Stage 1 - Prepare a Hard Drive

In this stage we will

• Find a suitable hard drive
• Setup its jumpers
• Install it on a PC
• Clear any existing partitions
• Initialise the HDD using WinHIIP
• Format the HDD
• The HDD will be ready to accept ISO game files

An IDE hard drive of less than 2TB is required. Any IDE drive will be logically compatible provided it is less than 2TB but it is recommended to use a 3.5 inch HDD and IDE or SATA may be used. The choice of HDD will depend on the choice of HDD interface adapter because when you obtain the adaptor it must fit the HDD.

For example, if you a HDD interface adapter (eg Gamestar) that is IDE with the molex power plug, then you will of course need to find a HDD that is physically compatible with this. This also applies if you choose the SATA version.

For this project we will use an older IDE with molex interface.

Shown here is a Hitachi Deskstar 82GB unit.

This HDD is the older IDE with molex power connector

We must prepare the HDD to mate with a PC so that our computer can see the HDD.

Once the HDD is connected to our computer, we can go to DiskManager in Windows and then carefully select the disk and delete its partitions. This stage is Important as getting this wrong will cause permanent loss of data to a drive you do not want to delete.

In Windows 10, this is Disk Manager showing the disk we want to use

The Hitachi disk's partitions have been deleted now

We must now initialise the HDD

Download and install WinHIIP. Right click the exe file and run as administrator

WinHIIP

Select the drive you processed earlier. Do this by clicking "Select Drive"

Select the drive. WinHIIP may alert you that the drive has no PS2 partition

Format the drive

Format completed

Select 48 Bit

Your HDD is now ready to copy ISO files over

At this stage, leave the HDD inserted to your PC and proceed to Stage 2 where we will backup the PS2 original game disks. These will then be copied over.

Next: Stage 2