Help with Picodrive

[garbin]

Hi

I am trying to get Picodrive to work on my slimline PSP (firmware version 3.95) and after copying all the relevant files (including a ROM image named "sonic1.bin") to the "GAME" directory on the memory card all I get when I try to start the picodrive code is the following message...
"The game could not be started"
(80020148)

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Thanks
Garbin

[bah]

You are running an official sony firmware, official firmwares (other than 1.0 and 1.5) cannot run unofficial code (homebrew).

You will need to get a custom (unofficial/hacked) firmware onto the PSP.


A collection of old posts of mine, slightly modified:


You cannot just install a custom firmware as easily as an official one. You can update from one custom firmware to a newer one easily, but you have to 'hack' the PSP to get it to run unofficial code to start with.

To quote one of my older posts from another thread (which in itself quotes another, older post of mine):



"Homebrew (unofficial software like Picodrive) can not normally run on a PSP as sony blocks it. A long while back some very smart people found out how to run homebrew on the official firmwares 1.0 and 1.5. Sony patched the 'security hole' that allowed it to run and released new firmwares.


More recently there are custom firmwares.
A custom firmware is a modified/hacked/unofficial version of an official sony firmware. It had been hacked to allow it to run homebrew, as well as having all the features of the newer official firmware it is based on.

To get to a custom firmware from 3.95 you will need to use pandora's battery. To use pandora to get a custom firmware you either need access to someone with a PSP that is already running firmware 1.5 or one of the custom ones, or you need to buy a datel 'tool' battery and find a source for an (illegal) program that creates the special memory stick for you.



To quote one of my old posts:

"The pandora's battery is a standard PSP battery that has been modified slightly (electronically, the serial number it reports to the PSP has to be changed or something like that).

Once a battery has been modified correctly then you can use it, in combination with a memory stick pro duo containing some special files (the 'magic memory stick'), to put any PSP into what's called 'service mode'.

Once in this mode, all the security measures are disabled and the internal flash memory where the PSP's firmware (the operating system that starts up all the hardware and gives you the menu, image viewer, video player etc) is stored can be written to.

It was designed by sony to allow them to fix bricked PSPs (the internal memory that stores the firmware is corrupt and the PSP wont turn on) when they got sent back to be repaired.

Some extremely talented individuals named Team C+D found out how to make use of this service mode to install whatever you want onto the PSP. You can install the official sony firmware 1.5 (from which homebrew can be run), or one of the newer 'custom' firmwares.

These are unofficial versions of the sony firmwares that have been 'hacked' to allow homebrew to run, among other things.

That doesn't really help you in how exactly to do what you need to do, hopefully it clears up what the battery has to do with anything though.


There are lots of guides/apps for windows that do all the file copying for you, someone should be able to point you in the right direction.""


Now just hope Micronut quotes one of his old (yet extremely helpful) posts that tells you the easiest way to go about getting a custom firmware on your PSP. :)
I cannot find the one I am thinking of with the search feature at the moment.