I've had a few people asking me about modding their PSP's, so I thought rather than explain everything every time, i'd just do a guide.

First thing to note is that modding a slim PSP is different to modding a normal fatty PSP. A slim PSP needs a Pandora battery. Because I don't know how to make one, here's a link This should work fine, although I havn't tried it as I have no need to. You will need a modded PSP to make one though, which may be a problem.

Once you have the Pandora battery, you should be able to do everything the same as with a fatty PSP. The Pandora battery allows you to downgrade the firmware installed on your PSP so that you can install custom firmware, allowing you to play games from the memory stick instead of buying the UMD, although you need a UMD in the PSP to boot ISO's with.

Step 1 - Downgrading the PSP
This all depends on the current firmware on your PSP. To find out, go to Settings > System Settings > System Information on your PSP. The System Software bit is the firmware. Because of the large number of different software versions on PSPs, not all can be downgraded with the same program. Most can be downgraded with Easy Downgrader (Google search this together with your software version to find the one for you), although more recent ones have not been cracked yet and you will just have to wait until some clever person figures out how to do it. All downgraders take the software to version 1.5, thus allowing you to install custom firmware.

Step 2 - Installing custom firmware
Once the PSP is downgraded to software version 1.5, you can install a custom firmware of your choice. I have had 3.52 M33 for a few months and had no problems with it at all, so I can say this is a good one, although there are newer ones out and being developed all the time. I can't be bothered to keep switching everytime a new one is released to be completely honest and 3.52 M33 does everything I need it to, so why change lol. Anyway, once you have found the firmware you want, it's a simple matter of following the instructions that come with the firmware (not all follow the same method, but they are pretty simple and it's difficult to mess this up). It normally involves moving a self-extracting file into a file on your PSP and running it from the games list on the PSP main menu.

Step 3 - Download games
Just like pretty much every game for any console ever, PSP games are available to download from the net. A lot of sites have them. I tend to use Mininova and GamesTorrents. The games are generally in ISO or CSO format (both work fine) or may need to be extracted. Once you have the ISO/CSO, it's a simple case of moving it from you PC to the ISO file on your PSP. Once done, the game should appear in the Games > Memory Stick section on your PSP. Easy peasy. If you want to play PS1 games, you need to download the PS1 game and have a converter, such as PopStation, to convert the ISO into a PBP file. This can then be moved to the game150 file on the PSP and will appear in the Games > Memory Stick section again. Emulators such as ZSNES and DGEN can also run on the PSP. These are the same emulators as you would use for the PC, no need to change anything, just move the emulator and ROMs to the game150 file and old skool it up.

Hope i've covered just about everything. Have fun!

Thanks for the post Dav13s

No problem (wow super late reply from moi lol) If this helps 1 person i'll be happy. I've never typed so much for anything other than school or uni work. Had to have a little lie down after I finished and have a nap lol

Thanks! Though u have given detailed guidelines, i am still a little blur... coz i am a complete idiot when coming to these sort of things.. got too used with just transfering ISO files straight into the memory stick. Pretty thanks for the post anyway!!

My minds gonna explode from PSP stuff, but I'm always around to help. For PSP mod help just stick your head out the Darkside
Castle's window and I'm HERE

Edit,

You do not need a UMD in the drive, there is newer CFW's that will alow this to happen ( i think they stopped that in 06'?)

and pandora is a VERY easy prosses, You need to flash your Batteries EEPROM with a Pandora app *running on modded psp2* this will create a memorey stick that will boot the files off the psp's battery flashing to FLASH0 and re-installing a CFW (depending on the version of pandora's you use)

(i do not use afterdawn, because they usually dont treat you with respect and they love the term "noob" even thou they dont explain alot about their own post,)

Thanks, but if you have further Info about PSP modding/Apps/UMD to ISO how-to's be glad to PM me,

i will post a guide...with pictures if you'd like?

^^maybe in the near future, im a little tired right now ;)^^

Cheers for that. I ain't upgraded my firmware for over a year, 1 cos i can't be arsed and 2 cos I don't really need to. Thanks for adding this though

Hacking The Psp

hehehehe^^


its okay, im just saying alot has changed now. The psp is such a highly modded tool.

With alot of features it can do alot of things.


just keeping a pointer out there on the new CFW's

That book looks pretty good. Nice one

this site has all the answers 2 any question you may ask----look thru the forums.

http://www.psp-hacks.com/


when looking thru the guide on how to mod ur fat psp bat dont get scared of the welding story. there is no need to weld anything.... simply cut the 6th pin

once u have installed CF and are now able 2 dl games rather than buying them here is a great site with many games....


http://www.espalpsp.com/

Damn, nice guide.

I only just found out that you could do this, so im going to give it a charge and try it. Thanks for sharing :)

Thankz!
I'll read it later .. I have some problems with my psp,

I have the official firmware 3.71 how can i downgrade with out using the Pandora Battery coz no-one i know has another PSP and im too scared to use my spare battery just in case is backfires.

Thanks

Hey, this guide looks great looking guide, I have the misfortune of having the new 4.05 FW, wondering if anyone knows of a good downgrades. Dont really wanna buy a new battery and the cutting stuff inside is sketches me out :P

Thanks ;)

Cool.... well this is a start. I have a Phat PSP and will be looking into down grading but for now i need to wait as it has Firmware 4.05 ! for its sins, yet another pointless SONY firmware....... to stop people like me using Mods.

Thanks for the post,very helpful

Bit of an update people, since I made this guide ages ago. I think the easiest way to downgrade and install CFW now is to download Hellcat's Recovery Flasher v1.60 and use that to do pretty much everything. Everything you need is on this site, along with some very helpful (and some not so helpful) people. Any probs, feel free to PM me and I can prob find out what you need if I don't know myself.

Can you play Shadow of the Colossus on the PSP?

No cos it's a PS2 game

Is there any way to mod PSP-3004 Slim & Lite, i just bought the psp and i have no idea how to mod it my understanding of all these firmwares is so little.

LINK
I've only read this really, but from what I can gather it's going to be pretty difficult. First off, i'd suggest not updating the Offical Firmware (OFW) AT ALL! 3000 model PSPs are still being worked on and if you update the OFW too high, you won't be able to downgrade it for a while. I'm not to well versed on the newer stuff because I have an old 1000 model PSP and don't need to bother myself with any other models to be honest. I think if your OFW is low enough, you should be able to downgrade and install a CFW, but i'm not sure how much it will do. I'm gonna let someone who knows a bit more about later model PSPs than me answer this, but the site i've linked is pretty good and has a lot of hackers on, so you may be able to find out for yourself.