PS1/2 I want to make sure I order the right ingredients in order to use FreeHDBoot.

[ZachariasBarnham]

I know that I need a fat PS2. That's a given, and it's in the cart already.

But, here's where things get contradictory. Several people say that IDE HDDs are required, while other people say that SATA HDDs also work. If that's the case, will I be needing this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JFPSZJP/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A330075JE450XH&psc=1

And I'll be needing an HDD that's 2TB or less, which one is recommended for the PS2?

 

[Deleted User]

Normally IDE drives are required, but you can get an Sata to IDE converter and the sata drive will work.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

That's good to hear. So which Sata to IDE converter is recommended?

 

[Deleted User]

That's good to hear. So which Sata to IDE converter is recommended?

I honestly don't know, it's been a long as time since I've done ps2 stuff.

One that includes converting ide power connectors to sata power connectors for sure though.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

Alright, so the one I linked to on Amazon appears to be the one I need, into the cart it goes. Last item is the HDD itself.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

"Alrighty then!" -Ace Ventura, Pet Detective

I chose to go with this internal HDD:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010CBASS0/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A1GV4DXS40X1A5&psc=1

Is there anything else I'm forgetting?

 

[Ryccardo]

The recommended SATA conversion kits are the ones that fit inside the network adaptor, like the ones made by MaxDiyPower or ABitTop

Avoid 3rd party network adaptors, whether IDE or SATA - the one that put most effort in (the GameStar) was based on outdated and inaccurate drivers for the official one and doesn't have Ethernet, everything else is even inferior (and yes, there are knockoffs of both the original and the GameStar)

As an American you can dodge any risk by buying the one with a modem - nobody imitated yet (to date...)



Pretty much any storage solution that (possibly after conversions) is compatible with ATA will work, at least with homebrew; official software using the HDD requires an original Sony disk, but can be modified (ATAD patch) to remove this gratuitous requirement

On top of that, any disk larger than 137 GB will require using software compatible with 48-bit addressing (called LBA48), all major homebrews are and so are some unofficial versions of the HDDOSD (the optional browser update that adds the HDD to the memory card manager)

Also note APA (the PS2 partitioning "table"), combined with the very limited cache you can fit in 2 megabytes of RAM shared with other drivers, breaks down very quickly on pretty much any drive filled more than approzimately 60~120 GB (exact figure is based on number of partition fragments, not size) resulting in significant loading times for just listing all partitions or finding one (ie, there's another reason why the only official disk is 40 GB apart from being a commercial failure)


Finally, to install FHDB and/or HDDOSD the first time, you will probably use someone else's disk image (or hdl_dump's initialize feature) - they work, but the first thing to do should be to run wLaunchELF, go to its HDD Manager, reformat it to get a proper partitioning scheme, and to reinstall HDDOSD/FHDB from an USB drive!

 

[duwen]

The SATA adapter I've got is 'branded' Gamestar (like the one in your Amazon link), and it works fine... but that seems really expensive - I got mine from AliExpress for about half that much, shipped.
Despite what the poster above states, the only real consideration when buying a SATA adapter rather than the legit IDE one is whether you're likely to need the ethernet port. If you don't, the Gamestar adapter is cheaper and more convenient than the official adapters, and has none of the other supposed downsides that some people seem to believe they have.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

I went and bought it as soon as my last post. The fat PS2, which comes with everything including 2 DualShock 2 controllers, the IDE to SATA converter, the HDD, all comes from Amazon, and will all arrive on Thursday. But I won't be able to go to town on it until Friday, when I'm off work for a few days.

I will post about it once I get it going.

Also, I'm a Wii, PSP, and 3DS softmod fan. How on earth did I not find out about this until last week? I found out that this all started around 2008. This is the latest I've ever been to the party.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

The SATA adapter I've got is 'branded' Gamestar (like the one in your Amazon link), and it works fine... but that seems really expensive - I got mine from AliExpress for about half that much, shipped.
Despite what the poster above states, the only real consideration when buying a SATA adapter rather than the legit IDE one is whether you're likely to need the ethernet port. If you don't, the Gamestar adapter is cheaper and more convenient than the official adapters, and has none of the other supposed downsides that some people seem to believe they have.

I will not be needing the ethernet port. I'm not interested in online play.

EDIT: Right now, the only thing I'm gonna do, is go to sleep. Goodnight, everyone!

 

[duwen]

I will not be needing the ethernet port. I'm not interested in online play.

Fair enough, me neither... but it can be used for network transferring, which is more of a deal breaker than online play for a lot of people.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

I couldn't fall asleep until I fixed the mistake I inadvertently made. How was I supposed to hook up the HDD to my laptop without a SATA to USB 3.0 adaptor? Doh! Ordered it!


Okay, I'm really going to sleep now!

 

[Ryccardo]

Despite what the poster above states, the only real consideration when buying a SATA adapter rather than the legit IDE one is whether you're likely to need the ethernet port. If you don't, the Gamestar adapter is cheaper and more convenient than the official adapters, and has none of the other supposed downsides that some people seem to believe they have.

The issue is that the GameStar was designed to be compatible with the homebrew drivers intended to be compatible with the original - however that was in 2009, the drivers were not quite right (resulting in poor performance), and fixing them resulted in completely breaking compatibility with the GameStar

Dropping support for what after all is an inaccurate clone was considered, and nowadays it's a compile time option free to be decided by whoever compiles the affected homebrew - be happy that most devs enable it

Full story and details at https://github.com/ps2dev/ps2sdk/issues/49