one, it basically (as in fully) runs a small linux OS
two, it streams uPnP by default
three, it can be modified (hacked) to allow more options (ssh, web server, MediaTomb, package manager for more goodies, etc)
finally, which is obvious from the first reason, it doesn’t use NTFS or FAT for it’s partition, it uses EXT2 or EXT3.

Out of the box, I loaded it with all of my music and movies, and boom, it was sharing. I later found that it supported NFS so that I could mount it locally, and transfer even faster than ftp. All around, this was a GREAT purchase.

Not being satisfied, I ventured out a little, and started looking for modifications, after all, it isn’t perfect. I stumbled across fun_plug. This allows some great new features to be activated, and unlocks a lot of features that are locked otherwise. To sum it up, you interrupt the boot process, and obtain access to the core. This allows you to start ssh and unlock other features on the drive. This can be down with a few steps, download and copy the files over, reboot, and punch in a couple of commands.

A walkthrough will be under-way soon!

I had a 3.71-m33 modified system, and decided that it was time to upgrade. I had lost my Pandora Battery and Magic Stick, so before I conducted any updates, I wanted to re-make the battery just in case I bricked the unit, I could recover it. So, this walkthrough will come in two parts, this being the creation of Pandora’s Battery and Magic stick.

Pandora’s Battery is another name for the service battery Sony uses to recover the unit, however, this one specifically allows you to install custom firmware onto a PSP unlocking special features like playing ISO’s from a memory card and mounting the UMD drive through USB allowing you to store UMD disks as ISO files on your computer.

In order to softmod a battery to create Pandora’s Battery, you will need a modded PSP, and I strongly recommend the old PSP battery. (The old batteries will fit in the PSP Slim).  If you don’t have access to a modded PSP, I believe you can do the hardware mod to convert your battery, but I am not sure, I had access to a modded PSP before I started. You CAN purchase batteries and sticks here.

Now, assuming you already have the battery, let’s get started. All of these tools work through VirtualBox for all of the Linux users out there.

DISCLAIMER: First, I am not responsible for any damage to any device, follow these steps at your own risk. Second, the following is not used to assist in piracy in any way, these tools are to assist in backups on your ALREADY OWNED games.

For already hacked PSP’s needing to recreate Pandora’s Battery
Needed:

• despertar del cementerio (I have version 7)
• Pandora Installer For 3.xx Kernels
• mspformat.exe
• Sony Original Firmware 4.01
• PSP Running Custom Firmware 3.x/4.x (m33)
• Extra PSP Phat Battery (Original PSP battery, not a slim battery)
• Extra Memory Stick Pro Duo 128MB+ (No larger than 4GB, note that this will only be used for the magic stick, not game saves, so use an extra stick and do not use it for anything else but this.)

Step 1:
Although most cards don’t need this, we are going to run it anyway so that we aren’t wasting time and having to back track.  This is the ONLY tool that you will have to run in Windows.  First, turn the PSP on with the Phat battery inserted into the back, and connect via USB to your computer.  Once the device show in my computer, note which drive it is.  For this walkthrough, we will use ‘g’.  Download the mspformat.exe tool above, and save it in

C:\mspformat\

Now, go to ‘Start >> Run >> cmd.exe’   and execute (note that g at the end is the drive of the PSP)

c:\mspformat\mspformat.exe g

Step 2:
Next, we will copy all applicable software to the PSP.  Windows is no longer required for Linux users.  There should be nothing on the PSP memory card now.  Lets create the following:  (ms0:\ = PSP root directory)

ms0:\PSP\
ms0:\PSP\GAME\

Download despertar del cementerio, Pandora Installer For 3.xx Kernels and Sony Original Firmware 4.01.  With despertar del cementerio, extract contents and copy the “DC7″ folder into ms0:\PSP\GAME\ so that it reads:

ms0:\PSP\GAME\DC7\EBOOT.PBP

With Pandora Installer, extract contents and copy the “pan3xx” folder into ms0:\PSP\GAME\ so that it reads:

ms0:\PSP\GAME\pan3xx\EBOOT.PBP

With Sony Original Firmware 4.01, extract contents, rename the “EBOOT.PBP” file to “401.PBP”, and copy it into ms0:\ so that it reads:

ms0:\401.PBP

Step 3:
Now that everything is on the PSP, let’s make the battery first, then configure the memory stick.

Navigate to the Game tab on the PSP and look under Memory Stick, launch “Pandora Installer for 3.xx+ -R4a-”

Under “Battery options…”, select “make battery Pandora”

Under “MemStick and MS-IPL options…” on the main menu, select “Install ms0:/MSIPL.BIN to the MemStick”

Now, you are all done with that, you can quit, and go back to the PSP dashboard.  Navigate back to the Game tab, and this time launch “Despertar del Cementerio v7.77″

There is only one step to do, and that is press X.

That’s it, you now have a functional Pandora Battery and Magic Stick.  To test it out, completely shut down the PSP, take your Pandora (Phat) battery out, and put it right back in, and your screen should look like this.

With this tool, you can now modify any PSP slim (TA-85), or any original PSP’s.  The newer slims won’t mod, to check, look at the ‘Hardware Info’ option in the Pandora dashboard and google the version to see if it can be modded before you do any modifications.