after lurking the site for a while I've found answers to quite a few of my questions, but I'm still iffy enough on how things are gonna pan out I figured it would probably be best to ask first, so any answers would be massively appreciated.
I'm by no means new to a soldering iron, having been diving in and out of electronics for over a decade now, but I'm just now making my first foray into the world of console modding. My old roommate had a PS2 with a bad disc drive which he abandoned at our apartment when he moved out. Never one to pass on a free piece of silicon, I immediately started looking into just what I could do with it.
The plan is to mod a hard drive into it, mod chip it, then load up the hard drive with backups of all of my games for use in the living room, while leaving my PS2 and games safely locked behind closed doors in my room so they don't a) get worn out/damaged and b) walk off during a party (lose a 400 dollar PDA that way and you get real freakin protective of your stuff).
However, this is where I show my noobiness to the scene. As far as I've been able to tell, it should be possible to mod and run a PS2 without a working DVD drive, but I'm still not 100% positive, so yay or nay on that?
Also, I've read that the PS2 system software will only support up to 125 gigs on a hard drive, but I've also been told by others it'll handle more, so which is it?
Unfortunately I don't have the PS2 on hand at the moment, it's chilling at my soon to be new roommates place while I sort out my living situation, but if any more information is required (version #, etc.) I can get it and update tomorrow.
Is it the fat or skinny PS2?
PS2's can support more than 128 gigs, the limit is (I believe) 2tb's so you probably won't have trouble finding a compatable one.
As far as having a dead DVD drive you have two options for running games off the hard drive:
a) when you want to install a new game you remove the drive from your PS2, hook it up to your computer, and load the game on through a program called Windiip
b) FTP the game to your PS2, slower, more complicated and can cause data corruption eventually
Since you would be unable to run a disc copy of say HDAdvance you are left with the option to get a modchip, I recommend either the DMS4 (has a built in hard drive game program in it), Matrix infinity (really easy to flash the latest HDLoader to), or Crystal chip (same as MI).
V12 PS2 - DMS4 SE PRO, Diode Fix, HDconnect, 320gb HD
---------------- Tall Israeli: For anyone who doesn't smoke, this is like your mom taking your dreamcast away.
I've got no problem removing the drive and just hooking it up to my PC, while the networking geek in me squeals at the idea of running an FTP into my PS2 thus saving me even more manual labor if it's more likely to cause data corruption I 'spose I can deal with a few screws whenever I wanna load a new game on.
any truth to what I've read on other sites that only certain IDE hard drives will work with the PS2, or is this a rumor propagrated by the man? and would you say that http://ps2drives.x-pec.com/?p=ps2_installation is a pretty accurate guide on installing a hard drive in a PS2?
Yes try to find a hard drive off that list but even if not you should be fine, I have never run into one that didn't work.
If, however, you get a western digital drive you need to open up the network adapter and loosen a screw or two or something like that to make the connectors fit, there's a guide somehere here on that.
V12 PS2 - DMS4 SE PRO, Diode Fix, HDconnect, 320gb HD
---------------- Tall Israeli: For anyone who doesn't smoke, this is like your mom taking your dreamcast away.
