Hi all!
So on a whim, I decide to buy a PS2 Slim. I faintly remember the scene back then, and so I knew that Phat PS2 with an HDD Adapter was the best option to get, but that's not what I ended up going for. I went for the Slim, for two big reasons, this one was chipped and had the IDE mod done to it. SO WITH THAT IN MIND. My mind went wild with a crazy idea. Get an IDE to mSATA adapter, and plug that into the mod, and load my backups through that.
So what chip did it come with? The DSM4 Pro, which uses Toxic OS, now, while the chip works and it does a pretty OK job at everything it was made for at the time, it's not that important to me. It is nice to have this though in my collection now.
What about the IDE-to-mSATA idea? Surprisingly, it worked. IT ACTUALLY WORKED. However, I did have to format it with wLaunchELF's HDDManager, and use hdl_dumb to load games onto it. But once, I figured that out, everything else was pretty straight forward. OPL sees the games and they load fine. It's actually hilarious, seeing an mSATA 1TB connected to a PS2. Here's a screenshot of ToxicOS loading it:
View attachment 177249
Here is one from wLaunchELF:
View attachment 177250
So far, have been enjoying Xenosaga, Dot Hack, and looking forward to playing others great titles from my childhood.
Now, I could have probably ran the games on PCSX2, BUT there's just something about running stuff on real HW that brings me joy and now, I have an excuse to start getting some physical PS2 games back into my collection LOL
Probably going to look at what other old systems I decide to get and mod, but that's a project for another day.
So on a whim, I decide to buy a PS2 Slim. I faintly remember the scene back then, and so I knew that Phat PS2 with an HDD Adapter was the best option to get, but that's not what I ended up going for. I went for the Slim, for two big reasons, this one was chipped and had the IDE mod done to it. SO WITH THAT IN MIND. My mind went wild with a crazy idea. Get an IDE to mSATA adapter, and plug that into the mod, and load my backups through that.
So what chip did it come with? The DSM4 Pro, which uses Toxic OS, now, while the chip works and it does a pretty OK job at everything it was made for at the time, it's not that important to me. It is nice to have this though in my collection now.
What about the IDE-to-mSATA idea? Surprisingly, it worked. IT ACTUALLY WORKED. However, I did have to format it with wLaunchELF's HDDManager, and use hdl_dumb to load games onto it. But once, I figured that out, everything else was pretty straight forward. OPL sees the games and they load fine. It's actually hilarious, seeing an mSATA 1TB connected to a PS2. Here's a screenshot of ToxicOS loading it:
View attachment 177249
Here is one from wLaunchELF:
View attachment 177250
So far, have been enjoying Xenosaga, Dot Hack, and looking forward to playing others great titles from my childhood.
Now, I could have probably ran the games on PCSX2, BUT there's just something about running stuff on real HW that brings me joy and now, I have an excuse to start getting some physical PS2 games back into my collection LOL
Probably going to look at what other old systems I decide to get and mod, but that's a project for another day.
