How To Softmod your PS2 (fat and early slims) with Swap Magic and USB stick

[900dogs]

This is a moderately easy tutorial, but we have to get ONE thing out of the way: This will work on fat and early slim models:
"It's compatible with some SCPH-9000x PS2's. date code 8a is definately safe. some 8b's work. some don't and 8c and later is where it won't work with it."

(sorry for the sniffles and the shaky camerawork; I'm a little sick today)
Materials:
Compatible PS2
Swap Magic disk (not burned, legit one, CD or DVD, I got mine at vpgames.com)
USB stick (some have used their PSP )
Spare Mem Card [I used a official Sony one, wouldn't suggest a 3'rd party] (it requires its own card, takes around 4 MB on the card)

Download these files (tutorial so no thanks required to get files):

Thanks SKSAPPS for hosting the links!
http://sksapps.com/exploit/freevast/Noobie_Package.rar
http://sksapps.com/launchers/uLaunchELF_v4.41.zip

Step 1:
Plug USB stick in and make sure it's FAT(32, shows up just as FAT in 7)
Make a folder on the USB stick called SWAPMAGIC (case sensitive)

Step 2: Copy FREE_MCBOOT.ELF and the folder INSTALL to the root of the usb stick.
Next, extract BOOT.ELF (not uncompressed boot.elf) from the uLaunchElf archive into the SWAPMAGIC folder.
Finally, rename BOOT.ELF to SWAPMAGIC.ELF (again, CaSe SenSiTive)

Step 3:
Plug USB stick into PS2 and load up your swap magic disk.

You should see this screen:


Press O, scroll down to mass0 and press O again.

Scroll to FREE_MCBOOT.elf and press O

Step 4: Install time!
I suggest unplugging your normal gaming mem card
Click Format MC, press OK
After that click Normal Install and press OK
It will install and then tell you that it installed successfully.
Once it finished installing, don't exit the free-mcboot installer yet, just remove your swap magic disk and press launch FCMB. You are done and ready to play your (ESR patched) backups!

As long as you have the memory card that you installed to plugged in, when you boot the ps2 you should boot into FCMB, which looks mostly the same as the ps2 browser!

Next tutorial is how to ESR patch games and how to convert CD games to DVD for usage with ESR (although many games uploaded here are already converted)

[ngek202]

I can play PS2 ISO Games with this Mod and is it possible for SCPH-30004 R PAL PS2 Fat?

Thanks.

[Ostinato]

Yes and Yes

[Arcticmoon]

I'm using a Swapmagic Plus 3.6 disk to try this mod, it works fine but it freezes whenever I try to load it up with my memorystick plugged in. Is there a problem with my make of swapmagic disk and if so is there a fix of some sort for this?

[mypspisbetter]

thanks mate this is very helpfull

[900dogs]

I'm using a Swapmagic Plus 3.6 disk to try this mod, it works fine but it freezes whenever I try to load it up with my memorystick plugged in. Is there a problem with my make of swapmagic disk and if so is there a fix of some sort for this?

It should work with 3.6; are you using the DVD or CD to try to load it?