You'll most probably need to buy a USB cable seperately.

If your PSP comes with a firmware version of over 2.80, then you won't be able to flash anything, play any homebrew, or anything apart from what your PSP is meant to do. And that's no fun, is it?

You'll want a PSP with a firmware from 1.00 to 2.80. Anything under 2.50 is rare, so keep your eyes peeled. Flashing a firmware has risks that may result in the permanent malfunction of the PSP, but provided you do nothing stupid, you're fine. Thousands of people have done it, with very few casualties.

If you get a 2.80 or under, post again here and we'll help you to downgrade to 1.50. Then, we'll help you to go to 3.03 OE-A (that's the custom one, so no crummy Sony update where you can't do anything decent). Then, upgrade to OE-A' and then OE-B.
That way, you can easily play PSX games, PSP games from the memory stick, homebrew, good-quality movies, and do everything that Sony has included in their latest update, 3.03.

3.03 OE also has a recovery mode, so if you flash anything minor then you can easily restore OE or downgrade to 1.50. If you brick from a firmware update or something, then that's the time you should be worried.
So, if you flash a custom gameboot, icons, menu names, or anything like that, then you're safe, but if you do something like downgrade to 1.50 and pull out the battery half way thorugh, then you're most likely in need of a new PSP.

If you don't get a 2.80 or under, it's essential that you don't upgrade any further, as that may lessen your chances for homebrew or custom firmwares in the future.

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Well i was looking around today and i found a preowned PSP giga pack its the only giga pack i found .. im not really all too keen on buying pre owned stuff and i really would like to try some of the homebrew stuff and play some PS1 games on there ^.6

Anything i should look out for on boxes that you knoww of? i read somewhere that an "L" near the bar code is a certain firmware version
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hey got one today appears to be a 2.60

and doesnt look like its a TA-082 either so all looking good atm should be good to go .. gonna ahve to get a gig card on the way home

if you have a memorystick reader, you can use that instead of the usb cable. and check your house for that cable, alot of cameras and other stuff use the same type

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My phone uses the same cable as my PSP. You can get a decent USB cable with a charger built in for around £7, not a bad deal if you ask me. And don't buy a card in a shop, get it off the web, they're usually half price or less. Picstop.co.uk sells a 1gb card for £17, a 2gb card for £40 and a 4gb card for £70. Last time I checked, stores like Carphone Warehouse were selling a 1gb card for £50, a complete rip-off.

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lol, i tried to get one.. they didnt have any £35 for a 1 gig ... lol lucky they didnt have any in stock ^.^ can i still downgrade to 1.5 even though i have a small card? (the standard 32 MB one) gonna start gathering the files together now.. ^.^

Oh and i got a connector from Asda.. came with a case, USB connector with a built in charger UMD cases all for £9 ^.^

So you're on 2.6? I think it's possible. You need to update to 2.71 first though, get the update EBOOT here. Sorry for the QJ link. Anyway, put the file you just downloaded into the directory PSP/GAME/UPDATE (create the folders if they're not there already), then run the update program from the Game - Memory Stick part of the XMB.

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OK thats done, checked the system info and everything says 2.71, next i installing HEN D right? do i just extract the whole zip to my root directory for my PSP?

Edit: and should i be leaving the 2.71 image on my card?

Yep, install HEN D now. You don't need the 2.71 update file any more.

And if you want, you can just get my installer from my installer thread, the first link in my sig. That'll install it for you.

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yay \o/ now on 1.50 any ideas what i can get rid of off of the disk? only 5 mb free atm ^.^

ty for the help aswell ^.^


Doesnt look like i can update to 3.03 OE-a i tihnk i need more than 32 meg of space to do that

303.PBP seems to be 20.9 MB and 150.PBP seems to be 13.2MB so thats like 34 meg unless i misread how to update ..
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Can i assume i can just format my stick then install the stuff for 1.50 that im going to need to? i read somewhere that i can use IRShell v3.1 to create the files i need for the 3.03 OE-B update
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howdy ^.^ .. got a 512 today and managed to upgrade to 3.03 OE-A with no problems

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