andshrew

PS5 param.json Attributes

The PKG files for PS5 games include a file named param.json which defines metadata relating to the game. Within the contents of the JSON object are properties named attribute, these define some of the features that the game supports (eg. 120hz output, PS5 Pro support).

At the time of writing there are four attribute properties. attribute attribute2 attribute3 have been present in the file since the release of the PS5. attribute4 was added ~October 2025, and so far it does not appear to be mandatory to include it.

The value for these properties is an unsigned 32bit integer.

The actual features that the game supports are set at the bit level. This means each attribute property has 32 features that can be flagged as enabled or disabled.

andshrew

Procedure completed using Windows 11 24H2

When recently cloning an NTFS formatted drive the program (Acronis) reported a number of unreadable sector errors.

I wanted to know which files were occupying these sectors, and in searching found many suggestions to use an old Microsoft utility called nfi.exe (NTFS File Sector Information Utility).

This was a program distributed as part of the OEM Support Tools. This is a Windows NT 4 / Windows 2000 era package which of course is no longer available directly from Microsoft's web site.

Web Archive to the rescue:
Download

andshrew

Backup android app, data included, no root needed, with adb

Note: This gist may be outdated, thanks to all contributors in comments.

adb is the Android CLI tool with which you can interact with your android device, from your PC

You must enable developer mode (tap 7 times on the build version in parameters) and install adb on your PC.

Don't hesitate to read comments, there is useful tips, thanks guys for this !

andshrew

andshrew

Retrieving VMware Workstation VM encryption passwords saved in the the Windows Credential Manager

When creating an encrypted VM, VMware Workstation gives you the option to remember the password. It does this by storing the password in the Windows Credential Manager.

VMware does not provide a way to retrieve this stored password, but it can be accessed via the Win32 CredReadW API function.

There are a number of PowerShell projects including PowerShell Credential Manager which provide access to this API, but in testing I found they were unable to correctly display the VMware password.

This PowerShell example has been tested using Windows PowerShell (v5.1) and PowerShell (v7) using VMwa

andshrew

Cloning (and expanding) a 60GB PS3 HDD to a 320GB HDD

These are the steps that were taken to clone a 60GB PlayStation 3 (PS3) HDD to a 320GB HDD, and then expand the USERDATA partition to the full size of the new disk using a NetBSD VM.

Clone the Drive

The original 60GB HDD was cloned to an image using ddrescue.

Original disk: /dev/loop0 (mounted 60GB HDD image file) New Disk: /dev/sdd (320GB HDD)

andshrew

These are the steps I took on Linux Mint using the PS3 HDD decryption helper

Reference discussion: HDD mounting and decryption on Linux

Install qemu for PowerPC64 and download FreeBSD Image

1. qemu-system-ppc64 is used to emulate a PowerPC CPU
   Install via:
   sudo apt install qemu-system-ppc
2. FreeBSD has some instructions for using qemu with PowerPC64 here.
   They have pre-built disk files which you can download here.

andshrew

[15:41:03.958] find_and_parse_output_edid connector:19 count_props 3
[15:41:03.958] find_and_parse_output_edid idx 0 prop EDID 1 1 value 0 0 cnt 0
[15:41:03.958] find_and_parse_output_edid idx 1 prop DPMS 2 2 value 3 0 cnt 0
[15:41:03.959] find_and_parse_output_edid idx 2 prop CRTC_ID 15 15 value 0 0 cnt -858993460
[15:41:03.959] find_and_parse_output_edid can not find edid blob for connecotr 19
[15:41:03.959] Output: 1,create_output_for_connector
[15:41:03.959] Output HDMI-A-1, (connector 19, crtc 30)
               mode 1280x720@60.0, current, built-in