FreeDVDBoot - Hacking the PlayStation 2 through its DVD player - Could potentially work for all generations too!

[Gatdam Animal Person]

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Here's a snippet from the last paragraph :

As a final thought, there's really no reason this general attack scenario is specific to the PlayStation 2 as all generations support some combination of burned media: from the PlayStation 1's CD support, to the PlayStation 3 and 4's Blu-ray support, with the PlayStation 4 having only removed CD support. Hacking the PS4 through Blu-ray BD-J functionality has long been discussed as an idea for an entry point.

This is pretty cool! Soon you'll be able to run legit and homebrew games without any hardware modifications. It could also be used as a way to easily install FreeMCBoot. If they port it for the PSX, it would save me from buying myself a modchip or PSIO.

Discuss.

 

[Marissa Moira]

This is basically how Pseudo Saturn already works, but this is the playstation version.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

I enjoy how it comes full circle with the PS2's DVD player being the "killer app" for it at launch.

 

[Rotollo]

Shit, finally I'll be able to play godhand natively on hardware without selling my first born, nice

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Well shit, I wanted to get a PS2 for a long time. Now I just need to put down the money for one, get a large hard drive for storing the PS2 games (and PS1), jailbreak it, attach hard drive, and I am good to go.

 

[Gatdam Animal Person]

Since it works by exploiting DVD playback, it will be interesting to see if they can do something similar with the PSX, which can only read CDs.

Well shit, I wanted to get a PS2 for a long time. Now I just need to put down the money for one, get a large hard drive for storing the PS2 games (and PS1), jailbreak it, attach hard drive, and I am good to go.

Avoid using your hard drive over USB, it's way too slow. I suggest getting a Phat PS2 with the Network Adapter. You'll need an IDE drive, though I got it working with an adapter and a SD card, works fine.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Since it works by exploiting DVD playback, it will be interesting to see if they can do something similar with the PSX, which can only read CDs.


Avoid using your hard drive over USB, it's way too slow. I suggest getting a Phat PS2 with the Network Adapter. You'll need an IDE drive, though I got it working with an adapter and a SD card, works fine.

Any way to have that work with SATA instead?

 

[Dom Cruise]

Can this allow you to play foreign games?

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Any way to have that work with SATA instead?

Found some adapters. No idea if they'd work.
Here's a cheapo one

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

Found some adapters. No idea if they'd work.
Here's a cheapo one

I got the SATA without network from AliExpress and it’s been working fine for three years now.

 

[Gatdam Animal Person]

Can this allow you to play foreign games?

Since it completely bypasses the copy protection, most likely? If you are on a NTSC system you'll probably need a few patches for PAL games (same thing otherwise.)

 

[TenMilesWide]

Well damn, I've been doing infinity chip installs for years. There's one of my few skills obsoleted, guess I gotta learn to code now?

 

[JustSomeDong]

I still have an old fat ps2 with freemcboot on it in a box somewhere. Had a shitload of games on the hard drive. I should look for that...

 

[Sithis]

Seems they could have waited to make this public knowledge until after the PS5 came out so that Sony would have a harder time patching it, but cool nonetheless.

 

[tehpope]

Since it works by exploiting DVD playback, it will be interesting to see if they can do something similar with the PSX, which can only read CDs.


Avoid using your hard drive over USB, it's way too slow. I suggest getting a Phat PS2 with the Network Adapter. You'll need an IDE drive, though I got it working with an adapter and a SD card, works fine.

You can get an adapter to use SATA drives. It does work. Only problem is that the network adapter portion doesn't work since the hardware is non-existance in these SATA ones. You can just open up both the OG and the SATA ones and swap the HD parts since they're just separate boards connected by a ribben cable. I've done this and works great. I'd recommend a 2tb drive, since they're cheap, have more storage, and will last longer than SD cards. 512gb SD cards (full and Micro) are $75-100 while 2tb HDDs are $50. And you can swap for a SSD later down the line if you want. There are mod kits available if you just want to mod you OG unit and not buy another one. I've seen them on ebay and Amazon and are a bit cheaper than the SATA unit alone.

You could also just get a IDE to SATA adapter, but I've had trouble keeping everything together. And that was with a 2.5 inch HDD. Not sure how it'd work with a 3.5 inch drive.

The reason you want to mod the OG adapter is because you can transfer games over the network that way. It seems to be eaiser. Not just because you don't have to unscrew the Network adapter and removing the drive every time you want to add a game, but because the software for transferring games to the HDD can be finicky. At least in my experience on Linux.

This video will show you how to format for 2tb. Its pretty shitty looking, but 100% correct info.

And you can run FreeMCBoot as FreeHDBoot. Good shit.

Or you can just use the network adapter and run your games over the network. Works as good as the HDD method I've heard.

 

[tehpope]

Seems they could have waited to make this public knowledge until after the PS5 came out so that Sony would have a harder time patching it, but cool nonetheless.

I don't think this will have any effect on the PS5. They haven't announced any backwards compatibility other than those "top 100" PS4 games. And they haven't made PS2s in years. Any tricks to get pass region lock or piracy would be blocked on the PS5 as well. Disc swapping didn't work on the PS3 for PS1 games.

 

[JustSomeDong]

You can get an adapter to use SATA drives. It does work. Only problem is that the network adapter portion doesn't work since the hardware is non-existance in these SATA ones. You can just open up both the OG and the SATA ones and swap the HD parts since they're just separate boards connected by a ribben cable. I've done this and works great. I'd recommend a 2tb drive, since they're cheap, have more storage, and will last longer than SD cards. 512gb SD cards (full and Micro) are $75-100 while 2tb HDDs are $50. And you can swap for a SSD later down the line if you want. There are mod kits available if you just want to mod you OG unit and not buy another one. I've seen them on ebay and Amazon and are a bit cheaper than the SATA unit alone.

You could also just get a IDE to SATA adapter, but I've had trouble keeping everything together. And that was with a 2.5 inch HDD. Not sure how it'd work with a 3.5 inch drive.

The reason you want to mod the OG adapter is because you can transfer games over the network that way. It seems to be eaiser. Not just because you don't have to unscrew the Network adapter and removing the drive every time you want to add a game, but because the software for transferring games to the HDD can be finicky. At least in my experience on Linux.

This video will show you how to format for 2tb. Its pretty shitty looking, but 100% correct info.

And you can run FreeMCBoot as FreeHDBoot. Good shit.

Or you can just use the network adapter and run your games over the network. Works as good as the HDD method I've heard.

I remember using the network adapter to transfer games. USB was super slow, but it was v1 or 1.1 if I recall. I had a few 200-500gb drives for it, some with movies and stuff, some with games. SATA adapter worked no problem but did kill network functions. I'm betting the network transfer is more reliable now, but it was shit way back when I did it. I ended up making a patch cable to do it. Maybe it was my router. I used OpenWRT and the likes a lot back then when I liked to tinker more. There were a few different HD loaders, and they worked with almost every game I threw at it, but one was a multifunction loader with media and stuff whose name escapes me, openps2 or something.

I really need to look in my attic for that box with it. I'm getting all nostalgic.