So 2 months ago roughly, I acuired an Xbox and a PS2 off my cousin-in-law Billy while my father and I were up in Detroit. Both were in decent shape, and the first thing was do XBMC with the Xbox. That has been a killer softmod, and the guys and I love it here at the apartment for movies.
http://ashholt.googlepages.com/ps2softmod
It’s only been until recently that I went through with softmodding the PS2. I bought an 80GB Maxtor which is the recommended HD to use for the Network adapter. This weekend I did some research, and with limited places to look, I ended up with an OLD school Gameshark 2 to use as the swap disc initiator. After much researching, it seems that there was only certain USB drives that could work to swap data from the USB to Mem Card. Without the data on the Mem Card, nothing will work.
After much consultation with my work buddy Josh, we found a burnable install disc (Here:http://blog.e-tutorial.info/2008/10/how-to-install-ps2-memory-card-exploit.html) that would work with the Gameshark to get the data onto the Mem Card. Everything went through, and now we can harness the power of the 80GB HD and HDLoader!
Follow what both guides have done, the only variance is the cheat system you use (Codebreaker, Action Replay Max, Gameshark, etc)
Use a PS1 game that you never use! The game will have to stay in as the trigger if you run the PS2