Free McBoot for PS2 - suddenly working?

Hey there,

So a kind soul on Krikzz's forum posted me a McBoot-prepped memory card. Apparently it's as simple as plug-and-play, so I stuck it in my fat PS2 and hit the power. It booted to the ordinary menus. I spoke to said kind soul, who theorised it had been wiped in transit across the Pond or something, and offered to send a replacement.

However tonight it suddenly decided to work. I was watching a DVD on the PS2 and when I ejected the disc (and the PS2 attempts to revert to the file browser), it instead loaded McBoot!

More curious than anything really, but what could have stopped it working before, and is no longer stopping it? I hadn't touched the memory card since last speaking to Kind Soul, the card was just sitting in slot 1 of the PS2. So the connection wasn't altered...

Just average console gremlins perhaps?

 

Free McBoots have two options for installing onto a memory card, one for the console you're using, and one for multi-console support. Most people pick the latter for ease to sending it to people. But sometimes the first one might be picked on accident, I'm not sure about those who received memory cards installed that way. And you can't half-ass it by copying files because it doesn't work that way.
It could've also been erased in transit, if the postal services have some giant magnet machine strong enough to wipe a PS2 memory card.

 

I don't think that magnets can affect flash memory, which the PlayStation 2 memory card uses.

There are a few possibilities:
1. It's a compatible/clone card. Such cards tend to have substandard support for MagicGate, which in turn causes them to be rejected by some consoles after failing to respond on time. This also depends on the console itself.
2. Your card wasn't inserted properly. Especially if the contacts were already corroded.
3. Your console has a modchip. Although it probably wouldn't cause a difference, unless you've only just disabled it during your recent boots.

 

Hmm, I guess it could be possibility 1 then, as 2 doesn't apply (I never touched it) and 3, I am 99% sure it's entirely unmodded. The memory card looks authentic though.

 

But did you check whether the card could be accessed through the browser? Even if the card was inserted, it doesn't mean that it had a good connection.

Due to age, some of my clone cards wouldn't be detected properly in some consoles, as their contacts have corroded. I don't have any SONY cards in active use, as the last ones were killed in 2011 while the FMCB installer was being constructed.

 

Booting into the DVD player puts the modchip in a operational mode where it's less likely to disrupt the operation of the Magic Gate decryption system (which is required to execute the DVD player as it's encrypted and protected using that mechanism) and that's likely what made your FMCB install work.

I HATE modchips because they DO disrupt the intended operation of the console, in MANY ways.

In some severe cases it may even cause the circuitry on the console to fail early.

And in some very rare cases (wires loosen or short circuits) it may even corrupt the eeprom memory, fully destroying the console. (in consoles 5000x or newer it's impossible to recover from corrupted eeprom due to some protection SONY implemented to prevent Console ID overwriting/changing)

 

Does it work every time? I recommend you to make another one on your console himself.