Running GTA: Liberty City Stories from the Memory card with a 1.5 PSP.

Well, it has finally happened. As discussed on the Edge on 2/23 the hacker group MPH has released a loader capable of booting an ISO of GTA:Liberty City Stories on a PSP with firmware 1.5. For those who don't know, this is quite an accomplishment, because in order for this game to boot, you have to have at least firmware 2.0, and the game does a lot of checks & encrypted files to make it more difficult. Although the MPH hack software was released, it does take a little bit of configuring to get it to work, and to date there wasnt a great step-by-step walk-though to get this going easily... That is until now.

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You will need the following:
UMDGEN: This program allows you to extract UMD ISOs
GTAPSPHackPack: Includes MPHGameLoader, UMDEmulator v08c, & GTA Iso PATCH files
GTA: Liberty City Stories UMD or ISO (find the ISO yourself)
Large Memory Stick Pro Duo (At least a 1gb, but I suggest a 2gb)

Step 1 : Extacting the ISO

If you have the original GTA: Liberty Ciry Stories UMD, you will need to use a UMD to ISO ripping utility like UMD Dumper. From here on out we will be discussing the use of the ISO, and I am going to assume that you ripped it off your UMD legitimately, and that you are not pirating. The PSP doesnt have many good games, and pirating hurts the development of new games. So chew on that while we hack on it. =)

Open UMDGEN and Extract the content of the GTA:LCS iso by right clicking on "Root"

Then open up the GTAPSPHackPack (from above) You will see it contains 3 folders. (Step 1, 2, and 3) You will be using these folders for the corresponding steps. Extract this zip into a folder on your desktop. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you copy the files out of this folder from your desktop, instead of working out of the zip. In the Step 1 folder, you will see that it contains a folder called PRX2_0_0. You will need to replace the "PRX2_0_0" folder located at \PSP_GAME\USRDIR\ of your extracted ISO with this one, making sure to overwrite all the files that it asks.

You will now need to recreate the ISO using UMDGen, by selecting New, then dragging the PSP_GAME folder (from your extacted iso) into UMDGen. It should look similar to the picture above. (it is shown with directorys expanded) Then click File/Save to recreate your modded ISO.

Step 2: Prepare the PSP

Connect your PSP to your computer via the USB cable. My PSP was detected as Drive K, so in the following text I will refer to the PSP drive as drive K. Replace this drive letter to whatever yours is detected as. Inside the Step 2 folder of the hackpack, you will find three folders. These need to be copied over to the ROOT of your your PSP memory stick, keeping the directory structure. If your PSP is drive K: then you should now have:

K:\UMDEMULATOR
K:\mphgameloader
K:\ISO

Important note, the ISO directory that you just created on your memory stick is where you will be placing your modified GTA.ISO we created in step 1.

Step 3: Install the Applications

Copy the folder named "PSP" inside of Step 3 of the Hackpack onto your PSP memory stick, making sure to once again keep the directory structure. These are all the applicatons we will need to run GTA. If your PSP is drive K: then you should now have:

K:\PSP\GAME\MPHGAMELOADER 1
K:\PSP\GAME\MPHGAM~2%
K:\PSP\GAME\UMDEMULATOR 1
K:\PSP\GAME\UMDEMU~2%

You will notice that these folders have been created to remove the "Corrupted Folder" problem. I used the Sei PSP Tool 05b to format them that way.

Step 4: Finishing Up

Before you disconnect your PSP, Copy over your GTA.iso to your memory stick into the \ISO\ directory you created in step 2. Once it is done copying, it is time to use some of the applications we copied over to your PSP in step 3. At this time you will need to insert an original UMD into your PSP. It doesnt have to be GTA, it could be any other game (for example I suggest Lumines) On your PSP go to the game menu, and then down to the Memory Stick option. You should see the applications that we copied over (among any that you might have). Arrow down to UMD Emulator, and run it. You should see several options, and your GTA.iso. Set the options so that ISO emulation mode = System menu.

Once your settings are correct, arrow down to GTA.iso and press the "X" button. This will bring you back to the System Menu screen, almost like something didn't work right... But if you go to your Game/UMD section, you will see that your PSP thinks that the GTA:Liberty City Stories UMD is inserted. However, it will not work if you just click on it, go back down to your Game/Memory Stick option, and launch the "MPH 2.00 Game loader for 1.50".

Sweet, now you are playing GTA:Liberty City Stories off your memory stick with a PSP with 1.50 firmware.

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