This guide is for older FAT PS2 owners, which conveniently has an internal hard drive slot and can be put to use for games. This way you don't have to strain the lens and downloads get quite short depending on the game.
Swap Magic's feature; starting *.ELF (programs) via USB flash drive.
Note! I later installed FreeMCBoot on the PS2, so Swap Magic discs are not needed (except for installing FreeMCBoot, though alternative installation methods exist).
Store multiple programs in the USB
Mass Storage Devices:
1. You can put maximum 4 files in the SWAPMAGIC folder at the
same time. You will need to rename those programs to
SMBOOT0.ELF, SMBOOT1.ELF, SMBOOT2.ELF and
SMBOOT3.ELF respectively.
2. Plug-in the USB Mass Storage Device to the USB port of the
PS2, and then boots your PS2 with CODER disc.
3. After booting up your PS2 with CODER disc, you will see a
“BOOT DISC” window.
4. Select “SMBOOT” and you will see another window “LAUNCH
SMBOOT”, select the program file and press to run the
program.
Source*
Applying the instructions, you "install" this program to the flash drive.
So you rename hdld_svr.ELF to SMBOOT0.ELF and move it to the flash drive in a folder named SWAPMAGIC, which Swap Magic can find. Maximum four programs can be present at once. Possibly for network configuration changes you should also put uLaunchelf as the second program, i.e. SMBOOT1.ELF.
If you set the IP to 192.168.0.10, the default gateway must be 192.168.0.1. If you set the IP to 192.168.1.10, the default gateway must be 192.168.1.1.
With the Swap Magic disc, launch SMBOOT0.ELF (i.e. the server program). Check the IP Address that appears on screen and that's the one you set. Sometimes PS2 bugs and it loads settings from another memory card especially when McFreeBoot is installed, the first card happens to be a slower Chinese 64mb memory card. Sometimes you need to disconnect the power cable to reset the situation.
The computer needs HDL Dump program, through which you can install games.
Set the HDL Dump program to the PS2's IP address and press Attach. The program is very simple so I won't go into explaining its use.
Note! HDL Dump always creates a "Device not ready" error message. It just says it couldn't find the PS2's hard drive on the computer where there isn't one anyway.
If you couldn't get the program to connect, start the Windows command console aka cmd. Type e.g. ping 192.168.0.10 and if it doesn't respond then something is wrong.
Games can be launched with HDLoader or the newer OpenPS2Loader.
?
*Does everything work from the hard drive?
--There are some compatibility lists, such as this one
and this one.
Some games require VMC Fix - patch.
In HDLoader's list view you can select additional settings by scrolling through a game and pressing the controller's select button. For example Burnout Revenge only worked when I selected Disable DVD9 support, Kill HDL After Launch, Disable network support and Disable CzC Patch.
*Doesn't work with HDLoader?
--Try ppf-patcher:
Browse to this page's HD Game Fixes section, if there's possibly a patch you can install with ppf-patcher.
*The game is in NTSC format, how to fix the color problem?
--Ps2
pal2ntsc y-fix
This works by attaching an elf launcher to the game which patches the color system files...
May not work with all games. Make pn selector - adds a startup menu for different video modes before the game starts. Press patch file
If the game works without the y-fix and you want to remove the menu, do the conversion with an older version that doesn't have this
feature - PS2 2005 VFIX Or if you still want more there's a
adjustable y fix(?) Pal2Ntsc yfix.