjuggler's CDI disc has both sessions, but cannot read the file system on session 1 as the 1st 18 sectors are completely zeroed out (user data and ecc) and sector 16 is the volume descriptor!!!!! It also blanks audio data at the beginning of audio/data 2-session discs (and possibly even on each audio track) ....

I'm confused. What's your objective here? Are you trying to convert an NRG image to CDI? I'm not sure exactly what you're doing here with all these tools, but this sounds normal. DiscJuggler stores the pregap data for tracks, not all formats do, so it's inserting zeros. The same thing happens when you use Redump2CDI. Your issue is likely elsewhere, possibly because you're using a bunch of tools that might not necessarily be equipped to handle multisession discs correctly in all cases.

In the meanwhile i've written to FamilyGuy to ask about releasing the new selfboot tool, but I'd like some permission from Darc as well.... FG seems rather off-grid. if anyone wants this stuff, pm for the time being I think.

If you want to release something using my tool, that's cool with me, just as long as you credit me and link back to the dreamcast.wiki site you got the tool from somewhere in the readme or whatever.

Darc has recently made a new version of Redump2CDI. ( https://dreamcast.wiki/Redump2CDI ). The redump CDI files are in cue/track format. All tracks are single separate files and the disc is defined by a cue sheet. This is great, as will become apparent shortly, but one shortfall is that it DOES NOT work with cue/bin files. These can be processed, but the bin file (the whole disc) needs to be cut up to individual tracks. Hopefully Darc will include this functionality, then we'd never need to use DiscJuggler again......

Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to do here either. There's no such thing as a "Redump CDI file." There's no such thing as a Redump image consisting of a cue file with a single bin either. All Redump discs are in a Redump-specific extended bin/cue format with split bins. Since they're using a specific format unique to Redump, which can't be opened by any disc burning software, my utility converts Redump multisession CD images to normal DiscJuggler CDI files for burning.

The ideal solution would be to fix Disc Juggler, but next best it will be terrific when Darc's utility can parse and process cue/bin files. I know it's predominently a redump thing but he is open to other uses. (from his NFO "0.9.0: Added support for processing MODE1/2352 tracks. These aren't used in Dreamcast images, but support for these tracks was requested as it helps this utility be useful for converting other systems' images, too.")

It's actually part of a Dreamcast disc image toolkit I've been writing on and off for some time, but the Redump2CDI part is all I've released as a proof of concept. The long-term purpose of the tool is to allow the generation of CDI files with a variety of desired layout styles (11700/11702 audio, 11700/11702 data, pseudo-gdrom 45000, bin2boot-style 0 lba, cdda, etc.) as well as GDI files and maybe if I feel like it, NRG or MDF/MDS files, along with other associated utilities to parse and extract images, alter IP.BINs, etc.

As you've quite rightly pointed out, the current landscape of Dreamcast disc utilities is lacking as many tools are single-purpose, or each have pros and cons, or run on one platform and not another. I'd like to fix this. If you want to DM me the scripts/tool you put together I could possibly throw some of the code I've already written together to make a single-purpose utility that does what you want instead of you having to wait until I write the entire thing.

[nuggetreggae]

Hello there Darc,

Thanks for your quick reply and the opportunity to clarify what I am talking about. I got my dreamcast in 2017, off a street in a market, for $20. I was impressed, and I then spent $200 on a GDEmu. I made an SD card of bootable games and put the system away until last year. Last year I dug it out and reinstalled all my tools. Depending on what game one is converting to CDI differing tools should be used, thats why all in 1 things like easyboot contain them all! If the game has GDDA, the audio tracks go in session 1 and the data in session 2. AFAIK mds4dc is the only thing that builds these, and outputs a MDF/MDS alcohol file. Some games only work with LBA at 45000. It's also generally the easiest method as GDI originals are also 45000 so little hacking is involved. The easiest tool to create these is FamilyGuy's SELFBOOT program. this makes 2 iso files, one for initial sectors (0-33750) and a second for 45000 onwards. It then merges them with a nero header and footer. The resultant NRG file is some weird creation, still in mode1, but the control header mean that when it's mounted in daemon tools and converted it outputs standard dreamcast mode 2 form 1... So all these methods, to end up with CDI, need to be mounted and imaged using DJ.

In 2017, in win7, this ran fine. But now, in win10, DJ is making corrupt files. I soon started noticing that when opening CDI files in GD-Rom Explorer, there was no filesystem displayed for session 1. No data or audio icon. so I went searching. I bought a copy of ISObuster and found that sectors 0-17 were completely blank. No data. No ECC. No EDC. "Illegal sector". This is the main part of the CDI, NOT the leadin. I tried different settings in DJ, RAW, DAO, all sorts... the worst lost 28 sectors. So I tried a game with CDDA. I could audibly hear the first crash of the WAV was missing. Possibly on each subsequent audio tracks as well! I heard a problem and gave up diagnosing. In these ISObuster did not show errors as audio is 2352/raw so no check code, no error. But it was still messing it up.

In all cases, mounting in Daemon Tools and imaging using IMGburn was fine. But that gives a BIN/CUE, with correct session tags etc, but the whole disc in a single BIN file. That whole bin file is RAW/2352 with mode 1 having the descriptor "BINARY MODE1/2352" etc. That's the reason I mentioned if your utility supported BIN/CUE we'd NEVER need Dodgy Disc Juggler again. I'm sure a person with your skills could do this fairly easily. Even if it "chunked" it in stage 1 and built the resulting CDI in stage 2. There are a few CUE splitters out there but most are audio-orientated and I'm sure they wouldn't know to omit 11400/11700 with pregap at the session break.

I feel my post before describes how to circumvent most occurances of this issue. My modification of Family Guys Selfboot maker makes the 2 iso's as above, uses fill.exe to pad the 1st session out to 33600 sectors, then uses ISO2RAW on both ISO files to make 2352 MODE2 images, the passes them with a predefined cue sheet to your utility. My 11702 Maker does the same but with a fixed audio file as track 1.
You can find these at :-

https://mega.nz/file/6D5XGRAD#xbLPXMeWx ... EiBIzrShgo

Best Regards, Nugget

[MoeFoh]

@nuggetreggae
Have the CDI's you've created been burned to disc and tested on real Dreamcast hardware?

[MoeFoh]

I have download below link of NesterDC emulator with roms and just noticed that It is not cdi image file but nrg.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/84avmgk3g ... D.tar/file

I want to run it on my G1-ATA moded dreamcast But I cannot make descrambled iso file with nrg image file..
I absolutely need cdi file which must contains IP.BIN in order to run it on my dreamcast.
Is there any workaround to convert dreamcast nrg image file to cdi?

It's now Sept. 19th, 2024. With the combination of DJ6 & DT (recent versions) no longer working with Windows 7 & higher, here's what I would do:
1) Extract the Nero (NRG) image files using UltraISO.
2) Make the CDI using BootDreams or LazyBoot.

NRG images are rare to come across these days. Most, if not all have already been coverted to CDI by skilled people many years ago, if not decades ago. Finding a link to download can present a problem, however.

If you don't want to do the NRG -> CDI conversion yourself, you can always ask for help in this forum. Don't be shy.

[|darc|]

Hello there Darc,

[...]

In all cases, mounting in Daemon Tools and imaging using IMGburn was fine. But that gives a BIN/CUE, with correct session tags etc, but the whole disc in a single BIN file. That whole bin file is RAW/2352 with mode 1 having the descriptor "BINARY MODE1/2352" etc. That's the reason I mentioned if your utility supported BIN/CUE we'd NEVER need Dodgy Disc Juggler again. I'm sure a person with your skills could do this fairly easily. Even if it "chunked" it in stage 1 and built the resulting CDI in stage 2. There are a few CUE splitters out there but most are audio-orientated and I'm sure they wouldn't know to omit 11400/11700 with pregap at the session break.

Thanks for clarifying your intent here.

One of the major points of writing these tools for me is to avoid weird solutions requiring proprietary software like Windows, Daemon Tools, ImgBurn, etc.

Since I'm already planning for this software to allow the creation of CDI images with a 45000 second session LBA, for the exact scenario you want, it doesn't make sense for me to write a frontend for this non-standard proprietary cuesheet format with no other use case.

I can already parse CDI files, generate CDI files (from redump bin/cue), and arbitrarily convert sector types with what I've written -- there's just no frontend to create new discs, which is what I want to write next. Down the line I want to also parse and generate NRGs which would enable the conversion from one image type to another.

[nuggetreggae]

Hello |Darc|,
I trust you have had a good day.
I will word this very carefully so as not to appear arrogant or superior, whatever I write please do not take offence. It's absolutely not my intention.
I'm not sure how long you have been using cd tools. I bought my first burner (a Ricoh SCSI RO-1420C) in 1997. It was a 2X write and 4X read machine and required the cd to be inserted into a caddy before putting the whole shebang into the CD Burner. I can't even find a picture its so old! 74-Min Blanks were $8 a piece (but dropped in price quickly). I worked for a party planning company and took the plunge when my boss was bored of having 1 song to play off each CD. He wanted a whole CD of Hits. We always had to change vinyl records, but now had easier options. I charged him $20 a compilation and still did after blank CDs dropped below $1.50 each. The SCSI card, special SCSI hard disk (with no recalibration - it would not recalibrate during streaming stopping data flow and cause a cd coaster) and CD drive was damn expensive! but I did recoup the cost through selling the compilations.
We used a software called CDRWin which stored data as cue/bin files. The CUE file described the layout and the BIN file contained the raw 2352byte CD sectors. CUE/BIN became the standard for CDs. PC discs. Playstation discs. PS2 CD discs, MEGAcd discs. AMIGA CD32 discs. anything online was 99% likely to be in that format.
Even dreamcast. For the 1st 6 months after hacking people had to use a BOOT DISC to boot games off a single session CD, these were always in BIN/CUE format, for example all the early KALISTO releases. Even Echelon, with the game Maken X, released in this format to avoid the 30MB overhead for the 2nd session.
Kalisto's 1st game nfo here, it is indeed BIN/CUE https://archive.ph/20050524153330/http: ... aseid=8331
Then the self boots started coming out. And because by their nature they HAVE to use a weird, not start at 0 LBA, dual session format, and BIN/CUE had no option for multisession discs, they decided to use CDI DiscJuggler format.

I'm seriously astonished that you are not aware how important and influential this disc container is/was. And with the release of IMGburn provision was made for multi-session. The best dreamcast CD/GD software (ISObuster) also has full support for the multi-session implementation. It's done with REM commands so does not disrupt legacy software. But you know that. Redump Images are like that. Complete with REM Session commands.
If I were to buy an unlicensed Dreamcast CD today my options to convert it to CDI would be disc juggler (makes corrupted images, software not updated in nearly 20 years), Ultra ISO could make a CCD or Alcohol image which would work in my GDEmu, but maybe what you're writing could convert from physical CD on atapi interface direct to CDI? or alternatively I could easily rip using IMGburn or ISObuster.....

I'm obviously trying to persuade you. If you don't want to this is fine. I have to thank you 1000% for your tool. I hoped there might be a chance of you considering this functionality after you broke the mould by supporting MODE1 tracks. This is nothing to do with daemon tools. Nothing "weird".

Best Regards, Archie

Let's example a Redump disc with audio : https://archive.org/details/sturmwind.w ... ue.working

The Cue Sheet (Redump)

REM SESSION 01
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 01).bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 02).bin" BINARY
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 03).bin" BINARY
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 04).bin" BINARY
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 05).bin" BINARY
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 06).bin" BINARY
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 07).bin" BINARY
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 08).bin" BINARY
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 09).bin" BINARY
TRACK 09 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 10).bin" BINARY
TRACK 10 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 11).bin" BINARY
TRACK 11 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 12).bin" BINARY
TRACK 12 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 13).bin" BINARY
TRACK 13 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 14).bin" BINARY
TRACK 14 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 15).bin" BINARY
TRACK 15 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 16).bin" BINARY
TRACK 16 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 17).bin" BINARY
TRACK 17 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 18).bin" BINARY
TRACK 18 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 19).bin" BINARY
TRACK 19 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 20).bin" BINARY
TRACK 20 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 21).bin" BINARY
TRACK 21 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 22).bin" BINARY
TRACK 22 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 23).bin" BINARY
TRACK 23 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 24).bin" BINARY
TRACK 24 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
REM SESSION 02
FILE "STURMWIND (WORLD) (UNLICENSED) (TRACK 25).bin" BINARY
TRACK 25 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

and the cue sheet (CUE/BIN)

FILE "CDROM.BIN" BINARY
REM SESSION 01
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 02:11:56
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 04:47:47
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 07:27:70
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 10:59:12
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 13:33:09
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 01 17:41:69
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 01 22:15:42
TRACK 09 AUDIO
INDEX 01 24:51:01
TRACK 10 AUDIO
INDEX 01 27:17:58
TRACK 11 AUDIO
INDEX 01 30:09:54
TRACK 12 AUDIO
INDEX 01 32:12:45
TRACK 13 AUDIO
INDEX 01 35:07:18
TRACK 14 AUDIO
INDEX 01 38:09:38
TRACK 15 AUDIO
INDEX 01 40:52:26
TRACK 16 AUDIO
INDEX 01 43:27:64
TRACK 17 AUDIO
INDEX 01 45:24:73
TRACK 18 AUDIO
INDEX 01 47:39:72
TRACK 19 AUDIO
INDEX 01 48:57:59
TRACK 20 AUDIO
INDEX 01 50:11:39
TRACK 21 AUDIO
INDEX 01 51:18:05
TRACK 22 AUDIO
INDEX 01 51:42:05
TRACK 23 AUDIO
INDEX 01 51:57:16
TRACK 24 AUDIO
INDEX 01 52:06:71
REM LEAD-OUT 54:00:28
REM SESSION 02
TRACK 25 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 56:32:28

[|darc|]

Hello |Darc|,
I trust you have had a good day.
I will word this very carefully so as not to appear arrogant or superior, whatever I write please do not take offence. It's absolutely not my intention.
I'm not sure how long you have been using cd tools.
[...]
We used a software called CDRWin which stored data as cue/bin files. The CUE file described the layout and the BIN file contained the raw 2352byte CD sectors. CUE/BIN became the standard for CDs. PC discs. Playstation discs. PS2 CD discs, MEGAcd discs. AMIGA CD32 discs. anything online was 99% likely to be in that format.
Even dreamcast. For the 1st 6 months after hacking people had to use a BOOT DISC to boot games off a single session CD, these were always in BIN/CUE format, for example all the early KALISTO releases. Even Echelon, with the game Maken X, released in this format to avoid the 30MB overhead for the 2nd session.
Kalisto's 1st game nfo here, it is indeed BIN/CUE https://archive.ph/20050524153330/http: ... aseid=8331
Then the self boots started coming out. And because by their nature they HAVE to use a weird, not start at 0 LBA, dual session format, and BIN/CUE had no option for multisession discs, they decided to use CDI DiscJuggler format.

I'm seriously astonished that you are not aware how important and influential this disc container is/was. And with the release of IMGburn provision was made for multi-session. The best dreamcast CD/GD software (ISObuster) also has full support for the multi-session implementation. It's done with REM commands so does not disrupt legacy software. But you know that. Redump Images are like that. Complete with REM Session commands.
If I were to buy an unlicensed Dreamcast CD today my options to convert it to CDI would be disc juggler (makes corrupted images, software not updated in nearly 20 years), Ultra ISO could make a CCD or Alcohol image which would work in my GDEmu, but maybe what you're writing could convert from physical CD on atapi interface direct to CDI? or alternatively I could easily rip using IMGburn or ISObuster.....

I'm obviously trying to persuade you. If you don't want to this is fine. I have to thank you 1000% for your tool. I hoped there might be a chance of you considering this functionality after you broke the mould by supporting MODE1 tracks. This is nothing to do with daemon tools. Nothing "weird".

Best Regards, Archie

You are "astonished" because you simply didn't understand my reply.

I've been in the Dreamcast scene since the very beginning; I do know and understand very well the entire history of CDRwin, DiscJuggler, the Dreamcast booting methods, scene groups like Kalisto and Echelon, all of the unique tricks scene groups used to squeeze every last byte from a CD-R, etc. I've reverse-engineered every single one of these disc tools and I understand how all of them work. You have written absolutely nothing new to me. I wouldn't be motivated to write the toolset I have described if I didn't know these things.

Of course I know how important and influential bin/cue is as a format. As you yourself said, Goldenhawk invented the bin/cue format with their CDRwin software. Anything that CDRwin does not support, in my view, is a proprietary non-standard extension -- this includes multisession obviously. I consider standard bin/cue to be different than non-standard with proprietary extensions bin/cue. And then there's the separate question of split bin/cue vs. unified bin/cue. These aren't easily interchangeable from one software to another.

Because of PlayStation scene inertia, Dreamcast non-selfboots were distributed by scene groups in standard bin/cue for use with CDRwin, sure. But that's irrelevant to our conversation here.

Nobody makes or distributes Dreamcast games in the non-standard with proprietary extensions bin/cue format with a SINGLE unified bin file. You have presented the first use case here, which is when one uses this FamilyGuy Selfboot -> Nero file -> Daemon Tools -> ImgBurn -> non-standard with proprietary extensions bin/cue workflow. I don't use Microsoft Windows, so a workflow with a bunch of these Windows-specific tools is something I find unnecessarily convoluted, and yes, "weird." To me, it's far easier and less complicated to just use mkisofs/cdrecord, but it consumes a CD-R, and I already know how all of these formats work inside and out, so I set forth to write my own tools.

I have stated I'm creating a tool which can entirely replace the FamilyGuy Selfboot -> Nero file -> Daemon Tools -> ImgBurn -> non-standard with proprietary extensions bin/cue workflow. If this workflow is no longer necessary and will be replaced outright, why would I need to support this format, which has no other use case that I can think of?

Which of the following scenarios would you prefer?
A. New tool -> CDI file
or
B. FamilyGuy Selfboot -> Nero file -> Daemon Tools -> ImgBurn -> non-standard with proprietary extensions bin/cue -> New tool -> CDI

I'm already writing A. Why do you need B?


EDIT: Okay, after re-reading, are you simply saying you want to rip a physical game distributed on CD-ROM with ImgBurn and then convert to CDI for GDEMU? No offense, but your posts are unnecessarily long and quite all over the place. If that's what you're saying, then yeah, that's a valid use case, but you could use DiscImageCreator -> Redump2CDI most likely.

[nuggetreggae]

yup all points taken. I should have let no mean no. i'm sorry to have pestered you like that.

it's not so hard to chunk a bin/cue anyway if its necessary (those damn redump GDI's are much nastier with one continuous bitstream switching between 2352 and 2048 bytes per sector depending on what they were made from and all the truncated discs have 2048 data and 2352 audio) and there are not many people (if any) still using cdi anymore with the advent of cheap and clone gdemu's.

You do you!

About time someone did something about the early tools which are, well, dubious to say the least. the dahack's just search/replace 5EB0 and replace 9600, no matter what context. If a game starts with 45000 money, after hacking you will end up with $96 (160 is it?) ..... That's why my 11702 script does dahack at 45000 then lets binhack32 change the lba at "CD001".

I just did the whole japanese library, making nodummy gdi's and cdi's (there were about 3-4 I couldnt make CDI's, one visual concepts demo protected like hell and a couple with custom data containers 950MB long.) A lot of the KID releases also require file lengths to be the same as the GDI, I dont know how to code on the PC so I would hack the CDI filetable on the ZX Spectrum using an emulator!!!

I doubt any of those CDIs will ever be used, but your tool sure as hell helped me to make them.

Once again many many thanks for the great tool and I eagerly await future projects.

Best Regards!

[MoeFoh]

We have a Winner! This years Rube Goldberg award for CDI creation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg