Tired of buying new lasers, want to use HDD

[gimpydude]

I have a question. I'm tired of buying new lasers for my PS2, because they break after 3-5 days. so can I install a hard drive, and boot games off of it? can I boot off of a memory card instead of a CD, to access the games on HDD?

Matt

[gimpydude]

if I had someone put a program on my memory card, can I access the HDD without ever needing to use the CD-DRIVE?

[SpiffyShoes]

If you don't want to use the CD drive at all you need a mod chip that supports Dev1 or Dev2 modes. If you don't want to use a mod chip you need to use the CD drive but the drive will only be in use for a few seconds when the playstation boots up so it won't put much wear on your laser. If your laser is breaking down in 3-5 days though it sounds like there is something wrong. Mod chips aren't exactly easy to install. If you decided to get a mod chip I'd recomend haveing it proffesionally done. I'm in the middle of installing one in my PS2 and I have to tell you the solder points are very very small.

Dev1 - Boot from Memory Card
Dev2 - Boot from Hard Drive

[gimpydude]

I have a Matrix Infinity 1.5 on V4 PS2.

[SpiffyShoes]

I believe that it supports both Dev1 and Dev2 modes. But I've heard people say that they had problems with HDLoader useing the Matrix Infinity chips. If you get the MC version of HDAdvance from the PS2NFO forums I've read that it should work fine.

[gimpydude]

does anyone know where I can find a hard drive adapter for my V4 PS2 ? cheaply ?

[SpiffyShoes]

Ebay is a good place to look. I just picked one up for $10 shipped for my PS2. Normally they go for around $20 shipped but if your patient and keep looking you can get one for cheap.

[gimpydude]

ok here's my next question:
do I need to INITIALLY boot off of the memory card or the hard drive?

[SpiffyShoes]

With the MI 1.5 it doesn't matter you can boot from either one. If you allready have the boot files on your memory card just press [Triangle] on joypad 1 at boot up. If you want to install the boot files to your hard drive you will need to use the DEV2 Install software which you can get from www.infinitymods.com. Once your files are installed to your hard drive press [L1] at boot up to boot from the hard drive.

[gimpydude]

you are so awesome, thanks a lot, dude