Odd numbered bad blocks on my PSP1000

[Nickhono]

Okay so here's the story...I need help!

I bought a black phat PSP just when it was released in Japan with firmware 1.00; and then used it for around two years. During that time I had upgraded and downgraded it quite a few times, from

1.00 -> 2.00 -> 1.50 (tiff buffer overflow) -> 2.60 -> 2.00 (using the GTA save exploit) -> 2.71 -???-> 3.03 OE-C -> 3.40 OE

afterwards, the PSP started going crazy at times such as refusing to boot at times, suddenly giving me red screens of deaths, freezing etc. finally after a while it just bricked and would never boot when i push the power switch.

anyway my friend gave me his PSP so I used that instead

but now I'm trying to revive my old PSP, so I downloaded DCv8 and pandorized the battery. after putting it in i thought it would be a good idea to make a NAND dump. after the dump, it told me that it detected bad blocks at 1,3,5...all the odd numbers up till 55.

I didn't bother with it and i flashed 5.00m33-4 onto my psp, and rebooted it. it booted into 5.00m33-4 fine but when I switched it off and on again, expecting the DC menu to come up, nothing does!

so I tried my pandora battery and magic memory stick on the other psp...but it worked there.

grr so is my psp permanently bricked?

[Nickhono]

now this is even more weird

all of a sudden i could boot the DCv8 menu, so i did another nand dump (the previous one was before i flashed 5.00m33-4 on it, the current one is after i flashed it)

this time it told me the bad blocks found are 1,4,6,8...all the EVEN numbers up until 56, except for the 1.

what could be the problem? why is it reporting different bad blocks each time (to my knowledge bad blocks are physical, so they should be the same each time, right?)

i also want to know if Time machine could solve my problems here...thanks!

[Saracchini]

Appears that your NAND have a lot of damaged blocks as happened with mine. Try format and recreate the partitions using DCv8 then install the 5.00 M33. Formating the NAND would mark the bad blocks leaving only the good ones as usable. I think that it will solve the problem for a while... it worked with me.

It happened with my old TA-79. After install 4.01 M33 it lasted some minutes then it didn't came up. Well... since this NAND is failing flash0 and 1 keeps corrupting after some time. The only way that i found to boot without problems was running the firmware installed in MS using DC8.

Yes, it is a annoyance, but since it is hardware fault there's no software solution that can solve that, unless i get another NAND chip and solder it in the motherboard.

[Nickhono]

thanks saracchini...as i suspected it's a hardware problem. must be them TA-79s

i just need help setting up firmware that is booted from MS now. last time i kept myself update with the scene DC and time machine just came out, but reading ur reply i take it u can now install firmware on your MS just by DCv8? Is it any firmware or is it still limited to 3.40OE for phat users?

[Buddy4point0]

I would suggest downgrading to 1.50, then re-updating all the way up to 5.00 m33-6.
That could fix your issues.

[Saracchini]

thanks saracchini...as i suspected it's a hardware problem. must be them TA-79s

i just need help setting up firmware that is booted from MS now. last time i kept myself update with the scene DC and time machine just came out, but reading ur reply i take it u can now install firmware on your MS just by DCv8? Is it any firmware or is it still limited to 3.40OE for phat users?

Normaly, the firmware booted in MS is teh determined by the TIme Machine (1.50 / 3.40 OE-A) or you can use the option "Test M33" of the latest Despertar Cementério to boot the firmware of the current DC installed in your memory stick. It means that it will boot 4.01 M33 in DCv7 and so on.

[Nickhono]

saracchini: cool thanks, I've installed Time machine now, works fine!

once again, thanks for all your help!

buddy4point0: been there done that...but didn't fix the issue.