ok, i'll try and explain this as best as i know how, cause it shouldn't be too hard to explain.
#1 take the cover off the back of your ps2 and remove the HD, this is roughly a standard hard drive, the only difference is the formatting of the disc, which is legible on the PC i believe.
#2 onthe hard drive you have a set of pins thats like 4 across and thats where you plug in a molex power connecter, you have a long row of 20 pins over another row, thats the IDE, then you have a series of maybe 6 over 6 pins with little plastic pieces connecting two. the last bit is the jumper, and what you'll want to do is look up how to set the jumpers so that the hard drive is a "slave."
#3 with the hard drive set as slave, plug it into an IDE chain and a molex within your PC and you can now access the drive with any OS.
#4 you'll probably need to get a program that allows windows or linux to read the HD the way its formatted for your PS2, this i don't know what to say but that, you're on your own.
#5 with your computer able to read the files, you can now say copy them off, edit them, and drop them back on.
#6 reverse the process making the HD's jumpter settings "master" and putting it back in.
some notes to include are the way the hard drive is formatted is just the method by which the OS reads it, so the files are technically in the same state no matter the formatting, they just can't be read. this is like taking a mac formatted hard drive and trying to get windows to read it, windows just doesn't know how that format the hard drive is in works. kinda simple. refer to normal guides for file editing once you get to step 5, but mostly you can browse around the files on that HD the same way you would any other hard drive in your machine. also note, if u don't make it so windows can read the FFXI formatted hard drive and it asks to format it and you do, not only will the hard drive no longer work in your ps2, all your game files will be lost, so proceed with caution. and if you want to do this only to say use the model viewer, its possible to get a ps2 emulator (perfectly legal if u own the game and the ps2) and install FFXI onto your pc - emulated. you can then view the files with model viewer (hopefully) and edit them, but thats just if you're willing to do something that ass-backwards. ganbatte
P.S. i'ma look for some pictures to make this easier
P.P.S. view
http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/les...ddriveback.gif to see the back of a hard drive. credit to
http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/les...0-4noframe.htm for the image
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