DailyTech - USB ISO Loader Released for Sony's PSP

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Gadgets USB ISO Loader Released for Sony's PSP
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - June 9, 2006 5:32 AM

8 comment(s) - last by CZroe.. on Jun 10 at 3:33 AM

Load and play protection cracked one step further

According to a post on PSP-Spot, a user named Dark_AleX has released a tool for Sony's PSP that allows the hand-held device to load and play ISO files mounted on a desktop computer. The tool allows users to connect their PSPs via a USB cable and mount .iso files. The PSP-Spot forum administrator claims the following:

- A bug originally from the UMDEMULATOR core has been found. UMDEMULATOR didn't handle the case where the string pointed by the parameter file (sceIoOpen, sceIoOpenAsync), or dev (sceIoDevctl) was not aligned to 4 bytes, causing an exception when that happened. That caused incompatibility with some games (Coded Arms, Mahjong Fight and maybe others), and some homebrews (FileAssistant++, Irshell and maybe others). Fixed. People, try again all the games that worked with Fastloader and not with UMDEmu to see if they work now. Thanks a lot to the person who discovered the bug, well done!!

Previously, users had to load a game ISO onto a Memory Stick and use a utility to custom load the file. Now with the tool called DAX ZISO, the Memory Stick limitation is removed. DailyTech previously reported that Sony had attempted to patch the firmware on its PSP to avoid further cracking by the community but the new firmware again ended up being cracked in a short period of time.

While the PSP is enjoying support by the user community -- although in a manner frowned upon by Sony -- the actual UMD disc format developed by Sony is suffering in terms of industry support and sales.

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Other firmware's cracked? Not exactly...

By CZroe on 6/9/2006 12:03:52 PM , Rating: 2

"Sony had attempted to patch the firmware on its PSP to avoid further cracking by the community but the new firmware again ended up being cracked in a short period of time"

This is totally untrue. Just ask everyone with a 2.01-to-2.06 firmware PSP... that's the far majority of PSP owners. The poor bastards with 2.07 can't even run homebrew with the Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories exploit (NOT a firmware exploit).

Firmware 1.0 and 1.5 are still the only "cracked" firmware versions, though it's more like "tricked" using screwy directory structures. 1.51, 1.52 never had any breakthrough. 2.0 firmware was never fully cracked, but a TIF image viewer buffer overflow was used to execute just enough code to make the PSP think it was a 1.0 PSP and therefore "upgrade" back to 1.5. Some homebrew loaders were made for the buffer overflow exploit, but they were never compatible with all homebrew or ISO loaders because they could not gain kernel mode access. There is no way to load ISOs on firmware 1.51 and up. The only way to load homebrew on 2.01 and up is using another exploit found in Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories (Fanjita's GTA eBoot loader) and even this was shut down by firmware 2.7.

Rather than actually cracking the firmware, a replacement firmware chip has been created much like an XBOX mod chip but it is not yet available. There is a rumor circulating that it will be able to run a special firmware that has a cracked 2.7 firmware that can run everything. This is ENTIRELY rumor and is probably 100% fake. If this is what DailyTech is reporting as the cracked firmware, they are very mistaken.

PSP owners are still forced to hunt for 1.0-2.0 PSPs if they wan't to do what this article references. Confirmed 1.5 PSPs sell for ridiculous prices all the time. Some stores still have very old stock (ie, most sales come from the PSP shelf but there are some old ones behind the glass with the PS2 consoles) and there are many elaborate guides for identifying it by codes on the box. Why would we go through all this trouble if the community has been able to crack Sony's firmware? They have not.

RE: Other firmware's cracked? Not exactly...

By Namz on 6/9/2006 3:09:03 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Confirmed 1.5 PSPs sell for ridiculous prices all the time.

You can buy one for like 200 dollars on ebay. Not that unreasonable unless I'm missing something.

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RE: Other firmware's cracked? Not exactly...

By CZroe on 6/10/2006 3:33:44 AM , Rating: 2

Of course. They have been for ages. It doesn't mean that there aren't websites around that run operations that flash the 2.01+ firmwares with test clips and sell the premium set for a $50 mark up ($300). They do exist.

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unfortunately useless

By Samus on 6/9/2006 5:44:41 AM , Rating: 2

this really doesn't help much, and isn't really a step in any direction, because the purpose of a psp is to be 'portable' and having a usb dongle connected to a pc, or even an external hard drive, kind of hinders the portability.

the memory stick and battery hard drive addon emulation is just fine, especially with 2gb-4gb memory stick pro duo's being relatively inexpensive, fast as hell, and low power consumtion.

i wish someone at sony would leak the bios firmware and get this overwith so we can have hacked firmware, simular to what we have on the xbox.

RE: unfortunately useless

By TheDoc9 on 6/9/2006 10:03:35 AM , Rating: 2

It is somewhat useless in the portable sense, but you could always hook it up to a laptop. And if you play your psp at home, your library just increased without wasting a 2-4 gb memory stick that cost hundreds, so there are some posatives.

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UMD

By Alphafox78 on 6/9/2006 11:26:01 AM , Rating: 2

UMD = Useless Mini Disk
I just love buying movies 3x! Once for DVD, once for HDDVD and once for UMD!!
The reason its dying is if you can rip a movie to a memory stick, why buy a UMD? Now if they bundled the UMD movies with DVDs and charge like $7 more, then they would catch on.