What you will need
A PS2
An old Credit-Card / Store loyalty card / Phonecard etc
A sharp knife
A PS2 game "Backup"
Action Replay v2+/Gameshark or DVD Region X (AR/GS recommended)
What do I do with all that?
Firstly take your credit card (etc.) and the knife and cut it to this shape:
The next step is to remove the facia from your PS2's DVD rom, it's not 100% necessary, but it makes life a lot easier and you can always put it back on later.
Eject the DVD tray and gently unclip the front of the cd tray face,being careful not to break the pins holding it to the rest of the tray.
The Swap Trick
put the tool into the DVD drive under the tray with the "hook" pointing into the console (I.E like the diagram above)
Look under the drive tray and you will see a white "pin", insert the slidecard so that the "U" shaped hook hooks onto the pin and slide it to the left until it will slide no more
the DVD tray is now "unlocked" and should be able to be pulled out manually
Put the backup in the tray and push the tray closed
slide the card back to the right so that it locks the tray again.
How to boot the backup
Depending on what type of disk you're trying to boot changes the instructions for this next section somewhat.
Booting a PS2 CD-Rip -
Works with DVD Region X and Action Replay/GameShark
Boot AR2/GS2 disc 1
Select START GAME > WITHOUT CODES
But do not push eject as prompted
do the swap trick as above
Press "X" on the controller
With DVD RegionX just load it up, do the swap trick then press start (NOT the X button, it MUST be START)
Booting a PS2 DVD backup -
Action Replay/Gameshark only
Boot AR2/GS2 disc 1.
At the main screen press the EJECT button to eject the CD tray.
Replace the AR2/GS2 disc with an original PS2 DVD game, such as Grand Theft Auto. (the bigger the better, GTA has the biggest single layer TOC @ 4.7Gb used)
Close the CD tray (press EJECT again) and wait for about 30 seconds.
Select START GAME and then select WITHOUT CODES
But do not push eject as prompted
do the swap trick as above
and press X now to start the game.
Booting a PS1 game -
Works with Action Replay/GameShark ONLY
Boot AR2/GS2 disc 2
Select START GAME > WITHOUT CODES
But do not push eject as prompted
do the swap trick as above
Press "X" on the controller
This was done from memory and the swap trick part may not be 100%. I'll check it when I get home and post corrections if needed