Pandora Battery

How to Upgrade to the Latest PSP Custom Firmware

Image of Step 4 with the 550.BPB file

This post is picking up from where I left off in How to Use Your Pandora Battery. So, you should already have bought a Pandora battery, made a magic memory stick, and used them both in conjunction to install custom firmware. At this point, you need to upgrade to the newest and best available custom firmware so you can play more games and use more software.

Here are the steps to do so:

1. Download the latest custom firmware, 5.50 GEN-D3, by clicking here

2. Go ahead and extract the .rar file wherever you want

3. Copy the “update” folder from the .rar stuff you just extracted over to your PSP and put it in the /PSP/GAME/ directory

4. Copy the “550.PBP” file over to the root of your memory stick

5. Now you should disconnect your PSP from the computer

6. Next, get on your PSP and go to “game” and then “memory stick”

7. At this point you should be able to run the 5.50 GEN-D3 updater

8. Now all you have to do is follow the instructions given

9. Your PSP should reboot, or if it doesn’t you can reboot it, and you should be all done! Enjoy!

How to Use Your Pandora Battery

Here we will explain how to use your Pandora battery (also known as Pandora’s battery) in order to unlock / unbrick your PSP and install custom firmware. This only applies to the PSP 1000 (Fat) and PSP 2000 (Slim) models. Remember, some PSP 2000 models will not work this way, please see the “Is My PSP Hackable?” post for further info.

At this point you should already have a Pandora battery and you should have already made a magic memory stick. Remember, there is usually a difference between buying a supposed “magic” memory stick and actually having one that is ready to go. Very few places sell magic memory sticks that have already been made “magic” so odds are you still need to convert yours.

Here are the steps:

1. Insert the magic memory stick into your PSP

2. Insert the Pandora battery into your PSP (Note with the batteries made for Fat and Slim it may not fit perfectly, this is fine, just push it in there).

3. Despertar Cementerio should automatically load, but if for some reason it does not shutdown your PSP and then try turning it on while holding down the L trigger

4. You should now see options on a menu

4. Select to install the M33 custom firmware, or if you want you can select to test it first (NOTE: We suggest you upgrade to the newer better custom firmware which we will mention shortly). If you change your mind about doing this, select shutdown.

5. If you picked the install firmware option, you should see a progress bar. Once the progress bar hits 100%, your PSP should automatically shutdown.

6. Once your PSP has shut down, you can remove the Pandora battery and magic memory stick, and replace them with your normal battery and memory stick.

7. Now you can upgrade to the latest custom firmware, which is called 5.50 GEN-D3. I explain how to do this in this post: How to Upgrade to the Latest PSP Custom Firmware

NOTE: If your PSP shuts down during the installation and/or the battery falls out, your PSP will be bricked / locked. All you have to do to unbrick / unlock it is take the battery out and put it back in again.

How to Make a Magic Memory Stick?

In order to make a magic memory stick actually be “magic”, you will first need to get a magic memory stick, and I mentioned where to get one in a previous post. At any rate, once you have a PSP compatible memory stick that you want to make “magic”, you are ready to go! First off, I would like to note that these instructions only apply to PSP 1000 and PSP 2000, and if you have a PSP 2000 with a TA-088v3 motherboard, you cannot hack it this way (but these are pretty rare). In order to know if your PSP is hackable, check this post: Is My PSP Hackable?

Okay, so you have a hackable PSP 1000 or PSP 2000, and you already decided to buy a Pandora battery. Now you need to make a magic memory stick to go with the battery. You do not need to currently have any custom firmware on your PSP to do this. Here are the steps:

1. Download Rain’s Ultra Light MMS (magic memory stick) Maker and the 5.00 Official Eboot (Both come in one download) – Click Here

2. Extract both items from the download

3. Connect your PSP to the computer and run RainUltraLiteMMS.exe

4. Check the “Format Memory Stick” box, then click the “Make MMS” button

5. Now there should be a prompt to get the 5.00 Official Eboot, which you should be able to find in the same directory as RainUltraLiteMMS.exe

6. Wait for it to install

7. You should now see “Make MMS is Finished” above the progress bars. You’re done!

Is My PSP Hackable?

A common problem people have nowadays is knowing whether or not their PSP is even hackable!

PSP Slim Box Label

Some are, some aren’t. PSP 1000 (Fat) and PSP 2000 (Slim) models are almost all hackable EXCEPT for PSP 2000 models with a TA-088v3 motherboard. To know whether or not you have the dreaded motherboard, check the label on your box. If you find letters in the following list: NP,NPA,A,B,C,D,E,F,G - you CAN hack your PSP, so go ahead and get a Pandora battery and magic memory stick. If you find a letter beyond G, you cannot hack your PSP, or at least not fully (there are some other things you can do I will mention in a later post).

As for the PSP 3000 (Brite) model, it is not fully hackable, as in it won’t work with the normal Pandora battery hack methods, but there are things you can do to open it up involving a special type of magic memory stick just for the PSP 3000, which I will mention in a later post.

Finally, the PSP Go is currently not hackable at all, but stay tuned for updates!

How to Make a Pandora Battery?

Often times people wonder if they even need to buy a Pandora battery, so they hear about the possibility that they can make their own Pandora battery. Well, although it is possible to do this, it is definitely not recommended! In fact, it is so NOT recommended that I will not even tell you how to do it due to the fact that it could for one, screw up your PSP if you mess up, and two, is just an extra waste of time when you can get a Pandora battery these days for a ridiculously cheap price! So yes, I’m sorry if you came here hoping to get a tutorial on how to make your own Pandora battery, but frankly, in my own opinion, I’m doing you a favor.

You see, the PSP hacking industry has evolved today to a pretty sophisticated status. And if you knew much about what’s going on, you obviously wouldn’t be reading this in the first place, so it is fair for me to assume that you are uninformed for the most part. This being the case, if I did provide you with a tutorial and you did screw things up, I would get a ridiculously large amount of hate comments which I simply don’t feel like dealing with. After all, the spam these days is already bad enough! At any rate, just check out my other post on where to get a Pandora Battery and you should be all set.

Why Use a Magic Memory Stick?

The reasoning for using a magic memory stick is similar to why you should use a pandora battery. I mean really, you need to use both of them together if you want to increase the functionality of your PSP, so they go hand in hand. In fact, the reasoning is basically exactly the same. The magic memory stick allows you to unlock / unbrick / open up your PSP to virtually unlimited possibilities including the use of homemade creations in the PSP hacking community, the use of all sorts of new crazy cool games, and so much more. It’s just a great way to go!

You might think this all sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t! Tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands if not maybe even millions of people have already taken the plunge and freed their PSPs from the confines of the factory default firmware, and you can do the same! If you still aren’t convinced just read up on it some more, do some more searches, check out all the PSP forums dedicated to making PSPs be essentially all they can be, and then if you still aren’t feeling it, well, you’re just weird

Why Use a Pandora Battery?

Frankly, your PSP becomes a whole lot more functional in terms of what you can do with it. It’s really that simple. Using a Pandora battery is a very common thing to do and more and more people use one every day. The benefits outweigh the costs, at least for most PSP users. There are forums dedicated to the topic of modifying your PSP with Pandora batteries, downgrading your firmware in order to increase your PSP functionality, and so much more! With a Pandora Battery you can play games on your PSP that you can’t otherwise, you can run programs on your PSP that won’t work otherwise, and you can milk your gadget for all that it’s worth!

But as always, don’t just take my word for it, check out the forums, check out the decently large sized online Pandora Battery industry, read what people are saying! Also, note that you cannot find Pandora batteries on eBay, because for some reason they’ve been banned there. But at any rate, I think you get the idea. There are a lot of people developing their own PSP programs / unlocking software, and they are willing to help you downgrade your firmware for free with their software, at least for the most part, so that’s another great thing about using a Pandora Battery!

Where Can I Get A Magic Memory Stick?

In contrast to the results you get when typing “Pandora battery” in Google, you won’t get very good ones when you type in “magic memory stick”, at least if you’re trying to get one. Thus, I suggest you get a magic memory stick from the same places where I said to get a Pandora battery, since those places ALWAYS sell both pandora batteries and magic memory sticks. You will find these places in my post just before this one, and it’s a rather simple concept to find them. I might also add that you can get memory sticks that work with your PSPs and can be made “magic” from just about anywhere. The difference is that when you buy them through a Pandora battery online store, you tend to get a better deal, and sometimes they will come preloaded with the files that make them “magic”, but not usually (so don’t get your hopes up too much).

Of course, making the memory stick “magic” isn’t very hard anyways, since it only involves downloading free files and putting them on the memory stick. At any rate, like I said at the beginning, you should look for a Pandora battery store, as those are easier to find, and then from that same store you can get your magic memory stick. The other good thing about buying from these stores is they tend to have instructions on site, or at least helpful links on site to help you get through the PSP unlocking / unbricking / opening up process correctly.

Where Can I Get a Pandora Battery?

If you’re looking to get a Pandora battery, your best bet is probably to buy one online. A simple Google search of “buy pandora battery” or “pandora battery” will yield numerous results of sites that sell the batteries. One thing you should know ahead of time is that all of these sites take on average around 3 weeks and as many as 4 weeks to get you your products. The reason for this is that the products originate overseas in China, due to the fact that there are no factories in the USA that make these products. Also, once the order is made through the Chinese factories, there tends to be an often long processing time before the order will even be shipped. The sites that sell the batteries have partnerships with the Chinese factories, and that leads to the 3 weeks until products arrive result.

So, when your Pandora battery hasn’t arrived 1-2 weeks after you ordered it, don’t freak out, this is perfectly normal. Just try to expect that the wait will be long ahead of time, and make sure you make your order through Paypal so that you can file a claim if necessary in case some companies are trying to scam you. I have yet to hear about a real scam site that sells these, but you never know when one could pop up. And if one does, and they process their orders through Paypal, they will be shut down very quickly since Paypal will essentially kill their account. At any rate, you don’t need to be too wary about these kinds of things with the majority if not all the sites that will come up when you do a Google search, so go find your battery!

What is a Magic Memory Stick?

A magic memory stick is actually just a normal memory stick. The only thing that makes it “magic” is the files that are loaded onto it. However, these files can be downloaded for free from various sources on the internet. Thus, when you are looking to buy a magic memory stick, you aren’t necessarily limited to the sites that also offer Pandora batteries. However, typically sites that offer Pandora batteries offer the best deals on memory sticks, so you are probably better offer buying one from them.

A current problem online is the way memory stick and magic memory stick are used interchangeably and how many people get confused by this. In general, it isn’t something you even need to worry about. Making your memory stick “magic” isn’t very hard, and probably isn’t going to be worth paying extra for. Also, even if you think you’re buying a magic memory stick, it may not already have the files on it that make it “magic” because of the confusion among everyone including those who sell them! Just look for the best deal you can get on a Pandora battery and memory stick and you’ll be fine.

Pandora Battery News, Information, and Buying Guide