boot manager does not boot anymore

[bobby_C]

Hello

I have a slim PS2 with a crystal chip 2.0 that used to work fine until yesterday. However now suddenly the bootmanager program doesn't start up anymore. I only get the normal PS2 startup screen and none of my game disks (all originals, pal and ntsc) are recognized anymore. At first I wondered if I may be using the wrong memcard to boot the thing but browsing it I can see the "corrupted" data block that's the boot segment.

What could the problem be and what steps should I take to identify it?

[M tha MaN]

Sometimes the flash erases itself...just reflash the FW and reinstall the BM on the CC Flash and everything shoud be fine

[bobby_C]

Ok, just tried that but I'm afraid it doesn't boot my firmware CD either. Or am I supposed to reflash the FW by some other mean?

Thanks for your help!

[JNABK]

Press the reset button 3 times to goto recovery mode , with the disc in.

[bobby_C]

Ok, just tried that, it doesn't go in recovery mode. Just the standard startup screen and then doesn't recognize the disk.

Thanks for the suggestion though

[ps2dragon]

@bobby_C: What JNABK suggested was "Recovery Mode", maybe you can try "Hardware Sleep Mode" instead? I think that's what I did once to get it working, but I could be just remembering wrong. Here's more info from the Crystal Chips site (when it was online):

Recovery Mode

• Every version of CrystalChip has a built-in Recovery Mode which may be enabled at any time to allow you to recover from corrupted firmware. Thanks to an internal checksum, CC will automatically detect corrupted firmware and boot in Recovery Mode. In the event that CC fails to automatically detect corrupted firmware, you may force "Recovery Mode" by pressing reset 3 times on startup.

Hardware Sleep Mode

• Crystal Chip has a "Hardware Sleep Mode" (aka HSM) which allows you to disable your Crystal Chip. Unlike "Software Sleep Mode", HSM does not require any patching to be done in order to get software running which will disable the chip. This is quite useful if you get no video on startup and suspect that your CC may not be working correctly. You may use HSM to disable the chip and see if your PS2 then starts up. If not, it's very likely that the cause is your wiring/etc rather than the chip.
  
  Hardware Sleep Mode may be entered by pressing reset 6 times on startup. Your CC will remain in sleep mode until you power off the console or put it into standby mode, to prevent you from accidentally enabling the chip.

Installation LED

• Starting with CrystalChip v1.1, all Crystal Chips have a small LED on their PCBs to allow some first installation diagnosis. The following lines show the basic modes:
  
  LED glows for only 1 second on system startup and discs boot = All is fine
  LED glows all the time and won't go off = Wrong installation of the bios wires
  LED goes off and discs won't boot = Wrong installation of the CD/DVD controller wires
  
  Since the LED can be controlled by the Crystal Chip firmware we can add/change modes.

[bobby_C]

Well, it's possibly a silly question but better be sure since I've never used those modes before, so maybe I'm just not triggering them correctly. When you say press 3 times, that's in quick succession, right?

[M tha MaN]

Not to fast !!!!

I used to press as soon as the LED turned green again

[JNABK]

Thats how i do it too, as soon as you see the green light, press it then.

It dont have to be real fast, but fast enough before the console begins to boot up normal.

And disabling the chip didnt work for me when i lost my firmware, only in Recovery Mode worked for me, but you might still give it a try if you still cant get it to work via Disabling {press reset 6 times}.

If neither of them works, then you may want to take a look inside to be sure nothing came loose.

[bobby_C]

Yeah, still doesn't work. I guess I'm gonna open it. Since it's pre-modded it'll be the first time I do it myself, at least it'll be instructive :P

What tutorials should I be looking for? I can remove the over just fine, but after that I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to get to the circuit board.

EDIT: never mind, got it. Can't find anything wrong though