I dont want to sound like an etherial idiot... But a Test console should be able to use a standard PS2 Ethernet adapter? And From my understanding the Test units are nothing more than a PS2 turned yaroze minus the pc link and fancy dongle. Thanks, Xeveniah Darkwind
All TEST's i have owned worked fine with standard HDD/ethernet, but there is word out there that not all TEST's may work with HDD's depending on firmware rev maybe this also applies to ethernet not sure. Many threads about this btw.
Segata, I allready knew that all Test's didnt support the hdd... but did all tests support the ethernet nic for the retail consoles... I read that thread before asking the question. Xeveniah Darkwind
It's not that the TEST units don't support the HDD. They do. If the HDD is connected and formatted properly the games can use. I t's just that some of the TEST consoles (the early ones mostly) don't have the Magic Gate decryption enabled on the bios so they're unable to boot the HDD OSD (Browser with HDD support)
yeah.. my test 30001 boots hdd support fine, but my test 10000s does not... linux works fine on both however, regardless of osdboot support of the hdd, as do a number of other items...
Have you tested an Japanese HDD utility disc on that 10k Test ? Magic gate encrypted discs have an extra region lock so an NTSC U/C utility disc will boot but black screen after the PS2 logo if the Magic Gate region mismatch, even if the game region matches. A example is you try to use an USA HDD (SCPH-X0001) and it's Utility Disc on an Mexican console (SCPH-x0011). Both are NTSC U/C. But the utility disc won't boot past the PS2 logo.
i've played around with 2 versions of the bbn- the results are identical: on the 30001, the system attempts to boot off it at startup and hangs indefinitely. on the 10000s, it acts as if the drive isn;t even there and doesn't check anything. I have a scph-10000 arriving in the mail tomorrow so i'll see how things go from there. interestingly, I'm using a dtl external drive from my tool on the 10000s, and a US linux kit hdd on the 30001, BOTH worked fine with installing the bbn, BUT on trying it on a modded US retail, it won't boot the cd even. also, i tried swapping the hdd from the 10000s into the 30001 post-install, and it seems to still TRY to boot, etc. Also the 10000s would install onto the linux kit drive as well (in both cases, opened the enclosure) I'm personally not convinced that the bbn requires magicgate to install, instead it uses the console serial number lookup like ffxi/pol to prevent you from installing out-of region. This would make sense as it's a mishmash of linux and other junk rather than a straight ps2 application...
PSBBN discs are of the same kind as the the regular HDD utility discs and the DVD player driver install disc. All of them are encrypted and will work only on the matching Magic Gate region. In addition, all utility discs have DISC IDs just like DNAS protected games. The ID is used when installing stuff onto memory cards. Because of the DISC ID thing, CDR/DVDR copies of PSBBN discs won't work for you. For years the pirates thought these discs didn't work because of them detecting modchips. But to be honest what happen is that the older modchips were actually interfering with the magic gate decryption mechanism. That's also why installing magic gate stuff to memory cards (DVD drivers, OSD updates in case of the 1x000 series to enable the HDD OSD) fail on systems with modchips installed. This second case, would happen *if* the disc managed to boot. Also this is the method how SONY kept people with modchips out of their online game servers. Modchips would disrupt the mechacon operation while the security program on the game disc were trying to obtain the DISC ID to then, send to the server. That's why a console with modchip gives DNAS DISC ID error codes when a modchip is installed. Now back to the TEST units, like I mentioned earlier the TEST units that can't run encrypted discs, have that issue because their rom module SECRMAN is "stubbed", does not perform the decryption/descrambling of the KELF file that was obtained from the disc by the 1st loader (which fetches the said KELF file from a huge file which is disguised as a DVD VIDEO VOB file.) From that VOB file also came the special version of SECRMAN module that can sign KELF files for use on memory cards, which became the heart of the FREE MC BOOT thing ... But that's another story ...
