I found one used, beatup blank cd buried in a pile of coasters, so all is well.
I just burned the hdadvance .elf into the dev2install disc and installed it onto my HDD for DEV2 mode.
Now the ps2 boots right up into hdadvance without a cd
But it seems the elf version doesnt run games that the full cd version does
Oh well, god of war works, and makes all the soldering and configuring well worth it! (which pics of your work made much easier BTW thanks!)