The possible problems with goodtools were discussed several times on this board...to sum it:

- For most dats you need headerless romfiles. Exceptions are marked with a "*" on the datfiles page. Goodtools calculate the crc32 in its database without any headers. They skip the headerbytes, cmpro doesn't. So for cmpro you need headerless files to match the crc32. The rebuilder is based on crc32 compares, so it won't work if headers are still connected to the files. Header removing tools are available somewhere in the internet -> google it.

- some systems DO need header information (see "*" files on the datfiles page). So the datfile isn't based on a direct GoodTool database output, but on an existing collection. So you need the exact same files (exact same headerinfo).

- baddumps...are a pain. [b1...bsomething] marked files are baddumps in goodtools collections. Cowering usually calculate their crc32 by padding with 0x00 or with 0xdeadbeef or truncating them to the next/prev 2^k byte limit. Lot of manual hexeditor work to do here.

- storing....be sure you setup rompaths correctly. Take a look at setnames and always keep in mind the two supported scanmodes: rompath\setname\romname or rompath\setname.zip....For goodtools I usually give out 2 dats. One for singlefolder (all in one set) or a normal dat where each game has its own set. The correct setting of rompaths was shown several times on this msgboard...so I skip any details.

- interleaved romformat: some systems need the files headerless and in a special byte ordering. There are tools out there (ucon64) to convert them to the correct format


Did I forget anything...hmmm...not that I know of....


so....if the rebuilder doesn't pick up your files....you have to remove headers in 99.9% of all cases ;)

Roman Scherzer
ClrMamePro