Workaround to use lower than minimum-spec M.2 SSDs

Nakamichi · 2026-05-24T01:21:46+00:00

My PS5 is on 11.00 currently and im sending it off on Monday to have the blu-ray exploit unpatched. What are the Pros and Cons of updating to 12.00 for better game compatibility?

lightwo

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Today at 3:11 PM

Jon Bringus shared a workaround discovered in a PS5 modding chat that allows using an SSD pre-gen 4 and under the required 5500 MB/s read speed only confirmed on firmware 4.x~8.x (direct video URL):

The procedure was shared in the video description. Note: I haven't personally tested this as I do not own a PS5:

~~~ Flashing my disk image ~~~

1. Insert your Gen2/3 NVMe drive into your PC (either on the motherboard or with a USB adapter)
2. Download & install Balena Etcher etcher.balena.io/ and download my dump drive.google.com/file/d/1oefatbpPSh7Gfxn8xD9LskaBu…
3. Run Balena Etcher and select 'gen3_enabler_bringus.img', select your NVMe drive, and then flash
4. Remove your Gen2/3 NVMe and put it in your PS5. This is the part where it will either format it successfully, or tell you to turn the console off.

~~~ Taking & flashing your own disk image ~~~

1. Insert your Gen4 NVMe into your PS5 and let it format it
2. Turn off your PS5 and take out the Gen4 NVMe and plug it into your computer (either on the motherboard or with a USB adapter)

~~~ Windows ~~~

3. Download & install HxD mh-nexus.de/downloads/HxDSetup.zip
4. After installing, right click it and click 'Run as administrator'
5. Go to 'Tools ➜ Open disk...' and click on your Gen4 NVMe and click 'OK'
6. Go to 'Edit ➜ Select block...' and change the bottom radio button to 'dec', then type in 2097151 for 'End-offset'. Make sure 'Start-offset' is 0.
7. Go to 'File ➜ Save selection...' and save it anywhere as 'gen4_2mb.img'
8. Remove the Gen4 NVMe from your PC and insert your Gen3 or Gen2 NVMe
9. Download & install Balena Etcher etcher.balena.io/ and then open your gen4_2mb.img file, select your Gen2/3 NVMe drive, and flash it
10. Remove your Gen2/3 NVMe and put it in your PS5. This is the part where it will either format it successfully, or tell you to turn the console off.

~~~ Linux ~~~

3. Open a terminal and run lsblk
4. Find your NVMe drive. If it's on a USB adapter it will likely be under /dev/sdX, with X being a random letter. If it's on your motherboard, it will look more like /dev/nvme0nX
5. Run sudo dd if=/dev/[your drive goes here] of=~/gen4_2mb.img bs=1M count=2
6. Replace your Gen4 NVMe drive with your Gen2/3 drive, then run sudo dd if=~/gen4_2mb.img of=/dev/[your drive goes here] bs=1M count=2
7. Remove your Gen2/3 NVMe and put it in your PS5. This is the part where it will either format it successfully, or tell you to turn the console off.

REMEMBER TO SHARE YOUR RESULTS! Here's a comment template:

Drive: [type your NVMe model number here]
Did it work: [yes/no]
Who's dump: [bringus/my own]
What firmware: [the first set of text after the dash in System Software ➜ Console Information (i.e. 06.02, 04.03, 08.00, 13.40)]

One commenter shared positive results on system version 12.02, which isn't the latest, but is promising as it is another version that can be jailbroken:

@HAXCORESTUDIOS

i got it to work on a
Foresee E2m2 64gb M.2 Pcie Gen 2 Ssd Fe2h0m064g-b5x10
using my own dump
on version 12.02!!!

As for why this is a big thing, not only are there games that don't require such read speeds (hint: all of PS4 library), but it enables using lower spec SSDs on Linux, since it's necessary to first boot into Orbis (stock OS) to then be able to boot Linux.

Last edited by lightwo, 33 minutes ago

Workaround to use lower than minimum-spec M.2 SSDs

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