How to Build a Custom FreeDVDBoot Disc with Your Own Homebrew
The prebuilt ISO boots uLaunchELF. A custom disc boots your homebrew selection directly — same exploit, your payload.
Short answer: Take the Slim filesystem directory from CTurt’s repository, copy your homebrew .ELF files into it, generate a UDF (or ISO9660/UDF hybrid) image with VIDEO_TS at the root, and burn it like a prebuilt ISO. uLaunchELF remains the sensible initial program unless you know exactly what you are replacing and why.
Slim custom disc, step by step
- From the repository, use the directory Filesystems/All PS2 slims (3.10 + 3.11) – English language/ — the one that supports all Slim consoles.
- Copy every homebrew .ELF you want on the disc into that directory.
- Generate a UDF image of the directory so that VIDEO_TS sits at the root. On Windows, ImgBurn works and will warn that VIDEO_TS.BUP is missing — click Continue anyway (the README says the PS2 does not require it). On Linux, use the genisoimage command in the Mac/Linux guide.
- Test the image if you can, then burn it to a DVD-R at the lowest speed, finalised, and boot it with the console language set to English.
Replacing the initial program (advanced)
The default initial program is uLaunchELF, recompiled with DVD support. On Slim, the exploit boots VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.IFO as an ELF, so replacing that file with another ELF boots that program instead — with a caveat from the README: the first release’s loader does not reimplement a couple of functions around 0x84000–0x85fff and 0x250000–0x29ffff, so the replacement ELF must not overwrite those regions (check with readelf -l). For Phat, the ELF is read from offset 0x5bb000 in the ISO and replaced with a hex editor. If any of that sounds unfamiliar, keep uLaunchELF as the initial program and launch your ELFs from it — that is the supported path, and it is what the prebuilt ISO does.
Phat custom discs
The README says Phat custom-disc instructions are “coming soon”. Do not copy Slim custom-disc steps onto a Fat and expect them to work: the Phat payload layout differs. For a Fat, the reliable path is the prebuilt ISO for your DVD Player version, plus USB-loaded homebrew from uLaunchELF.
What belongs on a custom disc
Homebrew you wrote or that is openly distributed as homebrew: file managers, installers (FreeMCBoot, Fortuna), emulators, and utilities. Do not put commercial game images or BIOS files on a custom disc, and do not distribute a disc that contains them — the site’s anti-piracy line in the disclaimer applies to custom discs too.
Next steps
Verified against: CTurt FreeDVDBoot README (Custom disc setup – Slim; Replacing the initial program – Slim/Phat), checked 2026-10-24.