Old PS2 Laser/Media problem? PLEASE advise..

[butchnap]

Hi everyone..

I'm a really late bloomer here, have just bought my first PS2.. It's a used one that I got off craigslist, and it came with the HDD (300gb drive installed, with 70 games on it) as well as a mess of controllers and official discs of SwapMagic3 and HDAdvance 3. Oh, and it's been fitted with a flip-top case.

I didn't like that the kid that owned it had it set up so a ps1 game had to be in the drive, in order to boot from a memory card and access the HD games (ie. PS2 Keylauncher).. After poking around a bit, I quickly learned about Free Mcboot and installed the noobie package with an AR card the kid included.. Nice! No more ps1 game required to boot the HD games.

A problem has hit me hard though.. I have been trying (and trying) in vain to boot burned copies of games. I get the iso files and patch them with ESR's patch program (have tried both the GUI and java versions).. I've burned them using both PowerISO and Imgburn - low speeds always - and try to boot 'em from the ESR option, but it always goes to a black screen and I noticed that it says "invalid media in drive".. So that sucks! I then tried to use Swapmagic3 and it also says "not a valid ps2 disc"!! WTF!?

So I'm reading on here some more and see that some other guys had this problem, and that it was chalked up to the PS2 model SCPH-30001 (which is what I have) being really old and having an old laser that might not recognize my media.. The disks I'm using btw, are TDK DVD-Rs with the plain white label.

So I guess I'm just throwing out a general plea for help! But if there is a specific question, it would be:

Does anyone know of a brand of blank dvd media that definitely does get recognized on these older model PS2s?

Thanks in advance,
Nick

[walidahmadi]

Hi everyone..

I'm a really late bloomer here, have just bought my first PS2.. It's a used one that I got off craigslist, and it came with the HDD (300gb drive installed, with 70 games on it) as well as a mess of controllers and official discs of SwapMagic3 and HDAdvance 3. Oh, and it's been fitted with a flip-top case.

I didn't like that the kid that owned it had it set up so a ps1 game had to be in the drive, in order to boot from a memory card and access the HD games (ie. PS2 Keylauncher).. After poking around a bit, I quickly learned about Free Mcboot and was about to install it (the noobie package) with an AR card the kid included.. Nice! No more ps1 game required to boot the HD games.

A problem has hit me hard though.. I have been trying (and trying) in vain to boot burned copies of games. I get the iso files and patch them with ESR's patch program (have tried both the GUI and java versions).. I've burned them using both PowerISO and Imgburn - low speeds always - and try to boot 'em from the ESR option, but it always goes to a black screen and I noticed that it says "invalid media in drive".. So that sucks! I then tried to use Swapmagic3 and it also says "not a valid ps2 disc"!! WTF!?

So I'm reading on here some more and see that some other guys had this problem, and that it was chalked up to the PS2 model SCPH-30001 (which is what I have) being really old and having an old laser that might not recognize my media.. The disks I'm using btw, are TDK DVD-Rs with the plain white label.

So I guess I'm just throwing out a general plea for help! But if there is a specific question, it would be:

Does anyone know of a brand of blank dvd media that definitely does get recognized on these older model PS2s?

Thanks in advance,
Nick

Dude I don't know, because I don't use ESR. What I would suggest you is to use Hdloader (Basically HDAdvance but is alot better than that) with fmcb and run games off the Harddisk.

I know you have the 300GB HD , so I assume you have network adapter in it. You should be ready to go in no time with that. And games boot really quickly that way. and there is 95% compatibility.

So good luck, hdloader comes builtin with the noobie package of fmcb. So just play with it a bit and do some reading at sksapps.com (tutorials section) and in here as well

[butchnap]

Dude I don't know, because I don't use ESR. What I would suggest you is to use Hdloader (Basically HDAdvance but is alot better than that) with fmcb and run games off the Harddisk.

I know you have the 300GB HD , so I assume you have network adapter in it. You should be ready to go in no time with that. And games boot really quickly that way. and there is 95% compatibility.

So good luck, hdloader comes builtin with the noobie package of fmcb. So just play with it a bit and do some reading at sksapps.com (tutorials section) and in here as well

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I definitely plan to use HDloader for most stuff, but I was told that it doesn't work for everything.. Like God of War 2 for example. Also, Guitar Hero 3 was one of the games on there when I bought it, and it freezes up every time.. So I'm assuming that one doesn't work either..?

That's the main reason I wanted to be able to load burned discs.

N.


***UPDATE***
I tried SwapMagic several more times and it hasn't worked at all. Then I thought I'd try it with a legit, store-bought disc.. So I loaded the Swapmagic disc, then at the "Load program" prompt, I flipped the top and put in a retail version of the game "Timesplitters".. Closed it back up and hit "x"...

"Not a valid PS2 disc"

WTF!? I promptly reset PS2 to see that the game would boot normally, and it did. What is going on with SwapMagic? Btw, it's version 3.6.

[Bootlegninja]

just use it to install FMCB via the tutorials.
http://bootleg.sksapps.com/tutorials/fmcb/index.htm

[butchnap]

just use it to install FMCB via the tutorials.
http://bootleg.sksapps.com/tutorials/fmcb/index.htm

I just realized that my wording was off on my first post, and have corrected it.. My apologies for any confusions this may have caused.

The fact is, I do have Free McBoot installed.. The Noobie version. The benefits I've found have been booting and using HD games without a PS1 disc in the drive HD (Loader).. What isn't working is ESR - and it seems that I'm doing everything right.. I've read a bunch of stuff on here - and also SwapMagic 3.6 is not performing properly.

N.

[Bootlegninja]

the way it works with esr

1. rip disc image with imgburn
2. patch image with esr patcher
3. burn image with imgburnat 50-75% max disc speed.

Enjoy

if it doesn't work, then you have a laser issue or the game isn't compatible.

[butchnap]

the way it works with esr

1. rip disc image with imgburn
2. patch image with esr patcher
3. burn image with imgburnat 50-75% max disc speed.

Enjoy

if it doesn't work, then you have a laser issue or the game isn't compatible.

This is exactly what I've done, and it doesn't work. As I mentioned in my initial post, I went through a lot of threads on here about ESR not working, and found that some guys who have an old PS2 like mine (SCPH-30001) experience the same issues.. And people seem to think it's because of the older laser.

What I was asking is if anyone knows of a certain type of blank DVD media that, when burned, IS recognized with these older lasers.. Or is it that they simply don't recognize any burned media at all.. ?

And also, I was wondering why the store-bought SwapMagic 3.6 doesn't work for me, not only with burned media, but even with a retail disc of Timesplitters.. The retail game plays fine if I boot it by itself, but I used it as a test to see if SwapMagic 3.6 would boot it, and it didn't.. It said "Not a valid PS2 disc" when it clearly is. What's the deal with that?

Thanks for all the responses I've gotten so far.

N.

[Bootlegninja]

Me thinks ESR isn't installed on your setup.

[butchnap]

Me thinks ESR isn't installed on your setup.

There's an ESR option in the menu that I'm presented with after Free McBoot loads. I followed the tutorial for installing FRMC using an AR card verbatim, and like say, I installed the noobie package. When I boot with the AR card, my options are:

Browser
System Configuration
uLaunchElf
ESR
HD Loader
Simple Media System
Launch Disc
Reload configuration
Free McBoot Configurator

When I highlight "ESR" and hit X, I get the gray menu screen where I have the options to Launch CDVD, Launch APP, Launch OSDSYS, and so on.

Can all this be so, if ESR isn't installed?

N.

[Bootlegninja]

ok. you are using the gui. try using a straight up 0.9b version of esr. the dvd direct on version of that.