We don't have to remind you how big the risk is when we deal with the PSP's flash memory. No matter how good you get, there's always that danger of damaging or bricking your beloved handheld.

Well, here's something to make you smile all day long: a group of homebrew developers who refer to themselves as Team tOc (The Oblivious Coders) dropped by our forums today and released the first version of their Flash1 Formatter. This one is quite complicated, but in simple terms, the program lets you recover from a corrupted flash1 ("Woot! Woot!" as the commenters say).

Before you use this application, please take note that it only works through recovery. If you try to run it through the XMB, you will witness your PSP freeze. So beware.

Also, Team tOc added that Flash1 Formatter will only work if "lflash_fatfmt.prx" is located in flash0:/kd. In the event that it is not, the program looks in ms0:/lflash_fatfmt.prx.

There are still a few important details to take note of, so be sure to READ through the README before you do anything. (You do that anyway for EVERY piece of software before you use it, don't you?)

Furthermore, installation and usage is quite easy. After placing the folder in the root of your memory stick, all you have to do is follow the simple steps below. By the way, Team tOc is composed of well known developers EvilSeph, Moca, TUW, Ahadiel and kando.

1. Turn off your PSP
2. Turn on your PSP while holding down R to boot into Recovery Mode.
3. Scroll to "Run program at /PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP" and press Cross.
4. Press tOc (Triangle + Circle + Cross) to unlock the program [this is to force people to read this readme.txt]
5. Read the on-screen instructions (can be found in the readme file).