PSP:Pandora Battery

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A Pandora (original 2007 scene name) or JigKick (official name) battery is a device that forces a PSP to boot from sector 16 of a "Magic" Memory Stick instead of internal NAND.

Traditional definition

Traditionally, this means a battery with a serial number of FFFFFFFF, which can be achieved in a number of ways:

  • Early consoles (all 1000 and the very first TA-085v1 2000s) can reprogram batteries, given the right software such as PSP:Hellcat's Recovery Flasher;
  • Datel used to sell, under the "TOOL" product range, both pre-made batteries and a standalone programmer alternating between Pandora and generic serial numbers;
  • Some 3rd party batteries were manufactured with a battery check button that, if held down for many seconds before inserting them in the console, overrode the serial number;
  • If the EEPROM is disconnected from an official battery's regulator and interface chip, open bus behaviour will result in all-FF reads!

Such a device will work on every PSP-1000 and 2000; the Magic MS will also need to contain a valid bootloader (which is generally not a problem, as all of these consoles except TA-088v3 support traditional CIPL).

The TA-088v3, indeed, had for a long time been believed to be Pandora incompatible due to the conflation of that with traditional fakesigned CIPL[1] support, but it is compatible with the official (signed) service software - as long as the Memory Stick serial number is changed to satisfy DRM in said utility[2].

Only in 2018, thanks to the high-profile PS3 original exploitation and mathieulh's efforts, a proper (C)IPL signer was released, which resulted in PSP:Despertar del Cementerio 9 being supported on "all" models (limited by DC9 being based on 5.02).

Strict definition

On all newer consoles, the traditional Pandora battery will not work, as the official/authoritative definition of it includes a cryptographic handshake with the battery's regulator: Datel did allegedly invent such a battery by the end of 2008 (the Lite Blue TOOL) but it was unreleased due to legal trouble.

In 2021, Baryon Sweeper (a computer program that, combined with a 0-5V serial port, provides a sufficiently accurate emulation of a battery) was released.[3][4][5]

As of mid-2023, the combination of Baryon Sweeper and (official recovery images, or, if supported, DC9) will provide full software recovery for 1000/2000/3000 models.

As for the N1000 and E1000, they are theoretically supported by Baryon Sweeper (the connection point for which was moved to the USB port[6][7], due to said models' non-smart and non-removable batteries), but no compatible firmware installer is in the wild yet.

References