Brewology

Hello, another noob to the psp scene here! i recently aquired a psp phat and im planning on modding it up for homebrew, i just want to check a few things first! ive had a look through some of the tutorials and just want to make sure im actually going to go and do the right thing!

My psp is currently running official firmware 3.30, is the model psp-1002 using an official battery psp-110 and is using ta-082 motherboard.

im going to hardwire the pandoras battery and magic memory stick, downgrade to firmware 1.50 and then upgrade to a custom firmware, i havent decided which one yet.

a few questions regarding this process! I only have a 4gb sandisk pro duo and i know firmware 1.50 does not support that size memory card, when i downgrade to 1.50 will i need a smaller memory card to install a custom firmware?

are all of the custom firmwares compatible with a 4gb pro duo? and which one is best for running back up roms of games i own? im going travelling soon and dont wish to carry alot of easily lost umd's.

Is there anything i have missed in the process of changing firmware and if so could you point me in the direction of the tutorial i need?

and finally, great site! ive been looking at a few and your site here is the best resource ive found. the whole psp upgrade seems horribly confusing to me as i have no experience but youve created a resource here that helps clear alot of issues i was having!

Once you wiremod your Battery, you probably won't be able to change it back without wiremodding it again.
And yes, 1.5 will require you to use a smaller memory card.
And get 4.01 M33-2. It's the best CFW
And I think you got it all covered!

And welcome!

Thanks, thats great!
Do i need to wiremod my battery back for it to work? and would it be advisable to use a smaller memory card for the whole process? it says in the tutorial that there is sometimes an issue with formatting memory cards after the process but i can get a cheap 256 card that i can afford to lose!

thanks for the welcome, i shall report back after i (hopefully) succesfully go through the process and let you know how easy or hard i found it all as a noob!

If you dont feel comfortable hardwiring your battery, theres an alternate route you can take.

3.50 firmware is downgradable via Lumines umd. Just run to your local video store and rent a copy of the game.
You can find the tutorial Here

That tutorial is a little outdated so it doesnt have the 4.01 m33 installation guide on it but everything else for installing homebrew and iso/cso files should still be fine.

ok, that seems an easier route, i shall look into it. is there still an issue with certain copies of lumines? im in australia so dont actually know which version we get? am i right in thinking the newer versions wont work for downgrading a psp?

look for the code on the side of the lumines box casing.
UK and US Versions -
Japanese Versions -
Korean Version -

If you want to read up more about them, I took the quotes from http://www.noobz.eu/joomla/
Just scroll through the news should start on the second page i think.

hi! ive done a bit more reading up and wondered if anyone can tell me if im going to have any problems doing this using vista? Lumines is a hard game to find!

I found a way to Flash a CFW without using a pandora.

Its really experemental right now however...

well, as experimental as it may be roxfox64 im sure that it will be a welcome addition to the scene! perhaps if you give details other people will be able to help with any problems your having.

also, i found a copy of lumines with the right box code ulus10002, so im sure itl be a very handy resource tool for me and it was only $20!