Hacking Purchasing a PSP go

[jpierce13]

Hello all
Im looking to purchase a PSP go for retro gaming. I am familiar with retroarch , roms, emulators on a PC but I have a few questions I could not find online. Most seem to be modded and advertised as permanent or just already modded. I understand permanent/semi permanent is just the start up process. Can either of these be set back to factory settings and the internal memory cleaned and then I mod it myself? Im asking because I may not like some games they have and want to clean up the menus a bit. Or is the process easy on already modded units to add/remove/clean up the menus? Also is there anything else I should look at when buying a used unit online. Thank you

 

[SCOTT0852]

Can either of these be set back to factory settings and the internal memory cleaned and then I mod it myself?

You can, if you know exactly what they used to mod it.

Im asking because I may not like some games they have

...then just delete those games? It really isn't hard, just look in the ISO folder and delete what you don't like.

and want to clean up the menus a bit.

What do you mean by that? (hiding default things you'll never use, deleting games you don't like, etc)

Also is there anything else I should look at when buying a used unit online.

Other than making sure everything works (buttons are good, screen isn't cracked, slide works fine, etc.) all you might want to do is take note of what cfw it has (permapatch 6.2 (make sure you know what cfw it is if it's that), fast recovery 6.61, Infinity, etc.). Each one has pros & cons (switching between them is totally possible):
6.2 permapatch: older firmware & downgrading to it is dangerous, but if it's set up it'll work just fine (you can play all games on it, even those that need 6.3+)
6.61 fast recovery: you have to run something every time you reboot your PSP (takes about 10 seconds), but it's the easiest to install (the others certainly aren't hard though)
Infinity: coldboot, but breaks Pause (you can "pause" a game & come back to it later, basically a single save state slot. It's a Go-exclusive feature, but you can always use pspstates instead). Also has the ability to run a specific file if you hold a button on boot (L I think?) that could potentially be used for unbricking if you mess up the XMB & the system can't load it (although bricks like that are not very likely)