PS3 Dev Progress Update - Flowcharts and More!
However, the summer is over and we all went back to work in full force on the PS3, adding some new and very talented Devs along the way who will be helping out!
For starters, our very own ggparallel spent the past month or so along with NDT testing countless edited PS3 Firmwares on the PS3, and has been able to drastically refine our knowledge of the PS3's bootup procedure.
Below is a clear flowchart of the current theory of operation, the basic procedure is the same as we previously posted, that the system is booted in a "chain" so to speak. LV0 loads lv1ldr, which loads lv1.self (the Hypervisor).
Then depending on the system to be booted, loads the proper Hypervisor policy and then loads the lv2loader for the GameOS. That in turn, loads the LV2 Kernel, which is also hash checked (so we can't change it, forgetting the fact that its encrypted too). From there, the rest of the system is brought up.
Furthermore, we have still been digging through the flash dump of our Service Mode PS3 (more on this soon), and noticed that the bootloader 1 is quite different than the bootloader 1 of a Retail PS3, as well as other data that is in the wrong places on the Service Mode System.
Finally, we have lots more exciting news, but only one hint for the moment. Any tests we did on the FW was limited to a certain size, due to ECC data that also needed to be changed. We found a way around this, but it was very slow and was a manual process - not very fun! However, the hint comes that now, it takes only a few minutes - look forward to updates soon!
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