USB Mass Storage
USB flash drives, hard disks and card readers are the most flexible storage Launchstation supports: application library, file transfers, PS2 ISOs for Neutrino, POPStarter VCDs and Ember games can all live on a FAT32 or exFAT USB disk.
What is supported
- Filesystems: FAT32 and exFAT through the BDM/FatFs stack. Each partition of a drive becomes its own logical unit.
- Units: up to ten logical units,
MASS 0toMASS 9(usb0:…usb9:internally, shown asmass0:… in paths and breadcrumbs). The console itself has two ports; a hub is needed for more drives. - Hot-plug: attaching or removing a drive while the dashboard runs refreshes the device cards and plays the connect/disconnect sound (after a two-second settling period at start-up so boot-time mounts stay silent). Cached results are used for drawing; no USB I/O happens while the screen is being drawn.
- Also on USB: a USB keyboard (Settings > Input > USB keyboard) shares the same host controller. The optional DS3/DS4 build adds its own USB/Bluetooth controller drivers.
Using USB
- Plug the drive in. If Auto-start USB storage is on (Settings > Storage & devices > Start devices automatically, default off) USB is ready when the dashboard opens. Otherwise the device card reads Not connected (dim) until you open it.
- Open MASS in the Files tab device cards. Launchstation loads the USB drivers (USB host, BDM, BDM file system, USB mass storage), then probes up to four times, 0.6 s apart. It accepts the first drive and waits a short time for a second.
- When drives are found there is one card per logical unit (MASS 0, MASS 1…, status Ready). If none is found the card reads Connect a USB storage device.
The USB card also appears with a legacy alias mass: (the first available unit). Do not hard-code mass0:: attach order, partitions and other BDM devices (MX4SIO, iLink) all take numbers from the same massN: namespace.
Using USB for games
| Content | Layout |
|---|---|
| Applications | mass:/APPS/<app>/ and mass:/BOOT/<app>/ are scanned by default for the Home application library (one sub-folder deep). |
| PS2 ISO (Neutrino) | Any folder; Neutrino can be on the same disk in /neutrino/ (or on a memory card). Backend usb. |
| PS1 VCD (POPStarter) | POPS/*.VCD at the root; POPS/POPSTARTER.ELF is found automatically. |
| PS1 CUE/BIN/EXE (Ember) | <folder>/games/<Game>/ with ember.elf and bios.bin in the folder above games. USB gets a dedicated remount hand-off. |
Stability notes
- Every USB filesystem probe is a synchronous call to the PS2’s I/O processor. Retries are bounded, but a single call that blocks inside the driver cannot be timed out safely by the main CPU.
- If the controller’s analog light goes out and animation stops during USB start, the IOP (or PAD/SIO2 session) is stalled. That is a driver/hardware stall, not necessarily a Launchstation reset.
- Two bus-powered drives can exceed the console’s USB power budget; use a powered hub.
- Do not unplug a drive while writing. Copy errors name the numeric driver code.
- Launchstation loads the USB host driver before the BDM filesystem modules and uses the pre-rewrite
usbdhost driver, which avoids a lock-up seen with the newer one on some consoles. Intermittent first-access freezes on setups with many attached devices are still under investigation; see the USB stability audit. - USB can be started together with HDD, exFAT HDD, iLink and UDPFS. MMCE and MX4SIO can also coexist with USB; only MMCE and MX4SIO exclude each other.
Diagnostics
Tools > USB unit diagnostics shows the cached logical-unit mask with no I/O, or probes unit 0 or unit 1 one at a time. Each manual probe could freeze a failing console; use it deliberately. Logical usb0:/usb1: numbers do not identify physical ports.
Troubleshooting
- “No USB storage device was found”. Check the drive is FAT32/exFAT and has a partition table the console can read; try one drive at a time and a different port.
- Second drive missing. It may enumerate after the probe window. Use Check again on the USB card, or attach it before opening USB.
- A path with a remembered unit number fails. Re-pick the unit from the device list; numbering follows attach order.
- Freezes at start. Boot with only one drive, try a powered hub, and record whether MMCE/MX4SIO/UDPFS were started first. Include the exact build hash.