Project: Discovering out how PSX HDDs are married to the PSX units.

I already found picture of the pcb, i edited my post above

I should see if I can get a PSX with a dead drive on the cheap.

 

Wow! Amazing! O_O

If you ever succeed in this experiment, please let me know. This will be a really great breakthrough because it'll mean that we can also use larger disks with retail PlayStation 2 games, without the use of modchips or patching the game itself.

Procuring a dead PSX isn't hard: There are tons of them on Yahoo Japan Auctions that are going for about 500 yen each, and recently a few on eBay. Those that get stuck at the XMB (XMB shows but nothing can be selected) have faulty HDDs as well.

EDIT: I don't know whether I was clear enough on that page, but it is also possible to use a retail SCPH-20401 unit on the PSX as a replacement disk.

 

I am making enquiries about getting a PSX. Will post if I succeed in getting my hands on one for a price I am willing to pay.

 

for shits and giigles putting the replacement drive in the PSX just to see how it reacts before modding would be interesting to you never know

 

It'll cause the HDD activity LED to stay on for a really, really long time.

Even after it shuts off, the interfaces will remain unusable: initialization of the standard PS2 HDD interface will time-out with error -501, and accessing the dvr_hdd0: device will fail on most commands with the "no such device" error (-ENODEV).

The PSX will also behave a little strangely: pressing the power button will cause the PSX to immediately switch off like normal... but the HDD stays on for quite a while before shutting off!

 

well thanks for that test but i meant when a retail version of the Seagate drive is used same model ect just retail
if the PSX might be coaxed into accepting it without modifying it

 

I was in the market for one earlier this year. While they seem to be found easily, the shipping seems way too much, even for a broken one.

 

Yeah, the jp shipping is usually a killer. I have asked some members here - I dont care if it takes 2 months to get to me and I dont need insurance (like id imagine some sites would want).

Hopefully that will keep things reasonable.

 

its super expensive to ship anything from or to japan
being a cluster of islands dont help
those $100+ shipping costs are rather reasonable when you consider the shipped from japan factor

 

I can ship 6kg TO japan for like $60 and thats the first quote I got.

 

I forgot that you guys are all living quite a fair bit further than I am from Japan. D:

Somehow, surface shipping ended up being a bit more expensive than engaging Fedex to do the job, when I shipped mine.

 

I have broken PSX DESR-7000. It's actually booting firmware, everything is functional except PS1/PS2 games. I disassembled it, checked all fuses, all are good. Also I tried to replace DVD laser (KHS-400C, same model is used in some FAT PS2 models) with no luck. CD module has two lasers, I think one is for games, another is for media. I am able to run audio disc playback with no problems, so I suppose media part is functional.
Do you guys know what can be wrong?
Also do you know, what usually happens when game PS1/PS2 disc is inserted? Does it show it as icon in games menu? (one with gamepad icon).
Actually I am unsure whether it's broken, but at least when I was inserting NTSC-J PS1 game, nothing happened (as well as other regions).

 

When you insert a disc, the PSX will read it and display an option for you to boot the disc, like the PSP and PS3 do.

I think that if the KWS laser is dead, it won't be able to play PlayStation or PlayStation 2 games: http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...mes-Won-t-play&p=676225&viewfull=1#post676225

 

Thanks.
I saw one only on ebay (KWS-200A), and it's used and too expensive ($50), any idea where I can buy cheap?

 

No, sorry. Have you tried cleaning that laser? It might be just dirty.

 

Wouldn't it be the case that if you can play an Audio CD, you could also play audio tracks on a PS1 disc?

 

Maybe, but I am more interested in it as game console .
Actually I was confused by a fact, that it plays audio cd perfectly, but didn't detected any game. By experimenting I also found out, that all discs are read by KWS-200A first, KHS-400C is quiet.
I'll try to clean lens today.

 

Cleaned lens, still doesn't work .
Also I checked, how audio disc is read. It's same as everything else: starts with KWS, then actual playback is by KHS. Dunno why KWS is needed, if everything is read by KHS.
Will try to find cheap KWS somewhere.

 

DVD laser is bad on KWS. PS2 CD-ROM games will actually work-> Ridge Racer V, Gradius V, Tekken Tag Tournament, Vib Ripple, Mojibribbon, Check-I-TV, the two Yoake no Mariko games, Boku to Maou (Okage Shadow king on USA), Rimokokoron, Bravo Music games (Mad Maestro) are some examples of CD-ROM based PS2 games. Unfortunately they're all early titles and quite hard to source as original discs.

 

It's weird, because I tried to boot CD version of Swap Magic JAP, and it doesn't boot.