Charlie:
Thank you very much for your reply. Appreciate your taking out the time.
The installer I went to has been doing ps2 and xbox installs for quite some time so it is not that he is inexperienced or anything. I had a a friend's v4 ps2 (to be modded with a messiah 2) and another friend's xbox and he did both within 1 hour each.
But with my ps2, he has done everything. He has modded a v5 with messiah2 successfully and he tells me that he really can't figure out what the problem with my brand new ps2 is.
What happens is that I put in a dvd-r (TDK) or cd-r and it comes up with the red screen that says something like "not valid ps2 disc, put in proper disc". He says that he has checked all 23 wires end to end and there is really nothing wrong with that. I forwarded your reply to him and he said he already checked for those scenarios.
So, any ideas on how to crack this? (Just my darn luck!

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