[DISCLAIMER] Before we begin, you must understand that hacking/modding the psp an its firmwire (while legal) voids the warrenty. Sony DO NOT in any way, shape, or form validate this practice nor does it condone it and have taken major steps to detour the psp firmware hacking community as awhole. We here at gamestorm DO NOT condone nor encourage the practice of modding psp's for the purposes of piracy and will not tolarate any pirated material of any kind on this board.

So.. lets begin lol.

The psp uses a flash drive system moderated an updated thru firmware versions. different firmware versions determines much of what a psp will do, From what is displayed on the XMB (psp main menu screen) to what the psp will emulate and even what games can be played. For example, if a game is released for psp with a later version of firmware then what is currently on your psp the game will not start. So your goal is to move control moderation of your psp from sony's hands to yours and this is done via "custom" firmwire. Custom firmwire was originally developed by DARK ALEX a computer software analyst an his crack team of hackers known as Team m33 thru the decryption of sony's "official" firmware released for the psp and it can be used to do a number of things, from enabling you to play your favorite snes games, to changing the channel on your tv.

Now you know the "what" in "why" lol, we can cover the "how." The most commonly used method to install "cfw" (custom firmware) is with a PANDORA BATTERY which can be found all over the internet or made at home. Making a pandora battery requires you to remove the battery from your psp, cut around the batteries edge with a razor blade (prefered) for a nice clean cut so it reveals the battery's motherboard (the little black square box near the end) and cut the prong (the 1st in the line of four, letters facing you) connected to the motherboard on the lower left hand corner as shown in the image attached. Although extremely simple if done incorrectly this can and will result in catastropic failure BRICKING your psp. NOTE: this method will not work for the 3000 series and will BRICK the psp. The 1000 series (phat) is the prefered model when creating a pandora battery but earlier versions of the 2000 series (slim) can perform this task as well. Next you will need a MAGIC memory stick, this can be found on the internet for sell or made at home using mod programs from the internet like "MMS MAKER" (which comes with tutorials) These programs only require a sony memory stick pro duo in flash drive or a sony memory stick pro duo in psp with a usb cable.