Seen as it is now about 3am in the UK it would likely be a few hours before xist gets back to you.
The reason people are suggesting chickHEN is because it is that easy/foolproof (pandora might require to think at one stage, this will not) and it can be done with minimal hardware/effort: pandora requires a modded battery and a given size range of memory stick while chickHEN and beyond can be done with a 32 meg stick (in fact I did it with one).
The theory is that there is a problem with the PSP kernels reading of tiff images although 5.03 is the only one to have a worked exploit presently available hence having to update to 5.03 (note there is 5.50 for which the exploit will not work).
Once there (on indeed before if you fancy getting it all done at once) you get some of the specially crafted pictures on your memory card. You try to look at them from the menu and the PSP will load up the HEN firmware, this can take a bit of time to get working properly so just reset and try again if it does not work at first. When it does work your screen will go all funny colours and in the system info it will say it is running a HEN.
There are a few things people try to make it more reliable, personally I just reset the entire settings if it fails more than a few times) and the PSP crashes and loads the HEN (homebrew enabler) firmware.
This HEN is only a temporary softmod (it works by patching the ram) and indeed it is as far as the PSP3000 and the "unhackable" PSP2000s can go at present. It will be lost on power down but as firmware installers (like hellcats) are homebrew well I am sure you get where that is going.
Note for others while loony747 has a hackable PSP you may not and installing a CFW permanently on an unhackable PSP2000 (or 3000) will probably brick the PSP (list here:
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=183671 ), you can use
http://www.psp-hacks.com/2009/05/08/pspident-04-released/ to tell what your PSP has.
Quick and dirty glossary.
CFW: custom firmware, most people use the CFW from team m33. They are hacked versions of the official firmware.
HEN: homebrew enabler. This has changed from older systems and not it is a custom firmware that is not written to the NAND (onboard memory) of the PSP but needs to be loaded every time.
OFW: official firmware that Sony makes. 5.03 is the only one that works for the chickHEN method.
PSP 1000: the name of the original model of PSP (aka fat/phat PSP), 2000 is the slim and 3000 is the one with a new screen. All PSP 1000s can use a CFW, a fair few older 2000s and no 3000s can. You can however use chickHEN on all PSPs provided you are on 5.03 firmware.
Related to this is the motherboard number usually TA-0?? sometimes with a v?? at the end that more accurately detail what models can be hacked, details here:
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=183671
Pandora battery: perhaps misnamed depending on who you speak to but for most it is the generic term covering modified batteries for the PSP that put it in service mode. You can make one with software if you have a compatible modded PSP or you have make one by desoldering some pins inside the battery or you can just buy one instead.
Tools of the trade:
5.03 update:
http://pspslimhacks.com/chickhen-released-...ew-on-all-psps/ (do a page search for PSP Firmware 5.03)
chickHEN R2. I suggest an easy installer, note this is for the phat/PSP 1000 only there are many easy installers for the later models.
http://downloads.exophase.com/508/chickhen...aller-for-phat/
From here your CFW installer of choice, hellcats is a good choice.
http://pspupdates.qj.net/Hellcat-s-Recover...g/49/aid/131752
You will probably need a copy of the so called 500.pbp if this is the first time (it is), not sure if I can link this one (I am assuming yes) but I will skip it anyway. It is not like it is hard to find.
25.8 MB (27,106,965 bytes)
CRC32 = 4300388C
MD5= 60AA0356D4C66F589B71CFC9ABC08713
SHA1 = CBD6C11B3C527E9B2878FFD07A307367A0FAC097 (I do not know of any fakes but hey).
Note hellcats will likely install the M33 team's 5.00 m33-4 firmware, we are now up to r6 (5.00 m33-6) but that is a simple network update away: unless you tell it otherwise (in the recovery menu (hold R on boot*) you will not update from Sony's servers.
*you might also want to enter the recovery menu and add some tweaks like skipping the sony logo, using a no UMD "driver" (probably want this one regardless) and whatever else takes your fancy.
In contrast the only thing pandora has over this is the ability to do it to a PSP in 5.50 firmware (well any firmware for that matter) and that it is fairly sure to work "first time" while you may have to reset the PSP a few times to get chickHEN to work.
