PS2 PSBBN Definitive English Patch v2.11 - Can't Boot/Help

[Blizzrdball]

Hey there!

I'm making an account here originally to post a comment to the PSBBN thread for help, but I can't do that due to site restrictions so I'm making a separate thread here hopefully to get some help.

Here's the cursory hardware info I'm working with:
Console: PS2 Phat - SCPH-50001/N
Network Adapter: SCPH-12801 (Original/Official)
SATA Adapter: BFX_PNA_SATA V3.0 (Came from Gamestar Network "Adaptor", SSPH-10350, swapped IDE board in SCPH-12801 with this board)
SSD: Kingston A400 960GB (SA400S73/960G)
OS: EndeavourOS/Linux Mint (Both fresh installs)

I'm having issues where on my PS2 with CosmicScales PSBBN image, I can't get the drive image to boot properly.
The PS2 will boot normally, start up as if it's booting an image or game (no disc in console), and then sit at a black screen. The orange drive activity light will be on for ~1-2 minutes, flashing as though it's doing normal activity, and then it will turn off. The PS2 will be stuck at a black screen again for ~3 more minutes before kicking me back to browser.

I've written the image via. EndeavourOS using a cloned repo from the github. I ran the script in the order of 01>02>03>04 as intended and installed the PSBBL accordingly. Despite this, the image won't boot on my console.
I also used a FMCB memory card to boot uLaunchELF and confirmed the drive was readable and formatted properly, and from here I tried to launch the PSBBL/N .ELF directly, but got the same black screen/drive activity happens before it just hung at a black screen forever.

The first time I wrote the image, I used an Inland 512GB SSD. I ran into the issue and tried again without writing any games to the drive to test and ran into the same issue. From here assuming drive compatibility was an issue, I picked up a WD Blue 500GB SSD from Micro Center since they had no Kingston A400's. Using the same process of troubleshooting as the Inland drive, I had the same outcome on all attempts. At this point, I bit the bullet and assumed a second strike-out on drive compatibility and picked up the Kingston A400 drive. Wrote the image again, same problems.

At this point I was getting desperate and thought maybe it's the Arch version of the script that's having issues. I make a Linux Mint live image, boot into that, git clone the repo and run the scripts in order again, and still run into the same issue.

At no point have I received any errors during the drive write process in either Linux environment, the PS2 does seem to be able to see and read the drive successfully, and it most certainly attempts to boot some sort of .ELF on startup; but whatever it's trying to do is failing and I can't for the life of me figure out why.
I've done a lot of digging and can't find anyone else having the same issue. I don't have another working phat PS2 to test on, and I'd like to avoid buying another third party drive adapter to salvage the board from if I can help it after having gone through and bought two drives and returned one solely for this project now.

If anyone has any ideas on what's going on here or what I can even do anymore short of buying a new SATA adapter, I'd really appreciate any considerations people might have to help.

Thanks for reading!

 

[LeoneFamily]

I came here for the exact same issue. I also cannot post on the PSBBN thread due to never having posted before (although my account was created years ago).

PS2 SCPH-50001
Official Sony Broadband Adapter (North America), unmodified.
Seagate ST3500630A (500GB PATA HDD)

I had the exact same issue as the OP of this thread. Then I found what was the cause of the issue.

My PS2 would boot up, then it appears like it tries to read the contents of the HDD, and it just black screens as soon as it attempts to launch. I can see a small line of color for a split second at the bottom of the screen (similar effect to booting FHDB) indicating that the PS2 does try to launch the program, but nothing else after that. I have reinstalled PSBBN several times, issue persists. I am running it on a real install of Linux Mint, on a PC with a direct PATA/IDE port on the motherboard and the PS2's HDD directly installed internally in the PC (no external adapters or anything like that). The installer does not give any errors and says that everything is fine.

The whole time, my jumper on the HDD was set to Master. I changed it to Cable Select, and suddenly it started working (PSBBN finally booted up). Not sure why this is an issue, because it had always been on Master before when using the same HDD for FreeHDboot.

Now when it comes to OP, he/she is using a SATA adapter, so I assume he/she probably doesn't have jumper settings selection pins on the adapter? If so, I would guess the best solution is to just use a different adapter, even if the adapter he/she is using may still work with FHDB.

Ok NEVERMIND. The issue has suddenly happened again now and I can't get it to work anymore. Doesn't matter how many times I switch the jumper between Cable Select and Master, it stays at a black screen like it used to do before. I'm literally on an unmodified offical SONY network/HDD adapter so that's clearly not the issue (and my HDD works fine). At this point, I hope CosmicScale will acknowledge this issue and fix it, as it seems to be on the software end.

 

[Berion]

Does any other bootstrap written in __mbr even work? For me, after lecture above I'm nearly sure it is not anyhow related to PSBBN DEP at all.

 

[LeoneFamily]

Does any other bootstrap written in __mbr even work? For me, after lecture above I'm nearly sure it is not anyhow related to PSBBN DEP at all.

I have no idea what this means, but if you need more details, I re-did the whole install from scratch several times yesterday evening and it still wouldn't boot. Went to sleep, then this morning I just turned the PS2 ON again and it just booted up PSBBN with no issues, despite no changes at all being done to my HDD since yesterday. It seems like it will just refuse to boot at completely random times (and unfortunately most of the time).

 

[Evilhikaru]

@LeoneFamily have you thought about trying to convert over to SATA and trying an SSD? I just recently completed my project and followed what Macho Nacho did, and I'm all good here, plus I was able to get PS1 games working correctly.

 

[Blizzrdball]

Does any other bootstrap written in __mbr even work? For me, after lecture above I'm nearly sure it is not anyhow related to PSBBN DEP at all.

Hey there! Thanks for your response, I do really appreciate it.

When you mention if bootstraps written in _mbr work or not, does this refer to the partition table format? I could reinitialize the drive using GPT for this use-case but due to the PS2's age, I figured this wouldn't be a workable option and never tried it.

Let me know if I'm off base here and I'm happy to try out any suggestions you've got.

Regarding @LeoneFamily's mention, I am using an SSD in this context and because of that don't have any jumpers that need to be managed.

I did follow both ComicScale's as well as Macho Nacho's video tutorials on Youtube down to a tee and despite that I am still having the boot issues, and I'd like to avoid reverting back to using an IDE drive in this PS2 both for drive longevity and speed.

If at all possible, it would be really awesome if this thread could get merged into the original PSBBN thread here since having this thread in the starting line both has this information in an unrelated place to where most information for this topic is consildated towards, and the post remaining here gives it a high likelihood of being buried and not being seen by the people who most likely would be able to help.

Bottom line I'm really trying to avoid pestering the dev in DM's directly as this is the only other place where discussion for this project is held and I don't want to bother him for support issues that other people might be able to help with.

 

[Evilhikaru]

@Blizzrdball I wonder if the SATA adapter could be the problem for you. I replaced my official Sony adapter's IDE connector with the Bitfunx brand SATA. I did saw somewhere that some other brands SATA might not work for PSBBN.

 

[Berion]

@LeoneFamily / @Blizzrdball

By bootstrap I meant to any application which starting bootloader. It is written in "hdd0:/__mbr" and seeking on start of console. I.e FHDB using one, PS2BBL using one etc. etc.

For test purpose, to not invalidate your environments, use PS2HDH (Tasker script) to make copy of existing bootstrap first, then rename it. After that, install wLE kHn as bootstrap and try few times resetting console. If it will also boots randomly, it is not software issue but hardware like eg. wear off NA connector etc. And when you will want back to old setup, restore old renamed bootstrap.

The way how you installed PSBBN DEP doesn't matter. It is always the same, using the same scripts.

// @CosmicScale

 

[LeoneFamily]

@LeoneFamily have you thought about trying to convert over to SATA and trying an SSD? I just recently completed my project and followed what Macho Nacho did, and I'm all good here, plus I was able to get PS1 games working correctly.

Yes I'm thinking about it. For now I'm still sticking to PATA HDDs like I've been doing for years, but I may upgrade sometime soon.