PS2 PS2 Wont read internal HDD anymore... I've tried EVERYTHING

T

ThaKarra

Member
About 2 years ago I brought a GameStar IDE HDD adapter for my PS2. I installed a 160gb HDD and it was working completely fine. I used an OLD PC that still had IDE connectors and WinHIIP to load the HDD with a bunch of games and used OPL to boot them. (You could always tell the HDD was working with the PS2 because you could see a yellow light indicator through the vents of the console). Everything was working fine, absolutely no issues.

Fast forward to last week and I decided that I wanted to install some new games on the HDD. But I now no longer had the OLD PC with the IDE connectors. So I went on Amazon and purchased one of those IDE/USB dongles. I took the HDD out of my PS2 and plugged it into the USB dongle but I stupidly plugged the power connected of the dongle into the HDD the wrong way around and it completely blew the HDD. It would no longer read attached to the PC via dongle and I tried plugging it back into the PS2, but nothing. You could physically hear the HDD failing to spin up.

I didn't think it would be a problem because I have another 3 IDE HDDs laying around the house. I whip out a Samsung 250GB IDE HDD and plug it into the dongle (This time I make sure I plug the power connector in the CORRECT way). I format the HDD using WinHIIP, take it out the dongle and put it into the PS2... Nothing... The PS2 is not even detecting it. There is no yellow light indicator visible through the console vents, just nothing. So I tried a second Western Digital IDE HDD, same thing.. PS2 was NOT detecting ANYTHING. I even tried to use UELF so I could try formatting via the HDDFORMAT tool, but that idea failed because the PS2 wasn't detecting anything plugged in. So I tried the third Seagate IDE HDD. This one was only 40gb but I thought it was worth a try just to test it. This time I plugged it into the PS2 and the yellow light came on BUT it wasn't flickering to indicate it was reading the HDD. It was just a solid yellow light. Still though, the PS2 would not detect any HDD connected. --

I remembered that there was an 80GB IDE HDD inside my old original Xbox. So I unscrewed my Xbox, took out the HDD and plugged it into the PS2, just to try it. Still the same thing.. No yellow light indicator and PS2 detecting no HDD.

At this point I'm completely lost. So I decided to order a SATA adapter for my PS2 and ditch the idea of IDE. The SATA adapter arrived today. I hooked up a 300gb Hitachi HDD to the PS2, same thing. No yellow light, PS2 not detecting it.

LASTLY. I think it's worth mentioning that whenever I have a HDD plugged into my PS2 and turn it on, the PS2 boot screen takes FOREVER to load. - Like, you know the screen that says "Sony Computer Entertainment" and it has the cubes and space look? That screen completely hangs. I recorded a video so you can see what I mean. - https://streamable.com/i9e3i5 - Take the HDD out and the PS2 boots at normal pace.

ADDITIONAL NOTES...

I just want to point out that every HDD I tested in the PS2 works perfectly on my PC. I can format it, install games via WinHIIP.. No problems.

It might also be worth mentioning that my PS2 has a Matrix Infinity Modchip installed. Not that I think that's the cause of the issue.

Please help! I am completely out of ideas. Something that has been working perfectly for 2-years and now nothing. It can't be a coincidence that all 5 HDDs I tested in the PS2 have compatibility issues.
 
Have You set HDD as Master (MA)? For me Cable Select (CS) isn't detecting on PS2 side (on Xbox is reverse: MA is not detecting but CS is). Maybe You have just forgot about changing this little jumper or default setup for old HDD without jumper was MA and You never know abut this PATA devices issues.

I only experiencing once very long boot to OSD but this is time when I testing MBR BOOT and KELF was wrongly signed. It is not related issue to You but my conclusion is that is standard behaviour when HDD is reading on console boot and "something is not right".

Modchips can be an issue because they patching ATAD modules. But if You have working setup it is not the case here.
 
Berion said:
Have You set HDD as Master (MA)? For me Cable Select (CS) isn't detecting on PS2 side (on Xbox is reverse: MA is not detecting but CS is). Maybe You have just forgot about changing this little jumper or default setup for HDD without jumper was MA.
Click to expand...

Yes I should have mentioned in the original post that I tried selecting different modes using the jumper cable on the IDE HDDs. I tried them all, the result was exactly the same. The SATA drive doesn't have any jumpers on it. Just the SATA and power connector.

Berion said:
Modchips can be an issue because they patching ATAD modules. But if You have working setup it is not the case here.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've had a working setup before and I haven't touched any of the modchips config so it cant be a mod related issue.
 
Hi!
First of all...
1) What are you using to launch homebrew (fmcb, the modchip DEV1,ETC)

2) When the console starts, can you hear that the HDD is active

3) have you tried installing an HDD image with HDD RawCopyTool ? (One with FreeHDBoot or HDDOSD)
Instead of simply formatting the HDD with winhiip.


As far as I remember what you say about the startup screen is normal. The console startup with an HDD inserted takes a bit longer because the ps2 is looking for executable files in the HDD
 
El_isra said:
1) What are you using to launch homebrew (fmcb, the modchip DEV1,ETC)
Click to expand...

Well I have a modchip. So I boot into UELF from CD (which I burned onto CD-R). From there I can access a bunch of elf files I have on my mass USB. OPL. HDLoader etc.

When my HDD was originally working I used DEV2 to automatically boot UELF on startup and I had it configged with a bunch of shortcuts to launch certain ELF files. But since my HDD isn't detected anymore, I've just been booting from a CD-R.

El_isra said:
2) When the console starts, can you hear that the HDD is active
Click to expand...

Nope. No yellow light to show any indication. Can't really hear a HDD sound either. The only HDD that makes any kind of noise or shows any kind of indication is the 40GB Seagate. But even then, the PS2 still doesn't detect it or read it.

El_isra said:
3) have you tried installing an HDD image with HDD RawCopyTool ? (One with FreeHDBoot or HDDOSD)
Instead of simply formatting the HDD with winhiip.
Click to expand...

No? I've never heard of this before? Could you please explain a little more about it.
 
Do not use disk images. "__mbr" is prepared for different sector boundary. Instead, just install Free HD Boot (launch installer from USB via uLE) and later add HDD OSD if You like. I have made tutorial covering most of user stuff related to PS2 HDD (use one of the service which automatically translating PDF document on their side like in Google Docs): https://www.psx-place.com/threads/apa-patitionology.30912/

Or You can boot uLE directly from MBR to omit OSDSYS/OSDUpdate.

Also WinHIIP is outdated and problematic (yet still it is not Your source of problems). Currently on console side method is HDLGame Installer and on PC side HDL Dump/Dumb.
 
Berion said:
Instead, just install Free HD Boot (launch installer from USB via uLE) and later add HDD OSD if You like.
Click to expand...

Yeah but that's the whole point of this post. I can't do that because my PS2 isn't detecting a HDD being attached. I have launched a bunch of different homebrews and none of them detect a HDD. ULE, OPL etc.. I've even tried booting the Free HDD Boot installer and the option to install is greyed out.
 
It was not advice for You current situation because this will not fix Your HDD detecting problem. ;) Whatever You will write on HDD, it doesn't make magically been starting detecting as device. uLE must seen HDD in it's HDD Manager (if there is partition or not, doesn't matter for now).

Maybe You have damaged Network Adaptor by connecting fried HDD or coincidentally pins for which is connecting to console (and/or on console side) are wear.
 
If You have two different Network Adapters, working HDDs with proper setup jumpers on them, the only thing which comes to my mind is HDD incompatibility (which no one ever discover why some are, and some aren't). But again, I never hear about SATA clones which met some incompatible (whatever the reason is) SATA HDDs. Quite a mystery for me. ^^
 
Berion said:
Do not use disk images. "__mbr" is prepared for different sector boundary. Instead, just install Free HD Boot (launch installer from USB via uLE) and later add HDD OSD if You like. I have made tutorial covering most of user stuff related to PS2 HDD (use one of the service which automatically translating PDF document on their side like in Google Docs): https://www.psx-place.com/threads/apa-patitionology.30912/

Or You can boot uLE directly from MBR to omit OSDSYS/OSDUpdate.

Also WinHIIP is outdated and problematic (yet still it is not Your source of problems). Currently on console side method is HDLGame Installer and on PC side HDL Dump/Dumb.
Click to expand...

I know that img images aren't good, but they provide a way to launch homebrew for the first time
 
ThaKarra said:
Yeah but that's the whole point of this post. I can't do that because my PS2 isn't detecting a HDD being attached. I have launched a bunch of different homebrews and none of them detect a HDD. ULE, OPL etc.. I've even tried booting the Free HDD Boot installer and the option to install is greyed out.
Click to expand...
I had issues with some HDD's format.
You know what?
You should try de-formatting the HDD to see if ule detects it that way
I had a similar issue with an 200 gb samsung IDE HDD
De-formatting (RAW) with the DiskPart utility of CMD helped uLaunchELF 4.42e_hdd to detect it (because even de-formatting didn't make wle detect the disk)
 
El_isra said:
You should try de-formatting the HDD to see if ule detects it that way
I had a similar issue with an 200 gb samsung IDE HDD
De-formatting (RAW) with the DiskPart utility of CMD helped uLaunchELF 4.42e_hdd to detect it (because even de-formatting didn't make wle detect the disk)
Click to expand...

I'm going to try this now.

El_isra said:
If you have a memory card copy uLaunchELF to mc0:/BOOT/BOOT.ELF to use the DEV1. That way you won't depend of any disc to launch homebrew
Click to expand...

As much as I appreciate you all for trying to help and suggest ideas. Working out the best way to boot uLaunchELF is the last thing on my mind right now. I know popping it on the memory card is definitely a lot more efficient than a CD-R, but I'm trying to figure out why my PS2 is no longer reading HDDs. How ever I'm booting into uLaunch is irrelevant right now.
 
If you used that bad shorted hdd in your ps2 after the fact that you knew you had shorted it your problem lies right there. How can you say "surely its not both adapters" when you knowingly shorted that hard drive and then tried to use it in the ps2?

My guess is that you shorted something on the ps2 side. Its the only thing that makes any sense here
 
nCadeRegal said:
If you used that bad shorted hdd in your ps2 after the fact that you knew you had shorted it your problem lies right there. How can you say "surely its not both adapters" when you knowingly shorted that hard drive and then tried to use it in the ps2?
Click to expand...

Well if that's the problem, it wouldn't be the adapters, would it? It would be something on the PS2 board.
 
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