MY PSP got Partially Bricked!!! HELP!!

[Anger]

actually i think what he meant is when you turn on your psp and just before the text loads after the background (and i presume where it crashes/freezes on yours) i think thats when to remove the battery because just before the text loads the psp reads from flash1 - removing the battery then may corrupt the flash1 and force it to restore defaults. thats what i think he meant.

also never remove the battery while firmware updating - you WILL get a brick for your trouble.

[jman420]

wait, so you also changed your background?? to have custom background and special font?? is it any wonder it bricked, you cant mess with that much stuff in your flash, its your own dam fault you got it bricked, let this be a lesson to everyone...

I have a 1.5 f/w psp, 3 games, 6 movies, every single good speed emulator, with original background (incliding the colors change each month), original font, and nothing changed other then downgrading it from 2.0 a few times...

I dont mean to be mean, but I cant feal pity for someone that changes the system in ways a psp is not to be changed... its basicly overwriting the font already on your flash, and if it overwrites and isnt the same size, it will either leave bits of information at the end of the file, or overwrite the files in front of it..

A flash rom chip is somthing that doesent automaticly re-organize all the bits of each file, thats why it will overwrite somthing that isnt the same size... but! the F/W made by sony compleetly re-writes the flash, all files get copyed over and changed.. without leaving any overwriten bits, nor any gibberish bits...

thats why when you remove your battery while its re-writing the flash (updating the F/W), it doesent get all the files, its gets some, and still only partly copys over the other files already on your flash chip..

the new modchip would probobly fix your psp, if you have the skill to install it.. and obviously, if you can afford it..

but yeah, good luck getting it back up and working.. it definatly would suck for me to break my psp, especialy with the Resident Evil remake and all

[Apoklepz]

Well thanks. Changing the background is not a big deal as changing the font or customizing the XMB menu names for the icons. Background customizing has been made easy since the first days of PSP hacking. Some might remember homebrew applications that would help you modify your monthly backgrounds like, PSpersonalize and others done by WAB and Team Emergency Exit... All it requires is you have 24bit BMP format images with a resolution no bigger than 300X170 in the root of your Memory Stick, and name them respectably after each month...January would be 01.bmp and so on. It's a pretty old hack known by many 1.5 PSP users, and even though if you mess up with the resolution, there's no chance of corrupting the flash, as the results seem to only affect ICON0.png files for homebrew...a fault that can be corrected by re-editing the custom background's resolution correctly.... So this hack in no way messes up the PSP's flash.

The font hack is much trickier, and even though I have managed to execute it without damage to the flash, I will not post the how-tos for it here, because some of you here might not follow directions correctly and end up bricking your PSP... I've already heard about a few people in the forums that have completely bricked their PSP's flash with this hack.

Now, what messed my PSP's flash and bricked it from acessing anything other than 1.50 games is the third hack I will mention in this post. MENU NAME CUSTOMIZATION
There is a file in the PSP's flash called "topmenu_plugin.rco" wich I guess it's the command file that allows to display every single word that goes in the main menu of the PSP. I learned that this file can only be manipulated via Loco's menu edit application for windows. Everything is intricately placed in this file, so that means if you go along and mess with it through word pad or any other PC text editor, then flash it through your PSP, you can go ahead and forget about viewing movies, listening to music and playing homebrew on your precious little handheld.

I still don't know what went wrong that day when I was editing that file, but if it helps, these are the custom menu names I was going to add(btw, I did this after having already sucessfully installed the GTA font):
-Photo would become Images
-Music would become Tunes
-Video would become Flicks
-Games would become Play

And just when I was gonna go play some Lua...I couldn't. At least that modchip is coming out soon, and I finally have the money saved up.

I now It's my damn fault. Of course it is. That's one of the reasons why I started this thread, so people would see the downside of hacking your system...It not always ends up how you want it too, that's my opinion.

[drEDN4wt]

On the subject of backgrounds...

I created a super small background for my 1.50, 1kb instead of 6kb saving loads of memory for firmware fiddling.
I made it 1 pixel wide by 272 pixels high.
The psp then stretches it to fullscreen.

Stretched example below.

I know its bit minimalistic...but i prefer the horizon effect.

[bullhead]

An approach like that can usuallay be the best, im going to use that one infact, thanks!

[Nasty Nate]

hey, when you said that you didnt set a password or anything the default password is 0 0 0 0, kinda easy, but i dont know if that will help any but i tried

[the one and only]

can u update? if you can update to 2.0 u can downgrade again hopefiully, i helped

[Apoklepz]

Well yeah...I mean, I don't wanna sound like a prick or anything, but if you read in the first pages of this thread, I already tried updating with both 2.0 UMD's that I own...GTA and Prince of Persia, and they both end up in a forced crash...I suspect the background icons need to show up when the PSP asks you to update, and that's why it crashes.
But hey, thanks for stopping by and helping out.

[wowzors]

hmm, i am getting my modchip soon via mail but i dont have a bricked psp, perhaps when i install it i can tell you if you might be able to boot up its alternative fw by holding l1 when you hit the on switch?

If not, im really not sure how the mod chip can "unbrick" a psp.

[Apoklepz]

Well thanks, that WOULD help a lot, wowzors. And as to how it would fix a brick or not, here's what that old article said about that:

"Since U.P. provides a secondary flash which the PSP can boot from, it can even be used to restore a PSP which has been "bricked". "

How? I have no clue...but I've come to the conclusion that since you'll actually have a second "working" flash memory, which is the UP Modchip, then your PSP will "work" again if it was bricked and non working...But as to the UP modchip actually fixing the PSP's original flash memory and runing both flashes...I still doubt it, and that's why I haven't bought it yet...Guess we'll have to wait and see...

Remember, my only doubts here are on how the UP modchip can fix the original "bricked" PSP chip.