Tutorial - How to softmod your fat PS2

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Tutorial - How to softmod your fat PS2

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PR4NK573R

Junior Member

1. February 2008 @ 07:15

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I've just stated in another thread that I might post a tutorial on softmodding fat PS2s... and after a few clicks around other threads I thought I may as well in order to prevent anyone cracking open their PS2s with angle grinders just yet! There may well be a tutorial on here already but I couldn't find it and so here's mine...

How to Softmod Your Fat PS2

DISCLAIMER
I DID NOT INVENT THIS SYSTEM

YOU FOLLOW THIS TUTORIAL AT YOUR OWN RISK

I WOULD NEVER DREAM OF ATTEMPTING TO RIP OFF A BIGWIG COMPANY SUCH AS SONY AND OBVIOUSLY DO NOT ENDORSE ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY...

Intro:
Softmodding is a way of modifying your PS2 without the need for opening it up and soldering all sorts of stuff together. I have seen kids as young as 8 grasp the concept of softmodding pretty fast... so no excuses guys/gals. This method lets you do all sorts of cool stuff such as emulating SNES games and ripping your PS2 game discs straight to your installed hard drive (don't panic we'll cover that too!) so you can play them without the disc. Ripped games play alot smoother than the original games, no skipping, shorter loading times, and it saves your laser reader in you PS2 as it isn't used apart from when you boot up! Sounds good huh? Well lets get cracking!

What you need:
-PS2 console (original chunky one, none of this slim nonsense)

-IDE hard drive (I have been told that PS2s only accept 40-120GB but I had no problems with a 320GB)

-PS2 network adapter (these are quite hard to come by nowadays but I picked up one on eBay for cheap cheap cheap)

-PS2 memory card

-Action Replay Max (again eBay or Amazon is the way to go)

-Flash drive

-PSone disc (most will work, it is only used as the trigger disc (if that doesn't make sense yet don't panic))

Installing the hard drive:
Take your IDE hard drive (referred to from now on as HD) and first of all make sure it fits the expansion bay at the back of your PS2. If it does, thumbs up, if not you're gunna have to get another one that does I'm afraid unless you fancy cutting up your network adapter and making an alternate arrangement for your HD... which is fine, if not a bit messy! Assuming it does fit just slot the HD into the network adapter, Maxtor drives fit the best I'm told where as Western Digital are the hardest to fit.
[NB - I bought a 320GB HD from Maplin for £50 (CHEEEEAP) but found I had to open the network adapter and widen the 2 connectors that join the HD. Anyone wanting info on that just PM me]
That's all there is to it!

Exploit - Step 1
We want to be able to launch our own ELF files. An ELF file is basically like an EXE file, but for a PS2. Choose a PSone game (referred to from now on as trigger disc). Most will work, although I know Duke Nukem games can be troublesome.

Now insert the trigger disc into the disc drive on your PC. Download and extract IDGET and Titleman Frontend .

Open IDGET, choose the drive your trigger disc is in, click Get (this is the ID of your trigger disc). With IDGET still open, open Titleman Frontend and click Create TITLE.DB. In the bottom right put your trigger disc ID and click Add Exec. You will now find a file in the same directory as Titleman Frontend called TITLE.DB.

Download a file called exploit.max. Download and extract PS2 Save Builder. Open PS2 save builder and open exploit.max in it. In the Root/ID field type BEDATA-SYTEM for PAL consoles or BADATA-SYSTEM for NTSC consoles. Right click below the listed files and choose to add the TITLE.DB that you created earlier (it is in the same directory as Titleman Frontend... remember?). Now save the modified exploit.max file, it's fine to overwrite. This is the file we need to get on the memory card!

Exploit - Step 2
Plug your flash drive into a USB port on your PC and transfer the exploit.max onto it. Then plug your flash drive into a USB port on your PS2. Turn it on and start up Action Replay Max.

Enter Max Memory (this takes aaaaaaaaages to load) and then go into My Devices. Select the flash drive and wait for the exploit.max file to show. Select it then on the menu on the right choose Uncrush to MC1. Wait until it's done then turn off the PS2.

Now turn on the PS2 with the memory card and trigger disc in. You should see the PS2 load up thingy, then it'll go white for a few seconds. This is the PS2 effectively crashing which allows the program LaunchELF (named BOOT.ELF in exploit.max) to launch. From here you can access all parts of your PS2; HD, memory cards, USB, etc. Funky stuff eh? You have just softmodded your PS2! But now what...?

Ripping Games:
Now your PS2 has the ability to do a whole lot more... why don't you put it to use by ripping some games for you! You will need to download and extract HDLoader.Then transfer the ELF file to your flash drive.

On your PS2 trigger the exploit so you are at the LaunchELF main screen. You can press SELECT to change the buttons used within LaunchELF, but for now I'll stick to the defaults. Press CIRCLE to access the Filebrowser. The controls are shown at the bottom of the screen. The flash drive will probably be called mass:/ if not then just explore until you find it, it will contain the HDLoader ELF file. When you've found it, highlight it and press R1 to access the menu. Choose Copy. Navigate to mc0 (which is memory card 1) and then to BEDATA-SYSTEM on PAL consoles or BADATA-SYSTEM for NTSC. You should see the contents of the exploit.max file we sent here earlier! Highlight any of the files, R1 and choose Paste. HDLoader is now on your memory card!

Navigate back to the main screen. We are now going to make a shortcut for HDLoader. Press SELECT, highlight TRIANGLE and press CIRCLE to browse the files. Navigate to the HDLoader ELF on the memory card and press CIRCLE to confirm. You can press SQUARE now to edit the title to HDLoader if it helps. Now from the start screen just press TRIANGLE to access HDLoader... Go ahead and start it up!

If it asks you if you want your HD formatting say yes. You will see an empty games list and a menu on the right. Open your CD tray and take out the trigger disc (you actually don't need this after that white screen has appeared!) and replace it with a PS2 game of your choice. Press RIGHT to access the menu and navigate to Install, X to confirm. If your PS2 game is already in the drive choose Continue. It takes about 30 mins to rip a game. Once you have ripped some games, in the games list highlight the game you want to play, RIGHT to access the menu and hit X with Play highlighted. Ta da!!

This works for most games (DVD-5) but a few games (DVD-9) will not work with HDLoader. This is by no means all you can do with a softmodded PS2, this is just a starting point. I'm sure our good friend can help you discover more about softmodding!


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