Trying to Install Ark on Vita with 3.61 Firmware and Failing Miserably

I mistakenly updated my Vita to 3.61 like right after I learned about Henkaku, but fortunately it's still on 3.61 and I refuse to update it. I discovered ARK, which, while not as good as Henkaku, would at least let me run emulators on my Vita, and it works on 3.61 and 3.63 so I decided I would try it. However, so far it's been a complete disaster, as I can't even complete the first step (connect the Vita to my PC and get my AID). Every time I try to connect via USB (using QCMA) the connection breaks because of update nagging, and connecting wirelessly isn't working either. I've tried tools that are supposed to disable the update nagging but they don't work (my Vita's firmware must be too new). What can I do?

 

I do have a PSN account linked. Tried messing around with some settings in QCMA but I still get "You must update the system software of this system" when I try to connect it to my PC via a wired connection. Wireless just can't connect to the network at all, despite the fact that the Vita is on my WiFi.

 

Okay, I went looking on my PC and found some PS Vita folders in My Documents and what I believe is the AID, but without being able to connect the Vita to the PC properly I can't progress through the Ark install progress, since it requires backing up a game off the Vita...

 

Alright, I'm pretty close to finished...but I noticed the tutorial mentions a PBOOT.PBP file which running psvimg-extract was supposed to create. However, what I have instead is an EBOOT.PBP file. The ARK download has both a PBOOT and an EBOOT file. Do I bring over both?

EDIT-Tried copying over both the EBOOT and PBOOT and I get an error (C2-12858-4) trying to copy back the game I patched. I can't see the ARK files I copied into my saved data backup either.

EDIT2-Brought over the files but I have no ARK bubble. I'm lost...

 

All right, I finally did it! Now to go hunt down some emulators and PSP backups!

What are the compatible SNES, Genesis, and PSX emulators?

 

What does it mean for an emulator to be "signed"? Sorry if I'm asking a lot of questions, it's just the last time I messed around with a PSP was probably 5 years ago or so.

 

And how about PSP games? I'm guessing I'd need to load them with ARK to get them to work but I wouldn't need to do anything special to them, would I?

 

Alright, thanks! I wasn't able to download a demo or something to sacrifice for ARK so I gotta get my copy of Persona 3 Portable back.

 

That's good because when I tried downloading the game I got a folder full of RAR archives that are all r(number) and some other mysterious files!

 

I put three games on their as testers in folders named after them but the folders show up as empty, despite me adhering to the strict naming conventions...