PSP Permanently Bricked?

[aznneoz]

Well, I left the PSP scene about 2 years ago... I sold my PSP. After my friend got his slim PSP a month ago, and having it modded and what not, I decided to return to the fabulous world of PSP's. So I went out and bought a bricked PSP for cheap and received it yesterday...I spent all day trying to get the hardmod my battery since for some unknown reason, I couldn't use the installer. Eventually I got the battery to boot the PSP into service mode. After that, I created the Magic Memory Stick (After countless times. I spent about 4 hours trying to figure out what I did wrong.) I popped the battery into the PSP and started the unbricking process. After a while (about a minute in) it stopps and then reboots. So I did it once again paying close attention to what the error was. This is what I got. PSAR Decode Error. With some hex after it. Now I searched around the web for about 3 hours looking for a solution to this problem, and came across some people saying that it's a permanent brick. And others said that it's just faulty memory cards/installation/firmware. I've tried several methods of installation and I've tried two different official memory cards, but still no go. So my question to who ever read this long post: Is my PSP perma-bricked?

Sorry for the long post. But I thought I should provide some detail.

[Gandalf]

Originally Posted by aznneoz

Well, I left the PSP scene about 2 years ago... I sold my PSP. After my friend got his slim PSP a month ago, and having it modded and what not, I decided to return to the fabulous world of PSP's. So I went out and bought a bricked PSP for cheap and received it yesterday...I spent all day trying to get the hardmod my battery since for some unknown reason, I couldn't use the installer. Eventually I got the battery to boot the PSP into service mode. After that, I created the Magic Memory Stick (After countless times. I spent about 4 hours trying to figure out what I did wrong.) I popped the battery into the PSP and started the unbricking process. After a while (about a minute in) it stopps and then reboots. So I did it once again paying close attention to what the error was. This is what I got. PSAR Decode Error. With some hex after it. Now I searched around the web for about 3 hours looking for a solution to this problem, and came across some people saying that it's a permanent brick. And others said that it's just faulty memory cards/installation/firmware. I've tried several methods of installation and I've tried two different official memory cards, but still no go. So my question to who ever read this long post: Is my PSP perma-bricked?

Sorry for the long post. But I thought I should provide some detail.

What is the error code number??

Is this a phat or slim??

If it's a phat can you tell what motherboard it has?? T-082?

[aznneoz]

Originally Posted by Gandalf

What is the error code number??

Is this a phat or slim??

If it's a phat can you tell what motherboard it has?? T-082?

It's a Phat, and my board is the TA-79.

Oh, and for the decode error, there were different ones. I used different loaders.

[Gandalf]

Yes there are several opinions on this subject and no definitive solutions. I believe that this is a common but with several different causes thus the different approaches to try to remedy.

If you've been searching then you know all the different methods people are trying.

You might try some of them and get lucky, sounds like either corrupt or incomplete firmware instalation or damaged/destroyed ID storage keys.

If all else fails the last resort is to flash another psp's nand to it. You should be able to get homebrew to work, ISO's to run, emulators and such to work. A dead UMD drive and wifi problems are almost a certainty with this solution.

[aznneoz]

Originally Posted by Gandalf

Yes there are several opinions on this subject and no definitive solutions. I believe that this is a common but with several different causes thus the different approaches to try to remedy.

If you've been searching then you know all the different methods people are trying.

You might try some of them and get lucky, sounds like either corrupt or incomplete firmware instalation or damaged/destroyed ID storage keys.

If all else fails the last resort is to flash another psp's nand to it. You should be able to get homebrew to work, ISO's to run, emulators and such to work. A dead UMD drive and wifi problems are almost a certainty with this solution.

Yes, I have come across this method... How risky is this? Flashing a NAND from another PSP writes to the flash correct? Because I did not fully understand how a NAND dump works. Also, my friend has a PSP Slim, would his NAND dump work for my PSP? Thanks a lot for your response, I greatly appreciate it.

[Gandalf]

Originally Posted by aznneoz

Yes, I have come across this method... How risky is this? Flashing a NAND from another PSP writes to the flash correct? Because I did not fully understand how a NAND dump works. Also, my friend has a PSP Slim, would his NAND dump work for my PSP? Thanks a lot for your response, I greatly appreciate it.

His slim would be even worse than anything, if you were to do it you would need a flash from another phat psp running a TA-79 motherboard.

Risky, it's about the worst thing that you could do, but it will get some usability out of it. The UMD drive will be dead and there will be wifi issues, mainly adhoc not working.

Read up on elf menu for the psp. If you can get a program called nand tool to run you could flash another phat TA-79 nand dump without the ID storage keys and by a miracle could bring it back to life.

If you need I could upload a nand dump of my phat TA-79 running 4.01m33-2 with the 1.50 kernel addon. Now we are only talking about a last resort here because there could be other ways to fix this that would become useless after flashing another nand dump. After you flash a complete nand dump of another PSP there is no question of what to do now to fix it. You get what you get.

[thedeathscythe]

couldnt he find the nand on the net somewhere? like does he need to get another fat TA-79 in RL or can he get the nand online?

[Gandalf]

Originally Posted by tds

couldnt he find the nand on the net somewhere? like does he need to get another fat TA-79 in RL or can he get the nand online?

With enough searching I'm sure that you could find one, but whether it's what it's supposed to be is another question. For the absolute best chance of recovering this brick he needs as close as he can get to what he has got. If it was a slim, it would be a certain no way. Their ID storage is different but the phat has a bunch of universal keys, not all but several.

There is a chance he could make a nand backup of his bricked psp with pandora before he flashes it with another nand dump then after it is up and running run some programs to restore and repair his original keys and restore all functionality.

The ID storage is why you just simply can not use someone else's nand dump. The ID keys are specific to each psp and at this time only Sony can restore all of them.

[thedeathscythe]

ahhh, that makes sense. I knew a slim nand wouldnt work entirely, but figured maybe itd be easier to d/l a nand, but turns out itd be better to try and back his up first, like you said. THEN he should try another phat's nand, because if its the other way around, well itd be better off his own nand first

[aznneoz]

Originally Posted by Gandalf

With enough searching I'm sure that you could find one, but whether it's what it's supposed to be is another question. For the absolute best chance of recovering this brick he needs as close as he can get to what he has got. If it was a slim, it would be a certain no way. Their ID storage is different but the phat has a bunch of universal keys, not all but several.

There is a chance he could make a nand backup of his bricked psp with pandora before he flashes it with another nand dump then after it is up and running run some programs to restore and repair his original keys and restore all functionality.

The ID storage is why you just simply can not use someone else's nand dump. The ID keys are specific to each psp and at this time only Sony can restore all of them.

Yes, I can dump the NAND successfully. But I haven't tried writing my backup on it.

--

Is there any help I can get? Or is this post abandoned? I would like to know if I can get a hold of a TA-79 NAND dump. I have resorted to this since all of the other methods failed. If anyone has a dump, please help me out?