PS2 Unable to use HDD under ANY possible config

[MillenniumTwilight]

Greetings,

I have run into a seemingly incorrigible problem with using a hard drive on PS2 in almost every circumstance...
Before I describe the issues, the equipment and tools I've been using are:

• Two OEM network adapters with SATA mods (A liExpress variants / clo nes)
• Multiple fat PS2s - one NTSC (NTSC SCPH-50001) and two PAL (SCPH-30004 and SCPH-50004)
• Multiple hard disks (two 2TB and three 160GB HDDs; 1x Seagate and 1x Toshiba for 2TB, 2x WD and 1x Seagate for 160GB) - all of them, except for the faulty Seagate 2TB, are at the time of writing at 100% health per HDSentinel
• Multiple FMCB formatted OEM memcards
• Two separate HDD docking stations (1x Logilink, 1x unbranded) as well as hooking up the drives directly to the motherboard (Gigabyte Z790)

As for the software:

• HDLBInst
• hdld-gui
• PFS-BatchKit-Manager
• HDD Raw Copy Tool (_mbr and FHDB images)
• WinHIIP
• wLaunchELF / Hddmanager
• Hard Disk Low Level Format tool
• HDSentinel
• HDDChecker

I've used multiple install guides, both through Google and YouTube, but the one I've mostly relied on is the github 'How to properly install FreeHdBoot' guide. (israpps.github.io/FreeMcBoot-Installer/test/FHDB-TUTO.html)

How it started:

I was gaming regularly on my NTSC PS2 with 2TB HDD (Seagate) with FHDB installed through the OEM adapter w/ SATA mod clone without any issues. At one point last month I dropped it on concrete and it continued working but it made noises at spin-up that it never made before. I was about to prepare my HDD for new year's multiplayer gaming session and in the midst of it I noticed it had 10% health remaining. I decided to transfer one more game onto it and call it day but that ended up being my undoing. The HDD was seemingly stuck in a bootloop.

Since then, I've tried doing the following in hopes of getting any hard drive running.

1. Cloning the faulty drive onto another 2TB drive through dock - failed
2. Raw copying the '_mbr' file to a few HDDs - this initially worked and booted into uLaunchELF. Upon seemingly successfully formatting the drive, when proceeding to the FHDB install, the install would say not only that the drive isn't PS2 formatted, but also fail to format it itself and then obviously fail to install as well. Upon hooking up onto PC, all the managers failed to recognize it as a PS2 drive (HDLBInst would report 'APA partition broken') which led me to believe wLaunchELF failed to properly format it and after double checking, it either didn't format the drives at all or failed doing it in some way.
3. Raw copying the 'FHDB Noobie Pack' to a few HDDs- this ended up in a bootloop 100% of the time, regardless of HDD
4. Formatting the drives through all the applications and installing one game for testing sake, and booting through FMCB - I've used all the ones listed above (HDLBInst, WinHIIP, PFS manager etc). Inside OPL, the drives were reported as 'Hard Disk not formatted'; uLaunchELF also saw the drives as 'unformated'.

Through all this, another (worse) issue started to happen - as the reformats progressed, the _mbr written drives would stop booting into uLaunchELF entirely and go straight into browser. To make matters worse, OPL wouldn't detect them as unformatted anymore but straight up not detect them at all after a long initial loading sequence (2-3 mins). To try and deal with it I've tried to low-level format the drives while plugging them directly into the motherboard. The stronger formatting did not change a thing and PS2 would still boot directly to browser. The only difference between them being the 2TB Toshiba drive would load for a minute (after the SCE screen) before inevitably landing on the vanilla Browser screen.

At this point I was using one console (NTSC) and two drives (1x 2TB and 1x 160gb), as well as switching the two OEM adapters. Assuming drive incompatibility or a fried HDD port, I got two extra PAL console and two more 160gb drives. After running them through the same procedures, the results were much the same. Except, the new drives never booted up into uLaunchElf. The drives are at a point where they are largely not detected at all.

So now that I'm at my wit's end, perhaps someone here would have the solution to this issue? It's inexplicable to me that the same issues manifest on separate adapters and hard drives AND separate consoles. Keep in mind all the drives that went through the formatting gauntlet are reported as 100% healthy. A bad scenario that I'm thinking of now is that both SATA network adapters are fried and are frying the HDD bays on the consoles themselves...

Leaving my hopes to someone more knowledgeable here.

 

[MillenniumTwilight]

UPDATE: I tried smaller 2.5" HDDs and they ended up working on one of the PAL consoles. Only one of the adapter works, the other never boots into FHDB.

So this probably narrows it down into an adapter or connector issue. Since I can play on one of them (I've completed a game on it without issue since writing the initial post) I'd like to ask, if this is truly a connector gone bad, would replacing the SATA adapter with a new one make them fully functional again or could the damage extend to the OEM gear as well?

Secondly, I find it odd that it works on the PAL consoles but not on the initial NTSC console. Is this a further indication that the bay connector was damaged as well?

 

[Berion]

Upon seemingly successfully formatting the drive, when proceeding to the FHDB install, the install would say not only that the drive isn't PS2 formatted, but also fail to format it itself and then obviously fail to install as well.

That points to issue with drive (incompatibility) or Network Adaptor (incompatibility too). I never heard of any HDD incompatibilities since ancient times and IDE. With NA however, it is known to issues with homebrew if it is not original one. If you boot stuff from it, it means that at least you can format it and install stuff on PC side. Example using this: https://www.psx-place.com/resources/ps2-hdd-decryption-helper.1507/

Messing with logic structure on it on PS2 side leading to its corruption, that's expected outcome. But if you didn't touch any formatting or partition creation, renaming etc. and disk stop to be recognized (in uLE's HDD Manager, "Connected: No") then I would blame the NA connector to disk and/or to PS2.

 

[MillenniumTwilight]

It seems like you were right on the money. Replacement SATA connectors had arrived and upon changing them, the exact same behavior happens. So, to me at least, it seems the fault lies in the NA themselves; perhaps they got damaged on NTSC PS2 connector bay and/or by the faulty HDD. At least I can still boot into a 2.5" WD Blue HDD on one of them...