Can i use custom FW without downgrading to 1.5 first.?

[syrus]

I have a phat psp 2.81 but i cant get a copy of GTA to downgrade to 1.5 and i was just wondering to i have to downgrade to 1.5 before i can use custom firmware or is there some other way to downgrade to 1.5 i havebeen outa the psp scene for a good while and i am just trying to find out if there are other new ways to downgrade or upgrade to custom FW. I would really appreciate the help. thanks
syrus

[FNQer]

check out hellcat's recovery flasher and see if that applies to your situation...

all phats are hackable, regardless of its motherboard or OFW (even the latest ofw 6.20 or whatever) - and you can use pb and mms. so for phats, we don't have to figure out which m/b it is...

but the flasher technique above doesn't require pb to install cfw - much simplier than pb technique. there is an alternative to the suggestion above - gen flasher?

from my personal experience, i repaired a semi-bricked phat (which had old cfw on it) and installed cfw onto the slim from its ofw. no more than 10 minutes to complete installing cfw onto a psp. using that HC.

maybe have a pb ready - for emergency cases. worst case scenario, you might use the pb to recover from a semi- or totally bricked attempt.

even i will 'hide' behind the disclaimer, plz do so at your own risk. the standard warnings!

no need to do what you are suggesting, i reckon. i reckon its an old technique you are looking at - the 1.50 kernel add-on from my understanding is legacy type stuff to make it backward compatible with older homebrew apps. i added a 1.50 kernel add-on to my cfw 5.00m33-6 on my phat, but i get little use of it.

in any case, i would have thought you wouldn't need the copy of the umd game to downgrade - whatever file that is required would be readily available for download elsewhere on the net. also, i thought those umd game exploits are old-school technique which was employed in the earlier days of psp homebrew.

since your ofw is rather old - that is good news.

the flasher technique gets you to get an ofw and cfw in its eboot.pbp format (which you rename 500.pbp, 503.pbp etc.) to prepare for HC. now, i think its a bitch to downgrade from the latest ofw (6.20?) down to the ofw 5.03 which is required for HC - you employ pb to downgrade the ofw from 6.20 and then employ HC to install cfw. that's why i said it was good news you have an old ofw where you are upgrading to ofw 5.03 (?) to prepare for HC.

though you upgrade the ofw, its kinda different from getting this update from Sony directly. you, the end-user, actually place the update eboot.pbp file onto your memstick. i'm never in a hurry to update ofw from official sony channels on my homebrew-enabled psp.

i did mention before, you kinda got a greater margin for error with the phats because of the fact that all phats regardless of its ofw is hackable. just different hacking techniques depending on what ofw you have...

hopefully, i have sent you on the right track...

[FNQer]

sorry - double post

though most of the times the readme files are sparse and just gives short installation instructions, you should preuse the readme file for these flashers.

also, there should be guide in here somewhere about those flashers - HC.

GL

[Gamefreak116]

You can. Download this:http://www.sendspace.com/file/7u56gt
Also need this:http://www.sendspace.com/file/yfj1gw
Installation
1. Run 5.00 m33 installer.exe