WARNING !!! Unrecoverable bricks signalled !!!

From the sounds of it, it is now possible to cause a FULL UNRECOVERABLE brick on your 3.71 M33-2 PSP.

Symptoms:
You used USB flash access to write something to flash0/1/2/3, either in recovery or in VSH after re-routing USB. Although Dark_AleX fixed the bug that was present in 3.60 M33 and 3.71 M33-1 (which caused files larger than approx. 60kb to be corrupted), flash writing is still unreliable. It seems the nand partitioning is messed up after a USB flash write.

After flash access through USB, you either get an infinite BSOD or a PSP that doesn't boot at all. The PSP can't be recovered by Pandora or any of the Cemetery sticks!

Precautions:
Don't use USB flash write access when on 3.71 M33-2 until further notice! If you did and you get a BSOD, don't press O! It will cause an infinite BSOD loop that can't be fixed. According to some reports in other threads, when you hard power off your PSP at the BSOD (power switch or battery out) you have a small chance to get the PSP booting again, but some things will not function since flash1 is not correctly initialized. Probably a "restore default settings" may fix this, otherwise, try the flash1 format from recovery.

Solutions:
When you have a working full nand dump safely stored somewhere, use the Cemetery V3 stick to restore it to your PSP. On the fat, you can also use Cory's upNandTool or a similar tool, on the slim you can also use Cemetery V1 or V2. Don't try to use Pandora, because it does a logical restore and for this problem, you need a physical restore. Remember that it's impossible to restore any other PSP's nand dump, because you will screw up IDStorage beyond any repair!!!

When you don't have a nand backup but your PSP is a fat, get a nand backup from another PSP. It may be of any fw version, although only 1.50 will boot instantly. The important part is the partitioning, not the nand contents. Before doing anything to your bricked PSP, use Pandora or any Cemetery stick to create a full backup of your nand! Store it safely on your PC, and maybe a copy on another media. After making sure your nand backup is safe, use Cemetery V3 to restore the other nand dump. Pandora will not work because you need a physical restore, not a logical. When you restored a 1.50 dump, your PSP should now boot again. With any other firmware, it will still be a brick. You should now be able to use Pandora or Cemetery to unbrick it. All that remains is to restore your own IDStorage, or your PSP will be homebrew only. Use the dump you created from your own bricked PSP and Cory's upNandTool to restore IDStorage only without overwriting the other nand contents. Now your PSP should be fully functional again.

When you don't have a nand backup and your PSP is a slim, you're screwed. Restoring another PSP's nand dump won't work because of the protections Sony added to the slim on nand level, including signing and encryption. If you still want to give it a go, you can try the procedure described above for the fat. But use the 64M version of upNandTool instead. And only use another slim's nand dump, a fat's dump will definitely not work.

FINAL WARNING !!!
Especially on the Slim, before doing anything that writes to your nand (including regular updates), create a nand dump! Store it on your PC and on another media and make sure it's safe! Currently it's your only chance of unbricking a full brick!

[EDIT] It seems to me that Sony is no longer afraid of bricking their customer's PSPs. My guess is that part of the nand protection they already put in the slim's hardware, has been incorporated into the 3.71 firmware, causing all kinds of corruptions whenever a flash write is done. Although it still could be a stupid bug...

Originally Posted by Squirrel61

FINAL WARNING !!!
Especially on the Slim, before doing anything that writes to your nand (including regular updates), create a nand dump! Store it on your PC and on another media and make sure it's safe! Currently it's your only chance of unbricking a full brick!

Thanks for the Warning Squirrel , but since i had bricked my slim and can't restore my Idstorage it's been a practice of mine whenever i am upgrading a slim to always create a backup.Then i give the file to my costumer for his//her own safe keeping! (If he/she loves his/her P$P so much he 'll keep it in a more safer place/storage...!)

BTW
I think i had my flash1 corrupted/destroyed whenever i reset to factory defaults i always get a white screen (brightness button works though)

..Corrupted or wrong Idstorage on slim will give you a NONE working Homebrew (Game cannot be started.The region code is not correct)and a NONE editable Wifi Address(a connection error has occured.80410b05) ! did i mention a NONE working UMD.... even though your Lens is fine! (Disk cannot Read!)

On a lighter side ... MP3, Videos .mp4(haven't tested .iso Video) and Theme Settings will work fine............seems i bought an expensive mp3 player..lol

Hope all Slim and Phat user take this WARNING seriously!

Originally Posted by royginald

..Corrupted or wrong Idstorage on slim will give you a NONE working Homebrew ...

... because the slim is running all homebrew in 3.xx kernel. I don't know if Dark_AleX will ever manage to port 1.50 homebrew to the slim (I bet he will but I don't want to put pressure or expectations on him). But if he succeeds, I guess the slim with corrupted IDStorage will be capable of running 1.50 homebrew without errors.

On a lighter side ... MP3, Videos .mp4(haven't tested .iso Video) and Theme Settings will work fine............seems i bought an expensive mp3 player..lol

The slim's about $170. A cheap 4Gb eBay ms is about $30. That makes $200 for a slick looking mp3 and video player with 4Gb of memory, TV-out, USB connection, memory card slot (many players have factory installed memory with no way to expand it) and the best and biggest screen ever seen on portable mp3/mp4 players. And still I might have forgotten some key features. So, it's sad that it can't play games anymore but even then, I wouldn't call it expensive.

Is it possible for DAX (or someone else) to add an option "Format flash1" to the Pandora menu? I'm not completely sure, but wouldn't this fix the problem?

Originally Posted by PSPZoRZ

Is it possible for DAX (or someone else) to add an option "Format flash1" to the Pandora menu? I'm not completely sure, but wouldn't this fix the problem?

As long as you can reach recovery, you can use it's format flash1 option. I guess on the infinite BSOD bricks it should be possible to boot to recovery.

But it wouldn't solve the problem, as it's not the contents or the formatting of the flash sections that gets damaged, but the partitioning. Sony's nice little trick is that they encrypted the lfat area, making every attempt to change the partitioning produce a nice unrecoverable brick.

Aww, Sony are assholes I thought it was a simple flash1 corruption (plus I thought with this "full brick" it meant we can't access recovery) I have a nand backup and flash0 backup for my PSPSlim, but how would I go about making an idstorage backup?

Note: In 3.71 M33 (and M33-2), the lflash is not encrypted in the fat PSP, but remains encrypted in the slim.

Does flash0 over USB work properly in the slim? If so, the killed encryption in the fat might be causing this odd side effect of messing up the partitions.

Originally Posted by PSPZoRZ

I have a nand backup and flash0 backup for my PSPSlim, but how would I go about making an idstorage backup?

Use keycleaner on a working PSP to get key dumps, but if you made an nand backup it contains idstore as well.

As long as you have your Full nand back up while it was working ....i think you can recover it..

[Offtopic] Is that your workbench in the background of the logo in your sig? Lol, very recognizable, although I have to clean it after I finished my work to keep the peace in my house

Where can I download the 64M version of upNandTool from?

I used Cemetery v2 to create a NAND backup before installing CFW and I have also used Cemetery v3 to create a NAND backup after installing CFW 3.71 M33-2. Can these be used with 64M version of the upNandTool to restore the NAND in the event of a full brick?

Well thanks for warning Squirrel ,

See im a crazy theme flasher also created some themes of mine (MK) and after the 3.71 update 2 , i ve been testing and flashing maybe 100 times now,especially one full night with corrupted VSHmain, caused by a bug in the editor. My slim and my PSP never got this strange symptoms ,also maybe i have to feel lucky cuz i know people that bricked their Slim messing with flash0 on update2.

Other story was the never ending full bricks with the 3.71 M33 , everytime after install ,they said ,,fromat flash1 , and restore system defaults,, - well for my was only bricks after doing so, and pandora (then the first edition of pandora) wasnt able to fix the loop of BSOD, like you said only the nand dump saved the PSP , on the slim , for now i didnt have no bricks.And after installing 3.71 M33 i didnt restore system defaults and didnt format flash1 , and went fine.

But still people have to be aware of this strange things.And nand Dump always near.

Gsmoke: I've never encountered these problems myself too, neither did I have to format flash1 and restore defaults and thelike. It seems not all PSPs are affected. But it seems the bricks are not unique to one PSP model. And since you don't know in advance if your PSP is one of the future victims, it's good to have an unmessed nand backup. It's also good to know there are good chances to undo the mess even without nand dump, although Cemetery won't fix it on its own in this case.

good info that everyone should read... i myself after i got 3.71m33-2 on my slim i had to go to recovery an flash1 then after that its been running fine no brick at all.. but i have had my slim since like sept 6th... so maybe sony is releasing slims now that are a bit different then when they first released them...

only thing i can think of.. plus some people dont read all these threads and just try to do things before reading up ... everyday i check up on these forums to make sure i am up to date on the CFW....

Are the symtoms that occur when using flash0 USB acess is 3.71 M33-2 similar to this:

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=81560