(Version 2.0, last revised on 07/22/2000. Any comments or suggestions please direct them to Dredger. Do not email Deejay or myself about where to locate and download any DSS related files recommended in this Unlooper Guide. Any such emails will just be deleted).
PLEASE READ, VERY IMPORTANT:
The use, possession or importation of Test (Programmed/Pirate) Cards is Illegal in the United States. If you are a U.S. resident, you are required by law to subscribe and use of Test Cards of any kind is unlawful and subject to Criminal and Civil penalties according to U.S. law. We do not condone use of Test Cards to U.S. residents. You and you alone are SOLELY responsible for abiding by the laws of your Country, State, Province or Territory. THE DSS UNDERGROUND WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF THE PEOPLE USING THIS DOCUMENT. This Unlooper Guide is strictly for EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY. Also the DSS Underground also does not and will not take any responsibility for what might happen to any card using the following procedures. In other words, USE THIS UNLOOPER GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
So with that out of the way let us say that what we are trying to offer here is a basic and simple instruction that hopefully will make everything as easy for you as possible. We also want these instructions as safe as possible, meaning we want to try our best to avoid having your card become damaged. But remember nothing is absolutely foolproof and don’t let anybody ever tell you differently. There is always a risk taken whenever you attempt to clean an H card. But also at the same time if you follow certain precautions you can lower those risks and that is what we have tried to do with this guide. But sometimes people, when they run into an error or when they get confused about what they are doing, will guess or attempt to try things on their own resulting in creating possibly a more serious problem. If during any of the following instructions you should get any kind of error message or if you become confused and don’t understand something stop immediately, make note of any on screen message(s) and then go to the DSS Underground Unlooper Forum and seek out advice. Usually there is always somebody online that will be more than glad to help you out. If you do need to seek out help again please be specific when posting your problem and also give as much detail as possible. Also it is strongly recommended that you thoroughly read through this whole guide before you actually attempt to do any of the offered instructions. Also just to point out, this guide is geared to The WildThing II (WT2) unlooper technology, which also includes WT2 clones.
Advice
and Recommendations
Before we go on any further lets cover a few things. First off even though the pricing for unloopers has recently dramatically been reduced unloopers are still not for everyone. If you have never programmed an H card using an ISO7816 Compatible Programmer then I strongly suggest that you stop right now and rethink this a bit longer. First off you cannot program a card with an unlooper. DSS software programs like WinExp and BasicH cannot be used with an unlooper. You cannot install stealth scripts like SummitStealthPro or DssStealthPro with an unlooper. These programs and programming scripts require a programmer. An unlooper actually serves only two primary functions. It is used to unloop (also known as fixing) or clean H cards by returning the Eprom Image of the card nearly back to a virgin state. Second it can be configured using specific unlooper software to write Images (not to be confused with bin files) to H cards. Now in the hands of the right person the unlooper can do these tasks very fast and very efficiently. But again in the hands of the wrong person it can just as quickly and efficiently turn that H card into an ice scraper. So we strongly suggest that really think long and hard before deciding if an unlooper is for you.
What
To Expect Or Better Yet Not To Expect Out Of This Guide
Well let this be sort of like a disclaimer. Don’t think that by just using this guide it will make you proficient in the use of an unlooper. This guide will hopefully help some but it really takes a lot of experience and patience to learn the tricks of the trade and thoroughly master an unlooper especially when dealing with severely looped cards. There are far to many variables involved and since there is just no way for a guide of this type to cover all aspects of using an unlooper we have to once again stress that what you will learn from this guide will be limited since again we can and will only cover the very basics. Also if you only have one H card or a limited number of H cards then it just won’t be cost effective enough for you to buy an unlooper especially if money is any issue with you at all. The average cost of basic card cleaning is now only $10-$20 so you do the math and determine if it’s really worthwhile. But if you absolutely need to have one for whatever reason then continue on and hopefully we can help answer some questions and instruct you with some of the basic functions with using an unlooper. But again as far as giving thorough instructions especially with badly looped cards please do not expect to find that kind of instruction with this guide. This is strictly geared as a basic guide for beginners only.
What You Will
Need To Do To Get Started:
First off of course you must already have or plan on purchasing an unlooper. There are many to choose from with a wide range of price tags. The DSSU of course recommends that you consider purchasing an unlooper from one of our dealers on the DSS Underground who by purchasing banners help to support and maintain the site. You can find these banners at the top of the DSS Underground Forum pages or if you go to the DSSU main page there is a link called “sponsor’s list” which will list all advertisers, some of which do sell unloopers. Also for recommendations you can go to the Product and Service Recommendations Forum. When deciding on an unlooper, try not to let pricing be the only consideration. Yes pricing is important but quality is even more important when considering an unlooper. Unlike with ISO7816 Compatible Programmers, where just about all programmers are basically very good and do pretty much the same job, unloopers are much different. Not all unloopers are equal and you should really do your homework before investing your hard earned money. Also since an unlooper again cannot program your H card you are also be required to have a programmer as well. Lately many dealers have started to offer deals that include a programmer along with an unlooper. Also recently combo units where the one device can do both unloop as well as program your card have started to come on the market. So if you do not already own a programmer you might want to consider that option. (Note: for information pertaining to using a programmer and programming an H card please download the DSSU Programming and Cloning Guide.)
Next you will need software. The DSSU no longer offers a files section for downloading these or any DSS related files so you will need to locate and download needed files from other DSS sites. There are still many such sites available and they are not hard to find. Possibly other DSSU members can help direct you to these sites. But do not email either Deejay or myself asking where to download DSS files. Any such email requests will be ignored and deleted.
Anyway at this time we recommend and have written this guide referencing only WildThing 3.0 (WT3.0) since we have found it to be the most stable of all the software available at this time. This software package runs in all Window environments and has a very good and easy to use interface. We also do recommend and touch some on a DOS based program called PROG.exe. However this will not run in the DOS shell that comes with Windows 2000 so if you end up needing to run this program you will need to either be in pure DOS (booting up the PC with a DOS boot disk) or Windows 95/98. Now there are many other DOS based programs out there for the unlooper but most of them are more specialized for specific problems and generally take a real good understanding of unloopers. Most if not all if not used correctly can easily destroy a card (M.exe is a perfect example). So with this guide we are not going to cover any of those DOS programs and will focus primarily on the windows based WT3.0 program. Also required will be a program called WBIN2IMG.exe, which is, a required stand-alone program used for converting bin files into Images files.
WildThing 3.0
PROG.exe
WBIN2IMG.exe
WinZip 8.0 (download only if you do not already have a utility to unzip files)
RS232.exe (download only if you have a problem connecting your unlooper to a comm port)
Installing
the Software
OK so now we will continue under the assumption that you have located and downloaded whatever files you need for using this guide. If you do not already have a utility for unzipping files in .zip format then hopefully you located and downloaded WinZip 8.0 and installed it already. Then go ahead and unzip all the other software you located and downloaded. PROG.exe and WBIN2IMG.exe do not require installation after being unzipped but when you unzip WildThing 3.0 it will offer to install as part of the unzipping procedure. At that point just select “Install Now” and follow the installation instructions. It is very important though when it asks if you want the setup in the following directory (should be C:\Program Files\WildThing!) that you make sure to keep it in that directory. If you put it into a different directory, then because of the way the program is written and uses the registry you may have problems when you try running the software. So at this prompt just select “Next” as well as the next prompt as well. When finished just click “Finished” and then close WinZip. The programmed is now installed and can be accessed just like any other program. But also in the Programs Folder when you select the Start menu you will see a folder called Smart Card Prog. In this folder you will also see a shortcut to the WT3.0 application. This is just another option available to you for launching the WT3.0 software. If you prefer you can of course create a shortcut on your desktop for the WT3.0 application as well.
Now go to the Program Files folder on your C drive and open the WildThing! folder. Familiarize yourself with especially the two folders called Dumps and Img. You will use these two folders later when creating Image files. It will be assumed that if either of these folders are referenced later in this guide that you will know what they are and where to find them without the need to detail it any further than just the folder name. Also you will see WT.exe, which of course is the WT 3.0 application. If you prefer to have a shortcut on your desktop for the WT 3.0 now is a good time to go ahead and do that. The other files you see are not really anything that you need to be concerned with. There is a file called wt.doc, which is the WildThing documentation. It is recommended that you read this document but also depending on what unlooper you own some of it pertaining to the lights on the unlooper may not apply correctly for you. But most of the document does explain the main program screen and describes the different options and button giving some description as to what each button does. As you go on with this guide it will be assumed that you have read this document and that if a button or function is mentioned you will understand we are talking about. We just don’t have enough time to detail everything as we go along and have to assume that you understand what we are talking about. So again read this document.
Now just a quick note about a file that is not found yet in the WildThing! folder but will appear right after you run the WT 3.0 application for the first time. The file that will be created is called speedup.dat and this is a pretty unique file not even mentioned in wt.doc for some reason. I’ll try to explain what this file does the best I can in simple terms. Information about fixing every card that you ever put through your unlooper is remembered and saved in this file. It is claimed that the unloopers actually get smarter with the more cards that they fix making them actually become faster since instead of having to figure what to do it has saved history to fall back on and to reference. You will often see speedup files available on sites that offer unlooper software that carry claims of having a history of hundreds if not thousands of cards. So it only seems logical that you may want to go to one of these sites and possibly download one of these speedup files and replace your speedup file. But we’ll leave that totally up to you. One note however is that speedup files are unique to the version of WT software you are running. So if you do elect to do this you have to make sure that the speedup file you download is a speedup file for WT 3.0 only and no other version (which also includes WT 3.1).
Next unzip WBIN2IMG.exe and put into the Dump folder (hopefully as talked about above you will remember this folder). There is a reason for this, which will become more apparent later on. So for now just do it.
The last file we want to talk about is the PROG.exe. When you unzipped it you ended up with seven files. So now just create a folder on your C drive. You can call it anything you like but something like DOS Unlooper Files should work well. Then just make sure all seven of the files that were unzipped are put into that folder. Hopefully you will not have a need to really use these files when it comes to basic card cleaning since the Windows based WT 3.0 will be what you will use a majority of the time. But you may need the Prog.exe since every once in awhile you will get a card that you will not be able to fix with the WT 3.0 software and will require running this DOS program. But generally all that will be needed for basic card cleaning will be the WT 3.0 software.
With the software now all installed you will of course need to connect the unlooper to your PC and make sure that it is functioning. That is what the file called RS232.exe is used for. Run the file and it will give you a listing of four comm ports. If you click on a port it will ping or go out and verify that the port is open and that it can talk to your programmer. If you watch the light(s) on the unlooper one of them may flash when you click the appropriate comm port (generally comm port 1) that the unlooper is connected to. If you see no light flash then either your unlooper lights do not flash when you ping the port (not all unloopers are the same) or possibly you will need to configure the port. To do this requires that you to go into the computers BIOS. This is something that is different from computer to computer so we recommend that if you do not know how to do this that you seek help in doing this.
Setting
Up And Configuring The WT 3.0 Software
Now we’ll talk a bit about the main program screen of WT 3.0 and the
Image files that can be used. Go ahead and run the WT 3.0 application. In the
main program screen you will see a button called “Fix Card”. This button does
exactly as it is titled. It will attempt to fix a card by writing a near virgin
Image onto the card. It will NOT replace the card’s CAM #. The file that this
button accesses is called “fixbin.img”.
It can be found in the Img folder (again remember what was talked about
above about knowing these folders and their locations). Some people prefer to
create their own fixbin file instead of using the one that comes with the
software. But this is totally up to you. But if you decide to do this you will
need to have either a good clean H card, one which you know the history about,
or a good clean bin file. You really want this fixbin file to be as close to
being virgin as possible and not a card or bin that has previously had
programming. So unless you have such a card or bin I’d recommend just using the
one that came with the software, which should be fine anyway. But for those who
want to create and use their own fixbin then that will covered shortly.
Now there are five other buttons to the right of the Fix Card button.
They should be labeled “Clone 1A”, “Wild3M”, “W3M Clone” and then two button
with no programming at all (n/a). These buttons are linked to Image files also
found in the Img folder. These buttons will be used to write a specified Image
file to a card after the card has been fixed or cleaned. Now these are files
that you will most likely want to replace with your own Image files since you
will want Images setup with the programming and possibly the clone (CAM #) of
your choice. This also will be discussed shortly.
Let me just make a quick point right here. You can just use the unlooper
to do nothing more than fix or clean cards. Once the card is fixed or cleaned
you can then just go ahead and take the card back to your programmer and write
the script of your choice to the card. Or by taking some time you can also
create personalized Image files, which you can then use the unlooper to write
to the card. Believe me this will be something that you will want to do if not
right away then eventually. The unlooper will take only seconds to first clean
and then write a completely programmed Image file (also be a clone of a sub’d
Image as well) to the card. But it will require that you first use your
programmer to create a programmed card configured to however you want it
configured. Then it’s only a matter of reading that card with the unlooper,
which will save it as a bin file and then converting that bin file into an
Image file. It’s really not that difficult and really enhances the use of the
unlooper. But again you also do need a programmer to do all this.
So assuming that you will not want to use the Image files that are
already configured to those buttons then lets explain two different ways how we
can get those buttons so that they are no longer linked to the file they are
now linked to or to no file (or empty) at all.
OK first the easier of the two ways. If you want to just replace the file
that the button is linked to all you need to do is select the option menu while
in the main program screen of WT 3.0. You then choose “Setup”. While in the
Setup window click on the button that you want to change. Then just select a
different Image file. Then select “Open”, then “OK” and then you need to quit
out of the WT 3.0 application before you will see any changes. Now run WT 3.0
again and you will then see the change in the button. It’s really pretty easy.
However the second way to change these buttons and the only way to make then
totally empty, you will need to do something that you will have to be very,
very careful about. Just do exactly as instructed and you will be all right. We
now must go in and edit the registry. The reason I say you need to be careful
is that by doing this you are messing with the operating system of your PC, so
please make sure to do only what you are instructed to do or else to could
really screw things up. So first of all quit the WT 3.0 application and then
follow the following steps:
Now you may want to go to the Img folder and remove all the Image files,
except the fixbin Image file, since you really have no need for those files
(unless you plan on using the default Image files that came with WildThing 3.0.
However by now these Image files may be outdated especially as far as current
USW updates). Then go ahead and run the WT 3.0 application. Now all six buttons
should be empty (n/a) if you did everything correctly. Note: if you did not
close the WT 3.0 application before doing this edit then the buttons will not
all be empty. In that case close WT 3.0 and repeat the above steps.
So now just to show you one time how to actually program these button
when empty we will now configure the first button that use to be “Fix Card”. We
will go ahead and use the original fixbin.img file that came with the software
for this exercise (thus the reason for not removing it from the Img folder). So
now do the following steps which are pretty much the same as what was used
above when we reconfigured one of the buttons:
Now you have been shown how to edit buttons. Editing or programming any
of the other five buttons will be done in the exact same way. This pretty much
covers configuring the WT 3.0 software.
Creating Image Files
OK now since we have empty buttons available in the WT 3.0 main menu
screen lets create an Image file that then can be added to a button for easy
access. This again will require a programmer if you are to do this from
scratch. Remember that the unlooper cannot program or write scripts to a card.
So it is recommended that you follow the DSSU Programming and
Cloning Guide and get a card programmed (also cloned with a sub’d bin file
since we do want a card that is valid and working). So now we’ll assume that
you have already programmed a card that is exactly configured to the way that
you want it. So lets say that the card is a cloned card with SS1.2a installed.
Then follow these steps:
#Pro30C Clone (CLONE)
#30C Clone
: 1080200025DA440D010312200000000000000000CA
Your Image file should look very similar and the only
thing to really look at should be the section of the line we example above
which we have bolded for the purpose of making it stand out. Normally it would
of course not be bolded. This will be the fuse byte setting and since the card
again has a script installed it should be and is 25. If the Image you
had open was an Image file with NO SCRIPT installed (such as again a Fixbin
file) file then instead of 25 this fuse byte setting would be then be 00.
Now go the bottom of the Image file’s text in the notepad or wordpad and
look at the last line of text. Again using the above Image file of
DssStealthPro30C as the example the last line of code is as follows:
:00FF0201FE
Now your last line may look like this or maybe not depending on what was
on the card. But if it is a 3M stealth script on the card then the last line
should be changed to:
:00250A01D0
And again if the Image file has no script installed like a fixbin Image file then the last line should be changed to:
:00000101FE
Now this has all been with assumption that the card is either a clean
Image or one with a 3M stealth script installed. If you are using some other
script other than a 3M script then I suggest that you research what you need to
do to edit the config line.
So that is how you create an Image file and have easily accessible with
the WT 3.0 software. We mentioned earlier about possibly creating your own
fixbin file. Well the process is the same except that since there is no
programming on the card you can just save it in BasicH as a bin file or if you
have a good clean bin file saved already you can just run WBIN2IMG.exe and then
open the bin file directly and covert it to an Image file (fixbin file should
also of course be a non-clone Image file). This eliminates the need of doing
the Read Card step like you need to do with a fully programmed card.
Cleaning Or Fixing A Card
In most cases you will want to take a card that needs simple cleaning
like possibly a card that has programming on it that you or somebody couldn’t
remove because the script is preventing the E3 hole to open and you don’t know
what the script is or what the backdoor password may be. This is where the
unlooper really shines. All that you have to do is open WT 3.0 and when you get
to the main menu window select your fixbin button (most likely called Fix
Card). Then just insert the card and you should see the activity bar in the
action window at the bottom of the main menu window move across. When done it
will say completed. The card is now clean. To do another card just remove the
first card and insert the next card. Each cleaning will take less than 5
seconds. And that’s it, fast and simple.
However it isn’t always quite that simple. If you have a card that is
truly looped then the real fun and frustrations can begin. Whenever you put a
looped card in and attempt a fix you will get much different results. You will
see the WT 3.0 software attempt to read the card and eventually fail. This will
indicate a looped card. So you will now have to select each of the four mode
settings starting with un99glitch 1 and working thru each of the other three remaining
modes (un99glitch 2, Magic Glitch 1 and Magic Glitch 2) as each mode fails,
repeating them in sequence again and again until the card finally snaps out of
the loop. When this happens you will know it right away. After it successfully
snaps out of the loop and finishes whatever glitch mode you were in you should
then be able to clean the card with your fixbin Image. But this process of
snapping the card out from being looped can sometimes be pretty quick or sometimes never or anything
in between. All you can do is keep trying over and over again. Now earlier in
this guide I mentioned how over time you learn the tricks of the trade through
lots of experience. Well this is exactly what I was referring to. There are
different things that experienced unloopers will try like changing voltages or
possibly running other specialized software. But as I said earlier this guide
is for the basics and I am not going to get into all the variables and all the
different things that experienced unloopers have learned after doing hundreds
and hundreds of cards. If you get a card that you just can’t unloop I recommend
that you either seek out advice in the DSSU Unlooper Forum or send the card out
to an experienced unlooper service.
Now you do have the PROG.exe program still available to try. Sometimes this DOS program will work where the WT 3.0 will not. So you might want to go ahead and run the PROG.exe, which should be in the folder (maybe DOS Unlooper Files) you were asked to create after you unzipped it. Also please note that if you are running Windows 2000 then you cannot run this or any of the other DOS based DSS programs from Windows 2000 itself. Windows 95 and 98 will work ok but not Windows 2000. So you will need to reboot your PC using a DOS boot disk, which has PROG.exe (and the required files used with PROG.exe) also on the disk. Just reboot the PC with the disk in the floppy drive. It will boot you into DOS and when at the A prompt just type “prog” (A:\prog). This command is of course the same if you are running in DOS while in Windows 95 or 98. When the DOS window opens up by looking at the action line, you will see that the system should be ready to restore/unloop your card back to its original ID (not Clone). All you have to do then is slide the card into the card slot of your unlooper. If it is successful the program will tell you it’s complete and that you should remove the card. However if it’s unable to fix the card you will get an error generally saying that there was read error. You can keep trying this as many times as you like or alternate between the two programs (PROG.exe and WT 3.0). Maybe you’ll get lucky, maybe not.
Anyway this is as far as we are going to cover unlooping. There are other programs available like T5-ATR, M and M2 but these programs can be very dangerous if used incorrectly resulting in really damaging an H card. So before using any of these type programs make sure that you understand what you are doing. Again it can be a frustrating and time consuming process. Hopefully many of you will not encounter too many of these really difficult cards and if you do don’t beat your heads against the wall. If after a period of time you just can’t get the card to unloop just find yourself a good reliable and experienced cleaner and see if they are able to fix it.
Other
Unlooper Reference Materials
We strongly suggest that you download and read the WildThing! Help Document, which is an excellent document from Triton Systems and who produced the WildThing 3.0 unlooper software and the original WildThing 1 and 2 Unloopers.
Also as always, the DSSU Unlooper Forum is available to go seek out any additional information or help.