PS2 HDD Manager

A desktop HDD manager, formatter and provisioning tool for PlayStation 2 APA/PFS storage.

Current release: v0.2.0

Fedora/Linux is the hardware-validated platform. Windows physical-HDD workflows remain experimental.

v0.2.0 — 4 TB / Extended APA hardware validation

v0.2.0 was validated on a Toshiba X300 4 TB HDD (3.64 TiB visible to the host) populated with 1,274 PS2 games.

Validated on real PS2 hardware:

• FHDB boots from Bank 0;
• Bank 0 and Bank 1 HDL game installation and launch;
• AUTO Bank 0 -> Bank 1 rollover when Bank 0 reaches capacity;
• rapid detection/skip of already-installed exact games when a large queue is resumed;
• Extended APA-aware OPL on the >2 TiB layout;
• installed-title fixes plus OPL games.bin invalidation/rebuild;
• direct HDD IGR return to a second OPL copy on the existing HDD;
• fresh-format provisioning with HDD IGR return enabled by default;
• Bank-0 OPL artwork shared across the multi-bank game set.
• Native PS2-themed application icon on Qt, KDE/Wayland and Windows builds;

Extended APA

Large HDDs are represented as independent APA banks:

Bank 0 physical base: 0x000000000
Bank 1 physical base: 0x100000000
Bank 2 physical base: 0x200000000
...

physical_lba = (bank_index * 0x100000000) + bank_relative_lba

Bank 0 remains the boot/system bank and contains FHDB, normal PFS application/configuration storage, artwork and games. Bank 1+ are games-only APA banks.

The manager uses the matching Extended APA-aware OPL build for multi-bank disks:

https://github.com/L10N37/Open-PS2-Loader-Extended-APA

Current pinned Extended APA loader family:

v1.2.0-Beta-2273-Extended-APA-1

Upstream Open PS2 Loader:

https://github.com/ps2homebrew/Open-PS2-Loader

Transfer queue

The PC pane supports a persistent marked queue and explicit-bank or AUTO placement.

Large queues cache installed-game identities and use targeted post-install verification instead of performing full all-bank destination scans for every title.

AUTO capacity accounting stays fast through the normal part of a bank, then switches back to an authoritative live APA check near the bank boundary. This prevents accumulated allocation-estimate drift from attempting to place another title in a bank that is actually full.

If the queued source set cannot fit on the physical HDD, the manager warns before the transfer starts.

HDD IGR return

Fresh formatting/provisioning includes this option, enabled by default:

[x] Install HDD IGR Return (recommended)

The same matching OPL build is installed as:

hdd0:PP.FHDB.APPS:pfs:/OPL/OPNPS2LD.ELF
hdd0:PP.FHDB.APPS:pfs:/OPL/IGR.ELF

and the manager writes:

exit_path=hdd0:PP.FHDB.APPS:pfs:/OPL/IGR.ELF

On >2 TiB disks, both copies are the matching Extended APA-aware OPL build.

Existing formatted HDDs can add or revert the same feature with:

• Install HDD IGR Return
• Disable HDD IGR Return

No reformat is required.

PC Game ID / file pane

The PC pane has an optional Scan Game IDs checkbox.

• Off: the Game ID column remains blank and no ISO/folder probes run.
• On: the current directory is scanned asynchronously.
• Entering another directory scans it while the option remains enabled.
• Folder probing is intentionally non-recursive.
• Disabling scanning invalidates stale in-flight results.

The Date Modified column uses padded MM/dd/yy dates and the metadata columns use explicit spacing.

Game-ID/title work is shared with:

https://github.com/L10N37/PS2-ISO-Batch-Renamer-

OPL artwork

Artwork source:

https://github.com/Luden02/psx-ps2-opl-art-database

The source repository documents itself as a preserved dump of the OPL Manager GameArt database:

https://oplmanager.com/

Recorded large-library validation pass:

• 5,000 ART files installed
• 3,274 downloaded
• 1,726 reused from cache
• optional screenshots absent from the source database reported separately
• genuine unavailable/download failures reported separately

Artwork/media rights remain with their respective owners.

Modified host backends

PS2 HDD Manager uses modified pinned builds, not stock binaries, of:

• hdl-dump — https://github.com/ps2homebrew/hdl-dump
• pfsshell — https://github.com/ps2homebrew/pfsshell

Exact pinned commits and local patch descriptions are documented in:

• tools/hdl-dump/README.md
• tools/pfsshell/README.md
• THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md

Provisioning

The manager can provision/update OPL, FHDB resources, wLaunchELF ISR, Memory Card Annihilator, FHDB HDD Boot Configuration, recommended OPL settings, HDD IGR return and OPL artwork.

See PROVISIONING.md.

Building on Fedora

./prepare_fedora_test.sh --skip-packages
./build_fedora.sh
./build/fedora/PS2-HDD-Manager

Credits and third-party notices

See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Safety

PS2 HDD Manager performs raw writes to physical disks. Verify the selected target device before formatting or installing and keep backups of important data.

Windows physical-HDD workflows have not received the same real-hardware validation as Fedora/Linux.