PSP:JigKick Battery

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 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.

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.

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, due to said models' non-smart and non-removable batteries), but no compatible firmware installer is in the wild yet.