I'm considering taking an original stock PS2 and creating a custom case (just the motherboard, ports and HDD) and want to oust the DVD drive altogether to help slim down the overall build, but don't know if the system can still properly function without the DVD drive. Does anyone know if this is possible? Thank you!
Don't know about the phat, but the slim I did the HDD mod on wouldn't see the disk until I also reconnected the DVD drive. Other than that it booted just fine.
You cannot remove the DVD drive from the PS2 (the electronics part of it) as it's part of the motherboard. It will work perfectly without the mechanics. But you need to put a jumper for it to acknowledge that the CD tray is closed to stop the blue led from blinking all the time and you need to make the limit switch for the laser short once to signal the drive controller that the laser is parked. Some software (HD Loader does this, for example) try to initialize the CD/DVD support library in a mode where it tries to check for the presence of a disc. That will stall on consoles with the newer "dragon" mechacon. Aka SCPH-5000x and newer.
