Pandora Battery

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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!

A Pandora Battery, also known as Pandora’s Battery, is a special type of battery that allows you to power on your PSP in a special mode, which in turn allows you to unlock (also known as “unbrick”) your PSP, give your PSP more functionality in terms of making more programs or games usable on it, and do other such things in order to empower people such as yourself to take full advantage of everything a PSP has to offer. You will also need a magic memory stick in conjunction with the Pandora Battery in order to make everything work. A magic memory stick is nothing more than a typical memory stick which you then make “magic” by putting the appropriate files on it. These files are available for free, and can be downloaded from various places on the internet.

Please note that this is just an overview as to the basics of what a Pandora Battery is and what it is used for, I will get into more detail about the specifics of correctly using a Pandora Battery in future posts. I would like to note that not all PSPs can be unlocked / modified / unbricked at the time of this posting, but typically there are new hacks being created as new PSPs come out to help and rectify current situations. Basically, you have to remain up to date with the happenings in the PSP unlocking world.