Desperately need a dump of HDD from a working PSX DESR-5500

There is always plenty of devices there. The point is the final price. I can get working one for 350 USD but is a way too much to my mind. I bought mine for 1000 yen and brought by myself. I'm ready to buy working one for 50 bucks including delivery but you will never get it. Even you buy it for 1000 yen like me (and actually you can do it even cheaper) the delivery form Japan costs arounbd 150 USD.
I asked japanese sellers to sell me HDD only but they dont want.

 

Good luck you guys

 

I'm pretty sure the drive is empty, I'll have a look at doing it in the next couple of days for you.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Guys, I talked to some russian guys who are also research the topic. They told me:

1. Simply changing HDD (by uploading good image on it) is useless, yes. There is a lock on serial number of HDD (almost 100% sure). The problem can be solved by put serial number into firmware of another drive or patching the BIOS of you PSX. To try it we really need a dump of BIOS.
2. One person told me that there was a mod chip for PSX and he even saw diagram of installing earlier somwhere in the internet. Does anyone heard about that? Maybe someone have any knowledge on that?

UPDATE: I did a little search and seems Ghost2 modchip should do the job. Does anyone tried it? I found one shop that seems has it in stock.. not sure though + it's pretty expensive. Diagram is also available.

3. We need to find a programmer to take a look on update discs. At least we will know how many partitions and which files are there.

 

A very useful topic, good luck guys ! What is the name (marking) of the DESR BIOS chip?

 

I took a look at the update discs, and the important boot files seem to be scrambled. The important files include the HDD modules (ATAD.IRX and HDD.IRX). The OSD seems to be in some funny format too - it looks like it's headerless, after you decrypt it with Magicgate.

I'll see whether I can rip the embedded modules out of the installer ELF, as it seems like Sony put another copy of the modules into the installer, but did not scramble them.

It also seems like there is a firmware update for the CD/DVD drive... who knows what one might be able to do with modifying that.

Please do not mod a PSX. If you want to play Playstation 2 games, just get a cheap retail Playstation 2 console. The PSX is already uber rare outside of Japan. D:

 

Thanks for update, sp193!
the only reason to mod the PSX is to try copied update disc + maybe it will give some possibilities to play with HDD. I have couple of chipped PS2 actually. Another thing - i really doubt it's still possible to get this ghost2 modchip - i cannot find it in the shops...

 

PSX should be like TOOL , CP to PS2 hardware
some model PSX come with Cyclone chip in add-on PCB

 

I've managed to boot the PSX update disc v2.10 in PCSX2 after modifying the IOPRP image to have a real CDVDMAN module from SDK v3.00, but it seems to be coded internally to only do something on a PSX (Displays a message in Japanese like "The disc is for use with a PSX. Please eject the disc").

The installer has got HDD modules, but the ATAD driver is the same as the ATAD driver that comes with games - and it seems to only support 28-bit LBA as usual. I haven't really torn apart the APA driver, but it seems to support APA (But just maybe - it supports scrambling and another filesystem?). The Sony APA partition magic array is not scrambled in the module.

The installer has got debug information left behind, and I see functions that seem to be related to cryptography. Perhaps they are used to decrypt the scrambled parts of the PSX update disc.

Well, I probably won't do anything about this as I've got other commitments in real life.

 

the infectus 2 multi mod-chip can run the ghost 2 code (if memory serves and probably just as hard to get)[h=1][/h]

 

You can give details?

 

It was not "Ghost 2" that Infectus uses as code for running as PS2 modchip. It was "O2" which happens to be another (crappy) Origa product (Hence the O in the name).

You probably remember the other trash they made, like "Titanchip" or the original Origachip (which was actually an SX28 microcontroller) and that one alone blew many of the laser coils I replaced in all these years repairing PS2 lasers... Oh by the way did I say that the Infectus suck too ? I had two of it at some point. Still have one. Almost useless. All I use it for is write small chunks of flash memories when unbricking wii consoles. Even for that it's very unreliable ... -_-; It did cost a LOT and had a LOT of hype.

Sheesh.

Sorry, nothing to see here ...

 

The boot ROM of the DESR-5000 seems to not be a Protokernel boot ROM.

It contains a full ATAD module, which means that the Genuine SCE HDD check is in ROM. However, it checks for updates stored in the flash area, so it might be possible to store non-Sony ATA drivers and a loader there that loads the patched PSX OSD stuff...

I haven't taken a look at the OSD yet as it's packed with a different compression method from the OSDSYS modules of newer Playstation 2 boot ROMs and the DVD Player. rom0HDDLOAD and rom0FLSLOAD are update loaders v1.01 (Compared to rom0:HDDLOAD from the boot ROMs of normal Playstation 2 consoles, which is HDD Loader v1.00).

The kernel is a modified Playstation 2 kernel that lacks a number of syscalls, and contains some other syscalls that are not found in the kernels of normal Playstation 2 consoles like syscall 0x87 (ExecPSX()).

 

Thank you for you research, I hope you will continue it. Let me know if iI can help you with something

 

I know this is an old topic but if you no longer have this console this info might help someone else.
The laser which dies in the psx is the burning laser not the ps2 laser. The burning laser checks for a disc then hands over to the ps2 laser if theres one present, so even if you have a good ps2 laser you wont be able to boot anything.