UPDATE: Since this how-to was first written things have changed. Sony has released firmware 2.01 which makes this downgrade impossible. A PSP bricker trojan was released because of this antivirus software will classify both the good and bad downgrade files as harmful. You should do more research into the current state of the downgrade before attempting. As far as we know our firmware links are still good, we are not hosting them so we can not vouch for their safety.
C.K. Sample, III, TUAW / WIN Blogger and author of the forthcoming book, PSP Hacks, got his hands on the version 2.0 downgrader and wrote up a thorough how- to complete with pics for us. He even takes the extra steps to upgrade and downgrade yet again, just to make sure such a thing is possible.
As you can see, I have 2.0 running with the browser on my PSP. 
Step 1: Download the downgrader from either here, here or here. Then make sure you get a copy of the original 1.5 firmware upgrader. I found my copy here.
Step 2: Connect your PSP to your computer via USB. On your memory stick, create a folder called UPDATE inside /PSP/GAME/ and place the EBOOT.PBP file from the 1.50 update inside this UPDATE folder.
Step 3: Unzip MPHDowngrader.zip. Drop overflow.tif into your /PSP/PHOTO/ folder. Put both h.bin and index.dat in the root of your Memory Stick.
Step 4: Disconnect your PSP from your computer and plug in the AC adapter.
Step 5: Navigate to Photo then Memory Stick via the PSP’s menu system and start scrolling down through your photos until you reach the overflow.tif picture.
You’ll know you’ve hit it when everything freezes and you get a black screen with a bunch of white text output.
If your PSP freezes without going to this black text screen, then hold the power button for about 10 seconds until the PSP shuts down, then hit the power button again to start it back up. Repeat this step until you get that black screen.
Step 6: Don’t panic. Hold the power button for about 10 seconds until the PSP powers off. Hit the power button again. Your PSP will start up, and if you navigate to your System Information, you’ll discover that your PSP thinks it is running version 1.0 of the firmware. It isn’t and you cannot run homebrew (yet).
Step 7: Navigate to Game–>Memory Stick, hit the X button, and navigate to the 1.5 updater. Make sure you have your PSP plugged in or the upgrade won’t work. Click the X button and update like you normally would. At the end of the upgrade you will receive an error saying that the upgrade failed and to contact Sony. Don’t panic. Ignore this and again force your PSP to power off and reboot.
Step 8: After the PSP reboots you will receive an error screen that is scary and confusing because it is in multiple languages. Don’t panic. Find the language you can understand and read the corresponding line. It notes that your preferences are fragged and that you need only hit the O button to restore some default-ish settings. Hit the O button. 
Step 9: The PSP will start back up and you will go through the initial setup like the day when you first bought your PSP. Do so and then go to the system info pane again, where you will see that you are rocking version 1.5. Run homebrew at will.
I ran through this entire procedure, then I downloaded the 2.0 update and installed that again, and then yet again went through the entire procedure again. It works like a charm. It’s a little time-consuming, but you can have the best of both worlds. Have fun!
Hi My name is Anthony (not the same one as up there) i guess you could say that i’m a n00b to the PSP system… *cough* but uh i could use a little help:
My PSP is 2.60 fw (i know, when i found out about homebrew i practiclly killed myself) DOH!
ill start from the beginning : i got a PSP 4 christmas and b 4 i knew ’bout ANY of the good shizz i upgraded to 2.60 (it was allready 2.50)
then i decided hell no i F***ed myself!
Back on topic: I uh need some help to get my PSP to 1.50 BUT when i scroll 2 da “overflow.tif” file it says “Corrupt Data” and i CAN NOT do jack shit!
plz help! (i kno i skrewd up!)
-Anthony tony1991@comcast.net
You fool…..He already said that this isnt a virus…..norton says its a virus because it is an exploit of the psp firmware…..this is what you want….just disable norton then copy the files.
i have the upgrade 2.6 does anyone know how to downgrade??
The EBOOT_1.50 is corrupted!! if i download it it wont open! why?? and i tried to get it from many sites it says the same thing. where can i get a non-corrupted file?
Okay, I know this is 2.0 to 1.5, but is there any remote possibility that this process MIGHT work to go from 2.5 down to 2.0?
YO.. I was waiting for someone to release this like two days after I got my psp. I got my fastloader 7, and I have like almost every game out.
PSP is the best bang for your buck.
wait how come i cant unzip anything plz someone help i only got read me and EBOOT.PBP if you can help send me an email to raronline@mail.com
Hi, just want to know, whats the estimated percentage of this actually working and not breaking my psp.. i really dont want to take the risk, but also really really want doom played it since i was like 4 and still play it now (lol), all though, i got firmware 2.60 and heretic works on it fine and so does solitare & spider, so, I guess theres no point in risking it if i got heretic.. lol
thanks for your help.
P.S. if i got heretic working is there a way i could get all of the games working?
hello guys i really need help. i download all the files that i need to downgrade my psp but when i unziped the downgrader the overflow.tif file is not there what i’m doing wrong. please help me to figure it out. thanks
will it be a problem if its on version 2.1? or can it still done because when i try n open the picture to freeze it, it just say currupted data
Hi all i am new at this my psp is updated to 2.60 how can i change it back to 1.51 without brickin it.
why does it turn off when i select photos i cant even get to select the photo
hey, im gonna be buying a psp soon, and its probably gonna be a 2.0 version from ebay…jsut curious ive been reading through all 250 posts here, and it stands to reason that the odd of success are about 95%, now the 5% that is left as unsuccessful looks to me like inexperiance.
I take comp. programming at school, 2nd year, and i gotta say, unless your a moron it loks like it will work. my one question is, how the hell would u run an emulator on it after? and in addition, if the psp is brand new, is the backround already set to that one your talking about.
thanks
hey, im gonna be buying a psp soon, and its probably gonna be a 2.0 version from ebay…jsut curious ive been reading through all 250 posts here, and it stands to reason that the odd of success are about 95%, now the 5% that is left as unsuccessful looks to me like inexperiance.
I take comp. programming at school, 2nd year, and i gotta say, unless your a moron it loks like it will work. my one question is, how the hell would u run an emulator on it after? and in addition, if the psp is brand new, is the backround already set to that one your talking about.
thanks
hey, im gonna be buying a psp soon, and its probably gonna be a 2.0 version from ebay…jsut curious ive been reading through all 250 posts here, and it stands to reason that the odd of success are about 95%, now the 5% that is left as unsuccessful looks to me like inexperiance.
I take comp. programming at school, 2nd year, and i gotta say, unless your a moron it loks like it will work. my one question is, how the hell would u run an emulator on it after? and in addition, if the psp is brand new, is the backround already set to that one your talking about.
thanks
oh, one more thing, how much does that protection plan thingy cost anyways?? id like to get it if its relatively cheap, that wayt i can get a new psp if mine bricks right?
hi can u tell me how to se psp firmware 1.50
i need 2 knw how 2 load da games plz plz help
hi,
i have 1.51 psp then sucessfully upgrade to 2.0 then once again sucessfully downgrade to 1.50. the problem is i kinda miss 2.0 so is there any way i can upgrade back to 2.0 without having any problem?
i heard there is a problem when you update to older version when you sucessfully downgrade the psp.is this true?
no text whatsover on the psp screen is that true?
can you help me update my psp from 1.50 to 2.0?
thanks
Hi! can you tell me how to put movies on when it has been downgraded.
Thanks
I am a 37 year old Mum who knows NOTHING about PSP’s but I ROCK coz I just did the downgrade EASILY in about 15 mins. Thanks sooooo much you made it so easy to follow and my Son is stoked.
where can i get an update for ver 1.5 for a US psp?… the 1.5 update is only for jap ver!
this aint working for me i put the stuff in the right place but wen i go to scroll down the pictures it frezzes but never downgrades it to 1.50 i still have 2.00 can someone tell me wat i am doing wrong i really want this to work thanx
this aint working for me i put the stuff in the right place but wen i go to scroll down the pictures it frezzes but never downgrades it to 1.50 i still have 2.00 can someone tell me wat i am doing wrong i really want this to work thanx
mine dindt work can u downgrade from 2.60
so what i can;t downgrade from 2.60
HI HOW DO YOU downgrade PSP 2.60 to 1.50 CAN ANYONE HELP ME
HELP ME MY PSP FREEZ WEEN I GO TO .TIFF PIC IT FREEZ AND STAT OVER HELP ME OR EMIL ME BLAZEMPNYC@AOL.COM
Can anybody kindly to help me? I’m facing this error message whenever I try to downgrade from 2.0 to 1.5 .. my system is 1007 .. and I already follow through those guides .. please .. thanks a lot!
The system cannot be updated.
The update program is not applicable for this system
(80000025)
Can’t they just make a overflow.mp3
i put the tif file in my photo folder but when i try to open the file it says that the file is corrupted i try to downloading the rif file form somewhere else but its the same thing please help i have 2.60 running on my psp can i still downgrade?
Apologies if this repeating old ground, but does anyone have anything on “the grapevine” about hacking v2.01?
Another quick question: Apart from the loss of the web browser, are there any other disadvantages to downgrading to a lesser version? Do any of the games require the newer versions to play, for example?
Thanks.
For the ones with no luck, it may help if you take out your UMD (the game you have inside) before you start to do all the operations.
I was blocked too until I found out about this trick! Good luck! Mine worked
Just tried this, and though I got a few different screens (due to the guy who makes the downgrader/tiff file thing upgrading it) it worked 100%, like a charm. Fucking brilliant – thank you!
Now I get to play all the cool PSP games AND all the old emulators, etc – best of both worlds. Wish I’d never “upgraded” to 2.00, though I thank God that I didn’t go to 2.01. I even kept the old 2.00 Japanese Eboot should I need it again – if anyone needs it I’ll upload it.
i did everything but i have the newer version 2.60 and when i sent the files to my psp and looked for the picture it said that the file was corrupt samething with the eboot some one help or does it even work with my version do need to have the 2.00 version to do so? someone help i’m in desprit need.
My psp says firware V 2.0 but i do not have the web browser and it doesnt support .tif files. i cannot see the overflow.tif or any other tif in my psp.I am in thailand and have a PSP1006 does any 1 have the same psp or same problem. please help!!!!
My psp says firware V 2.0 but i do not have the web browser and it doesnt support .tif files. i cannot see the overflow.tif or any other tif in my psp.I am in thailand and have a PSP1006 does any 1 have the same psp or same problem. please help!!!!
Sup… im probably the only Aussie here so uhh… GDAY, =) i was wondering once i done all this downgrading will i be able to simply update again using the update off a UMD disc? (eg. SSX world tour)
Cheers mates
Sup… im probably the only Aussie here so uhh… GDAY,
=) i was wondering once i done all this downgrading will i be able to
simply update again using the update off a UMD disc? (eg. SSX world
tour)
Cheers mates
hmm i just bought mine and its vsn 2.01 will it still work?
how do i load a dump made by fastloader 0.7? i just cant do it
hey, head 2 http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.pspbrick.html befor downgrading your psp, just a warning have fun!
i put the overflow pic in my pictures folder but when i try to access it from the memory stick it freezes before i can select the pic i have tried to restart it manually loads of times but every time i go into the photo bit it freezes what do i do HELP
everytime i go to photos it will not let me scroll down to the overflow image – just freezes and then power goes off. am i doin sumthing wrong. keep tryin turin on and off as u said but still nothin. really annoyin me now…help!!!
We bought a PSP that has a Region 2 code but we live in Region 1. Does anyone know how to switch it to Region 1?
im fuck up, i donwload this file in all pages that i can view, when i start to download my norton antivirus saids, virus found,
Does anyone know how to change a region code? Thanks – Julia
this downgrader worked perfectly for me, however i cant get my emulators to work. what am i doing wrong? what folder should i create and where?
this downgrader worked perfectly for me, however i cant get my emulators to work. what am i doing wrong? what folder should i create and where?
Please help, I ran through the downgrade for my son and all went as described. The system information says ver 1.5 and the browser is gone, basically it looks like it worked fine. Then I installed Quake-PSP and it still says it’s corrupt. Any ideas???
Please help, I ran through the downgrade for my son and all went as described. The system information says ver 1.5 and the browser is gone, basically it looks like it worked fine. Then I installed Quake-PSP and it still says it’s corrupt. Any ideas???