Current state of the PSP world (custom firmware)

I've come to the conculsion I made a mistake buying the PSP. Yes there are some great games, and the Amiga on the go is brilliant but the white case just looks, well gay really. Anyway, I've conviently found a family member who wants to buy a PSP (in white, the fool!) and saw a black model for sale in WH Smiths today for £115 so bought it. The only problem is it's got 2.81 firmware on it.

As I understand it there are two methods to downgrade available, either using GTA/Lumines exploits or the Pandora's battery. I don't particulary want to have to buy another game (especially as I have the patched version of GTA) so the latter seems to be the best option. Has anyone had any success with it? Until the white one goes, I have a PSP with custom firmware and one with 2.81 official firmware, two batteries (standard ones that came with the 2 PSP's) and 1 memory stick. Is it possible to do the downgrade using this equipment and then restore everything so the battery and MS function as normal again?

See! I told you so. I said at the beginning you should go with black, but no... you had to have the white one... now look what happened. ;)

Yes, as you have the two PSPs you should easily be able to do this. FOL has already tested the Pandora battery method and said it worked perfectly well so if you have any questions he's your man. Just remember that if you do want to try this make sure you backup the battery Eboot before you change it into a Pandora battery. Otherwise you won't be able to change it back again after.

I can confirm that the Luminies downgrader worked perfectly on my girlfriend's Pink! PSP, so if you would rather go that route it does work.

One word of caution. Check inside the UMD drive and look for any piece of curcuit board that is visible and see if it has the letters IC1003 printed on it. If it has then the PSP will have a TA82 motherboard. This isn't a problem as far as degrading games, but with these motherboards you cannot currently upgrade to the latest firmware versions, so you would not be able to use any of the custom M33 firmwares. You would instead have to use an older Dark_AleX OE firmware. I think the newest a TA82 can be upgraded is 3.30.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

See! I told you so. I said at the beginning you should go with black, but no... you had to have the white one... now look what happened. ;)

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Yeah I know, some stuff looks great in white, but the PSP doesn't. Guess I should have had a look at one in the flesh first before buying. Anyway, it all seems like it'll work out OK in the end (hopefully!)

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Originally Posted by Harrison

One word of caution. Check inside the UMD drive and look for any piece of curcuit board that is visible and see if it has the letters IC1003 printed on it. If it has then the PSP will have a TA82 motherboard. This isn't a problem as far as degrading games, but with these motherboards you cannot currently upgrade to the latest firmware versions, so you would not be able to use any of the custom M33 firmwares. You would instead have to use an older Dark_AleX OE firmware. I think the newest a TA82 can be upgraded is 3.30.

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Really? My white one is the IC1003 model and that works fine on 3.51 M33-7. All I had to do was make sure I ran a key patcher before downgrading to 1.5 to avoid it bricking.

Hmm... maybe the key patcher fixed that issue. The Luminies downgrader I used on my GFs PSP actually threw up a warning saying it couldn't be upgraded beyond 3.30 once downgraded.

I wonder if that can now then. I will have to investigate further. Any info on this FOL?

I've found a pretty good guide on how to do it here. Can FOL (or anyone else who's done the downgrade this way) clear a few things up?

1.

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- Remove the Memory Stick and disable the USB connection. People argue over weather to remove the memorystick before disabling USB or after. It realy doesn't matter. I always remove it while in USB mode and have never had problems.
- Connect the Memory Stick again via the USB connection of the PSP. Important or you can end up with a bricked memorystick!!

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So just to confirm here we remove MS, press circle to exit USB, reinsert MS, open USB connection? No need to power down the PSP at any point?

2.

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- Put the 1.50 official update on your memorystick. Not in any folders, just on there, the first part of memory Stick. This is the root. Once it's on there rename it from (it should be named eboot.pbp in the first place it doesn't matter if it isn't) eboot.pbp to update.pbp.
- Remove the Memory Stick and disable the USB connection. Again it doesn't matter which way round you do this.
- Run "installer" program the PSP. This application
will create the firmware files on the root of the Memory Stick, as well as msipl.bin. You do not need to move these files as they are all put in the right place by the program.
- Connect the Memory Stick again via the USB connection of the PSP.

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So it's copy & rename 1.5 (any locale I take it), remove MS, press Circle to exit USB. Then I assume we need to put the MS back in before running the installer program (guide missed that step out). Once it's run, the USB connection needs opening again. Have I got that right?

well it shouldnt really matter, i remove my MS all the time. I wouldnt remove it, while connected to USB though.

Just follow the instructions that came with pandora, which state, disconnect (press O) from USB and remove MS.

To be honest, I dont like that guide, it adds confusion, the pandora original readme is so much easier to understand.

Once MS is created, you will never have this problem. My spare MS (magic MS) is sat on the shelf, just incase my PSP dies, :).

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Originally Posted by Harrison

Hmm... maybe the key patcher fixed that issue. The Luminies downgrader I used on my GFs PSP actually threw up a warning saying it couldn't be upgraded beyond 3.30 once downgraded.

I wonder if that can now then. I will have to investigate further. Any info on this FOL?

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Did you make a dump of the IDStorage (using key cleaner) while in HEND before downgrade? if not, then you can not go back to Original FW above 3.00

The key needs to be altered back to its untouched state, for it to allow you back on higher original firmware.

Anyways, to all you PSP owners, if you havent made a backup of your IDStorage keys, DO IT A.S.A.P. If your IDStorage gets corrupt, it can cripple your PSP. Things wont work like WiFi, UMD's wont read, etc etc.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

One word of caution. Check inside the UMD drive and look for any piece of curcuit board that is visible and see if it has the letters IC1003 printed on it. If it has then the PSP will have a TA82 motherboard. This isn't a problem as far as degrading games, but with these motherboards you cannot currently upgrade to the latest firmware versions, so you would not be able to use any of the custom M33 firmwares. You would instead have to use an older Dark_AleX OE firmware. I think the newest a TA82 can be upgraded is 3.30.

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None of that matters, any PSP can go to any custom firmware, as the IDStorage Key 5 is edited to allow running of 1.50. Downgraders just patch key 5, the only problem is when you want to go back to higher firmwares.

EDIT:- @AlexJ you got PM, ;)

When I use Pandora to downgrade how do I back up my IDStorage before the downgrader changes Key 5? Is it by making a NAND flash backup (Pressing circle at the Pandora menu)?

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Originally Posted by FOL

Did you make a dump of the IDStorage (using key cleaner) while in HEND before downgrade? if not, then you can not go back to Original FW above 3.00

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So does this only affect using official firmware above 3.00? And not custom firmware such a 3.51 M33? If so that isn't a problem as I wouldn't still an official firmware back on a PSP anyway.

Correct, but why 3.51 M33, 3.52 M33-4 has very nice features.

Probably a really stupid question, but if I put 3.52 M33-4 on it and update 5 comes out, can I then just update straight to 5 or do I have to go back to a basic 3.52 M33 with no updates?

EDIT: Thanks for the PM!