Hello! Quick question, if I may?

[Cottage Cheese]

I know this is going to make me sound REALLY stupid, but what, exactly is UMD GEN?

[CidIII]

Lol, you could have asked me in the other topic.

UMD Gen is a program used to break down and reassemble PSP .iso files you extract off your PSP using M33 to mount the disk and make a copy of your game.

Here is a link:
http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/948

By the way any hack involving the PSP Version or just the PSP period requires that you have Custom Firmware (M33 etc.)

[Cottage Cheese]

Oh, no... How do I get it?

[CidIII]

You don't have custom firmware?

[Cottage Cheese]

*shakes head* Nope. I meant what I said when I told you I'm REALLY new. I've heard talk about downgrading your PSP to v 1.50 and then upgrading with the custom firmware, but I don't know how to go about doing so. I don't even know where to start...

[CidIII]

Well, it could be difficult unless you know someone who has or has access to a pandora's battery.

What's your current Official Firmware?

[Cottage Cheese]

4.05. I just Googled custom firmware and it gave me v 5.00. Will that work?

[CidIII]

No, I'd suggest not updating you PSP anymore, until you get a Pandora's Battery.

[Cottage Cheese]

Hmm.... what would happen if I did update to this 5.00?

[CidIII]

Well, I'm not sure about recent FW releases, but generally the higher FW the harder it gets to downgrade and reupgrade with CFW.

[Cottage Cheese]

Would the hacks work, if I upgraded?

[CidIII]

No, because you need Custom Firmware.

[Dominic NY18]

This is going to seem like some odd questions, but they're important. To the OP:

What PSP model do you have, the Phat (PSP-1000), the Slim (PSP-2000), or the PSP-3000 (the newest model)?

If you have a Slim, what firmware did it come with?

[CidIII]

Let me explain a little:

In order to hack the PSP, you need Custom Firmware, there are many of these Firmwares the most popular is M33.

Custom Firmware isn't Official, and Sony doesn't want people to be hacking their PSP, and stealing games off the internet. So, they add in counter measures.

Since, about Official Firmware v3.51 is hasn't been possible to obtain Custom Firmware without a Pandora's Battery.

A Pandora's Battery is a battery which has either been hard modded, or soft modded to allow the PSP to boot into Service Mode(I think?).

This allows the user along with a Magic Memory Stick to have access to certain parts of the PSP, usually only accessible by Sony Employees.

With these two items, you can downgrade to v1.5, which was before Sony added in counter measures to prevent people from hacking the PSP. From v1.5, you can reupgrade back to 3.71, etc. But, this time using a Custom Firmware. Custom Firmwares basically negate the counter measures Sony puts in.

[Cottage Cheese]

I have a Slim. As for the firmware.... Uhhh.... 3.51, I think. Or lower. Why?

[Dominic NY18]

There's no way the Slim came out of the box loaded with 3.51. You sure it wasn't 3.60 or 3.71 it came with?

Regardless, I was asking because if you had a Slim with a TA-088v3 motherboard (which comes out of the box with 4.05 loaded up, though I hear some also came out of the box with 3.95. 4.05 is definitely this motherboard model though) or a PSP-3000, you wouldn't be able to get custom firmware at all.

Just trying to make sure you could actually hack it first.

[CidIII]

Yeah you don't want to go destroying your battery and finding out you have a TA-088v3 motherboard.

[Cottage Cheese]

I do have another, though, the oldest one. I don't use it very much, but if I can get custom firmware on it rather than my Slim, I'd use it a lot more.

[CidIII]

What's the firmware on the Phat?

[Dominic NY18]

Well, if the Slim came out of the box with a firmware lower than 3.95/4.05, it can definitely be hacked.

As for the Phat, if the firmware is above 3.50, you'll have to use the Pandora method.