I just learned the hard way that once you install a new hard drive into a Playstation 3 that the old one will no longer be accepted and will need to be formatted to be used again.
Yesterday I bought a 250 gig Western Digital 2.5” hard drive for my PS3. I turned on my Playstation and attempted to backup my game saves and media (videos, mp3’s, pictures) through the system menu. I needed 41 gigs to do so but I did not have this space available on any removable media. No problem I thought, I would just connect the drive to my computer and copy it that way.
I put in the new hard drive, formatted it and then plugged the old one into my PC. Much to my surprise a PS3 formatted hard drive cannot be read by either Windows XP or Vista – apparently it uses some sort of proprietary file system, I’m assuming to prevent any sort of illegal copying.
Anyways, I put the old hard drive back in only to be told that I needed to format it to use it. WTF?! After installing the new hard drive, the original 80 gig hard drive that it came with was no longer accepted and needed to be reformatted to use again!
I called Sony tech support for help (after scouring the web and finding nothing) and they were no real help. The guy on the phone did suggest using Norton Ghost to clone the drive but of course the current version won’t work with removable drives (I tried using it through a 2.5 external enclosure). I also tried Acronis True Image but it did not work either.
So here I am with a new hard drive but withouth any of my game saves or media. I can live without the media but want my saves back! I am stuck with an 80 gig hard drive formatted to some Sony file system with all my data on it and I can no longer access it. This isn’t right. It’s my data, my game saves, my media and because I removed it from my PS3 and put in a new hard drive I can no longer access it. I want my data back!
Nowhere in the manual or on the internet (or even on the PS3 itself) was I warned that once I installed a new hard drive into my Playstation that my old one would become useless unless reformatted. Further to that, why would I have ever assumed that?
Does anyone have any suggestions? Anyone able to help me out? I haven’t reformatted the 80 gig hard drive so all the data is still there. Is there any way to read it on the PC so I can at least pull my save data?
Help!
This is so obviously a case of Sony treating us like pirates! From what I understand Sony has set the PS3 to only allow one hard drive to be used at a time so we can’t share/copy/use content on more than one PS3 at a time.Why else would they do this to me? There must be some sort of key stored in the system flash RAM that lets it know a different hard drive has been inserted. As much as this ticks me off what makes it even worse is that I cannot access the data on my PC.
Anyone else have this problem? Has anyone found a solution?
Edit: Ok, so I tried again just to make sure and yes, it still does not work. This is what happens. I also tried putting the old hard drive into my enclosure but the PS3 won’t even recognize it when I plug it in.
Yup, I suck. Lost all my COD4, Rockband, Half Life, DMC4, etc, saves.
Yeah, my TV is dirty.
Wow. Why would you want two HDD units in the first place. I understand game saves, but game saves aren’t big. I have my gamesaves backed up on a 512 MB memstick.
Try using a Linux operated system to get your data from the old HDD… I think that the PS3 coding is based on that or unix or something. Thus why it doesn’t work under XP or Vista.
you can buy a 2.5″ => 3.5″ adapter at a computer parts store (like frys) and hook it inside your computer in place of the Optical drive or on another HD bus - so it wouldn’t be considered an “external” so your windows program like ghost may be able to copy it, maybe. having it hooked up and looked at by a utility, or maybe another computer type (like a Mac, which can handle a few other formats) might give you a hint on what format it is in.
Good luck!
Stop bitching about it, Sony could have pulled a microsoft and made you buy hard drives for $200
Did you try pugging the old drive (in the enclosure) into the PS3 through USB? If it’s a PS3 filesystem, it might work?
I’m sorry, but you’re a moron. Every site or guide that explains how to switch out the hard drive tells you to back up your data because you will have to reformat.
Pwnpatrol writer pwns himself on the internet. Any person worth his salt knows you backup the data before doing anything, anything! You didn’t. You backup the data before pulling out your drive. Gamesaves are small, really small. You don’t have 41gbs of space available? Do it in batches.
Also, wtf made you think you could read the hard drive in windows? You think that sony is running the same file system as windows on their machine? of course sony is treating us like pirates, all of them do. MS won’t even let you upgrade your HDD, Nintendo doesn’t even have one.
You fook’d up, now live with it.
All instructions for the PS3 HDD replacement say to backup your content first. That is said for a reason, which you found out the hard way. Why would you even use the “ass backwards” approach of installing a new HDD, then backup the original HDD by reinstalling it later? Couldn’t you have waited until the means was available before replacing your HDD? You’re definitely not going to get any pity from me considering you dug your own grave with this unorthodox approach to replace a PS3 HDD.
At the very least you should have backed up your gamesaves before replacement - I highly doubt you had 41GB of game saves.
I really just want to say this kid is a moron. You’ve all already stated why. To the poster - please stop bashing sony as this a a good feature not a bad one. No one one wants to read about retards pointing fingers.
I have a solution. Learn to research on the Internet a little better. Backing up first is always mentioned.
Have you tried looking at the drive with Ubuntu or Xubuntu? They have many more formats available to be used than FAT or NTFS from the windows world. I suspect the PS3 uses one of the linux type formats like EXT3. I was recently able to see a corrupted NTFS partition with Xubuntu running off a live disk (no need to install the operating system) and recover files neither XP or Vista could. Good luck.
You pwned yourself, noob.
How could you NOT save your game saves? They’re almost less than 2mb each? All you needed was a USB flashdrive, SD/CF/MS card, external hdd, ANYTHING! Sony gives you LOTS of options. You were just too stupid to use any of them.
I tested viewing the drive with a Ubuntu live boot shortly after launch. It returns no known filesystem.
Mr. pwnpatrol has skipped some detail somewhere. I have formatted another drive in my PS3 and re-inserted the original without incident. Unless there’s been some recent change to the firmware to disallow this, he screwed up.
yeah dude, even I’m sorry for your game saves, I bet nothing you can do to get it back! game savea are small in size and even the cheapest USB drive is enough for backup. do always backup before doing anything!!
Look just stick back in the old Hdd and resrore defalts in settings, If your Ps3 is truly not reading your old HDD try a hard reset (hold down on the power button for 60 sec when it first fires up) then delete everything but your game saves, your PSN downloads free, or paid can be downloaded again for nothing. well any way do a backup after you have cleared all your other than game saves files. I had 10 PS2/PS1 mem cards and about 6-9 PS3 saves and MY backup took about 1.2 gig BUT I forgot to delete the updates/patches for all the ps3 games and the hdd instal for on game I dont rember witch one though. Good luck
your screwed… you should’ve pluged in an External HDD to back up your data before removing the Internal HDD…
Can’t take the truth so you delete my post?
Moron
Hi
Put your PS3 80 gigs HD in a new enclosure,and plug it in a external Mac USB2 port. The Mac uses Unix and can read FAT32 formatted drives. Then you can copy all you date to the Mac. You then can put it back, see below.
Let us know if this works
It did for me, mind you I had nothing to lose. I reformatted FAT32 an external 500 gigs HD using Disktools on my MacBook, the PS3 could see the drive and and backup the original original PS3 to it before making the switch to an 200 gigs.
Didier
You screwed it up and now you are lieing i have three hardrives for my ps3 the 60 it came with the 80 i upgraded to and the 500gb i hook up internaly from a male to female sata cable that i can also use on my pc to transfer stuff back and forth. all of them i can plug in and they work just fine. You did something wrong nobody else so cry to someone else dont blame sony.
Shame dude. Haven’t you heard of google.com/search?q=how to replace ps3 hdd ???
you really are a numb nut. I tend to research before doing anything these days.
hopefully you learned this time around, and if it happens a second time, then you really are stupid.
my 2c.
cheers,
Do yourself a favor and clean your TV screen first.
some retarded comments here, anyway bad luck man, hopefully you will find a program that can access it to get your saves and stuff..
oh and when taking a picture of a tv screen DON’T use the flash
actually i myself pulled out my 60 gig hard drive from the ps3 and put it back in had no problems. no reformatting no nothing. but i didnt install a new drive either.
I think you’re out of luck. As far as I know, the internal hard drive has an encrypted filesystem. Unless you have software that can break the encryption, you won’t be able to read your PS3 data externally.
It also sounds like the encryption keys are regenerated when you format a new hard drive. That’s why you cannot read the old hard drive anymore. The PS3 doesn’t have the keys to the old drive. So you won’t be able to read it that way.
As for those people calling the guy an idiot, you should all be ashamed! He’s made an honest mistake. Let’s try and help the guy instead of insulting him.
“This is so obviously a case of Sony treating us like pirates!”
I’m sorry but Sony had to put some DRM in there, PS3 has the least of ANY system. They had to prevent people from just uploading copies of their hard drives with 50 PSN games to the net for download.
You should have just deleted all your installed game files, and then made a backup. Savegames are not that big. What were you thinking?
I know what you did wrong, you allowed Windows to fix unnown file system.
I had the same problem with my PS2 HDD.
It is Windows fault because it changed FAT table on your HDD.
You have to use Partition Files Recovery Software now, but it won’t be easy I didn’t use it on PS3 HDD.
Wow!!!! What an absolute nob!
“I needed 41 gigs [to do so] but I did not have this space available on any removable media. No problem I thought, I would just connect the drive to my computer and copy it that way.”
Fine - great idea. So, what did you do next??
“I put in the new hard drive, formatted it and then plugged the old one into my PC.”
So you set your PS3 to use new hardware BEFORE finding out if you could backup the existing hardware?????
Do you taste food to see if it’s gone off, and then read the “best before”?
Idiot. You fully deserve to have lost all your data.
I gues you don’t play RPGs. BACKUP IS KEY with (USB disk or harddrive). I got hours of games saved on PS3. And I also got them all backed up!!! Becouse if PS3 dies There DEAD TOO. And you should have done you home work before you jumped into it. I beat your one of those pepole that don’t read instruciton manuals ether.I’ll I want to say is HA HA HA HA HA HA!
I have been with the Playstation family for a long time now, starting with PS2 and all the way through with PSP and PS3. It has been an incredible ride with some bumps in the road. Got my PS3 January 10th 2007 and throughout that year I kept up with everything it had to offer and eventually upgraded it to a 250GB HDD with Ubuntu, packed it with tons of music albums with album art, game videos, loads of personal pictures and games with game saves. Everything was organized on it complimenting my 32″ 1080i Sony Bravia TV with a Sony audio 5.1 surround receiver via HDMI AND DIGITAL OPTICAL connections… it was the 4th dimension. Over a year later with 16 PS3 games and 16 Blu-Ray movies the PSN was starting to evolve in newer and better ways. On February 12th 2008 the PS3 died, I basically came home from work and turned it on, went to the bathroom, came out of the bathroom and it was off with a blinking red light of doom indicating how it “over heated”, Prior to calling Sony I did troubleshoot and concluded that it was never going to reach the XMB nor even turn on for that matter. February 26th I sent Sony the PS3 with its original HDD and I kept my 250GB HDD so that I wont lose all my data *shutter*. Seven days later I got a brand spanking new 60GB PS3, I put in my 250GB HDD and booted it up and to my expected surprise it wanted to reformat the HDD due to it not being its native drive… a horrible moment for me due to how much I did not want all my game saves and media to be lost. I referred to the forums for advice and to my distain it turns out that there is no way to save that data without utilizing the backup utility method prior to death. I ordered an enclosure to see if the XMB or WindowsXP would detect the drive and alas, they do not (waste of frickin moneys). Yesterday I gave in and went about with reinserting the 250GB HDD and reformatting it on PS3 and I now have to accept the fact my 16 and up PS3 game saves are no more. As of yesterday and today I am in the process of obtaining pictures and music that is left over on my computer, my friend’s computers and the social networking sites, it will be a ***** to redo all the album art and redownloading all the games and videos again. Now on the brighter side of things the PS3 will last me for 8 years so the loss of the first years worth of data I expect to be over shrouded by better services, memories and games as long as I backup my utility once every month or two without it giving me any blinking red light of doom. PLAY IT LOUD.
Ok first of all, what ASS HAT would take the drive out with out saving all their game saves. If you didnt have enough space on any removable media (you should have stopped right there, and GOT some removable media with the proper space).
Of course they are not going to let you reload an old harddrive without formatting it, if that were the case we all could just download warhawk or any other online game and swap hard drives.
You’re a fag.
You’re a complete STOOL FOOL!
Sony should allow PS3 users to nominate an online backup or storage folder. Like SkyDrive or some other equivelent online facility, so that you always have a synchronise folder somewhere online. I’d pay Sony a £5.00 subscription per year for that.
Did you ever consider reading the instructions that are posted all over the net? Of course you have to backup and restore. Dumb move on your part
Leave the guy alone He made a mistake, can you all say you have never made a mistake
@ Zippy
Sure I’ve made mistakes (being in IT for 10 years will bring that about). But never have I made a backup of data off of a system I’ve never backed up before without making 200% sure that I have enough storage space for ALL data. He deserved what he got. I don’t feel for him. Follow the directions…if you don’t, don’t whine about it when you can’t get all your data back…ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON’T BACK IT ALL UP!
Fair point
dork, dweeb, noob, numb ass! go play an xbox or sumthin, ps3 users are smarter than this!
Wow… you might want to research better next time fucktard.
Sounds like a typical case of MS Windows “marking” an unrecognized drive by writing to the MBR. Ask any Tivo owner who’s tried upgrading their own Tivo drive — Windows is notorious for overwriting the drive identifier on sector 0.
The fact that you can’t get Ghost to work on a (likely cheapo) USB adapter makes me suspicious of your skills. Get a real USB adapter that allows low-level drive commands, or hook it up internally inside your PC.
You *might* be able to recover the PS3 drive if you boot with a Linux CD, some low-level drive software tools and you can figure out what the drive ID is supposed to be. (And if you haven’t completely borked the drive already!)
Sony PS3 = n00b cons0le. GC = best gamer ever. GLHF being g4y pwnd n1g n3wbs.
Another option is to try the “Ext2 Installable File System For Windows” so you can try and read the native PS3 linux partitions on the old drive. Worth a try. If it works, then you’d then need to copy the gamesaves over to a memory stick or something to copy back onto the PS3.
Unless you static discharged the hard drive or something, making it a hardware problem.
As a last resort, if you need PS3 save games I would be happy to help.
You can message me at http://www.ps3hax.com/ my user name is gnosis
I’m not sure if the PS3 uses the ext2 filesystem. It might use it’s own proprietary filesystem since it does use it’s own proprietary OS. Which every other console on the market seems to do as well. But, we do know that the Cell processor uses a Power PC (PPC) architecture so any PPC based OS (e.g. Mac OSX, some flavors of Linux) should be able to read it. But I did see that someone suggested using a Linux LiveCD to get your data back. That’s a good suggestion. I’ve done that in the past before and I’ve used the Gentoo Linux Minimal Install CD to get my data back. It’s completely command-line based so you don’t have any lag when booting up or extracting data.
You should install Linux on your PC and i think then it will work.I am also trying to do that because i have some games downloaded from torrent and i will try to put them on PS3 via LINUX.
moral of the story is= go fuck urself but never change ps3 hardisk.be happy with ur orginal one:p
i want to install linux but am either scared of messin with the system or am just plain lazy more like i dont understand all the different terms yet. ati.. make led outa controlla all that rubish etccc fuc…english i say (we by a $600 system and arent happy with it so tweak tweak guess its the american way). I hear the windows of opportunity open up to u after u do it though. but posting on this guys problem. In the future id do what i did. just purchase external harddrives and use them in usb slot/hub. i just bought a 120gig WD orig 60= 180gigs, and still have original ps3drive in system. although my system kinda glitched on me the other day, im not sweatin it. I wonder whats priority, doin a restore default settings first… (doubt that would fix a problm) n then doing the system restore (after backing up stuff). Im not worried though cause i just backed everything up… and doesnt seem to glitch now but shit. 8 years… someone said ha? to everone i have a question though. when u back up the drive with that playstation option, what all is saved? not the games utility stuff right cause isnt sumait copyrighted? Dont know if i wasted space on my 120 gig by backing it up and also>>>seperately copying movies/ sum ps1 saves and ect… still thinking id loose the copyrighted stuff. -ending… dont claim to know it all and if somones kind to answer > emails Larrel4good@yahoo.com. thanx.
i wouldnt have posted my email address after calling people know it alls lol. Get ready for some email bombings.
first of all its not windows’ fault that sony and apple are f*** buddies. linux users=bird-blowers(too subtle?). rule 1 is back up your data.
Diggy you have confirmed to the world how much of an idiot we assumed you to be. Make sure to remind me never to hire you. The point here is he attached the drive to his Windows PC to get the backup files and Windows proceeded (as it is notorious for doing) to trash his PS3 drive before he could do anything about it.
It is *completely* and *irrevocably* Microsoft’s fault for forcibly writing a new drive signature onto any alien hard drive without even bothering to check with the user/owner.
The trick here is to figure out what the PS3 drive signature is supposed to be and use linux to put it back.
Sony are fuckin stupid, i had this exact problem, the PS3 is sweet an everything but why have they made it complicated for people, thats why everyone is leaving playstation for xbox360, myself i bought it mainly for games, i use my ps3 for watching blu ray and mgs4 when its out, rest of my games are on the 360. Sony you need to do your homework.
XBOX360 - you are a total nob. This is not Sony’s fault - it’s his own fault for not following the VERY SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS on how to change your hard drive. If you had the exact same problem then read every single insult on this page as if it is aimed at you. I have a 250GB hard drive in my PS3. Hey, guess what I lost when I upgraded it…… FUCK ALL COS I’M NOT THICK AS PIG SHIT.
Incidentally, my Xbox 360 days lasted for about 2 months and then I ebayed it. It’s a decent console, I’ll agree, but I kept the superior quality one.
Dumb ass.
I’m pretty sure shoving it in a USB 2.5″ HDD enclosure, and then putting it in the ps3 usb drive will work, and you’ll be able to access your files. It’s just a normal 2.5″ hdd after all.
I am sorry to hear about your loss my friend. It seems you have alot of immature people on your site thought that just want to call you a noob and this and that. I have a ps3 and have had some problems with it myself. I am having the red flashing light except in my case it only happens WHEN BACKUPING UP or FORMATING! I called sony telling them I am tech savy and that I believe my PS3 has a hard drive issue. The reason is that Oblivion was giving me issues, odd occurances and the occasional freezing. Know things about how computers work, I found it odd that I could not defrag or scandisk my PS3 HDD, so I figured a 3 hour format will help it (full format). I decided to backup the data after deleteing all game data except save files and Oblivions game data. This backup was about 17 gigs. 30 mins of backuping to a external HDD that is right out of the box (I scan disk all new drives on a computer after formating). I walked away from my PS3 while it was backing up, and came back to my PS3 off and flashing. I tryed backing up again, same thing. Deleted Oblivion data. Backuped perfectly. Formated the drive. FRLD came back but supposely it was formated ( actually I did a restore PS3 not a format). DL oblivion exp. again and as it was installing, FRLD. Started the system up again and the game is nowhere to be found. This is the time I decided to check warrenty. It is still intacted so I called and I have a box coming in 2 days. As I was on the phone I started a TRUE format, getting rid of my YDL and not caring about anything else on it. It is still formatting right now 62% with 47 mins remaining. Even if it does format and work again, I will be sending it back since I will get a new ps3 with no figure prints and scratches. No gunk in the fans from dust and smoke. And a brand new 60 gig HDD.
For those of you stating to back up in peices with the PS3. You can’t. He would have had to deleted things first. When you back up with the system, it takes EVERYTING, music,pics game data, saves, settings. The way to properly backup is
Copy pics,music and saves to something (flash drive works)
Delete those after
Delete game data that is NOT of a game with some form of addon. This will delete the addon also.
The issue that may occur while copying things, some game saves are copy protected (EG NFS:carbon) and MUST be backup up via the system backup only.
Format FULL
Remove drive.
Insert New drive.
I do not blame you for trying it your way. But I wouldn’t since the ps3 is going to be HEAVLY encyrpted and locked down since sony learned from there lesson of the ps2 and psp. Those game systems are HEAVLY hacked.
This is the reasion why I don’t put my music into my ps3, there is no point in me doing so at this time, unless I get a better sound system but then I would just hook up my pc. The other time I would is when the new update for the XMB comes out which will allow you a simular feature the Xblow 360 has, in game custom music. (with the added benifit FINALY of checking your msgs in game and such)
Again, sorry for your loss,
GameHeros.org Founder,
Hero
PS GameHeros is a gaming community http://www.gameheros.org
PSN:Starhero
Hey OP,
Sorry for your loss, though I assume by now you’ve long gotten over it. I just successfully upgraded my 40GB HDD to 120GB, and reading your cautionary post encouraged me to take necessary precautions, so thank you. Fortunately, I had enough free space on my iPod to do a full-system backup (and I still have yet to buy a game for the PS3, so I didn’t really have to worry about gamesaves to begin with). But then I did something a little stupid myself. Eager to turn my old 40GB HDD into a backup drive for my PC, I went out and bought a sleek 2.5 HDD enclosure for $20. I then popped the 40GB into the case and plugged it into my PC. The PC was unable to mount the drive. I was able to see it in the Start/My Computer/Manage section, but I was unable to format it. I went online and discovered that many people have run into the same problem. The proprietary formatting of the PS3 HDD seems to have rendered it useless as a drive for any other OS, and it can’t be formatted. So I guess my only option is to have the PS3 format the drive externally and use it as an extrenal backup for the PS3 exclusively (if it works). I guess that means I’ll have a 160GB PS3 (sort of) and I’m only out $20 for a cool piano-finish HDD enclosure that matches the PS3. There are worse things, I guess.
Seriously dude i would have done the same thing with my HDD haha also I would like to know wat is the largest compatible internal hdd i can put into my ps3 as i only have a 40gb model and i have run out of room and i am just gonna chuck the 40gb in the bin after change over… does someone have a legit answer??????
ya, kinda stupid thing to think ps3 HD is gonna be readable by windows and not backing up before u even took it out, but man! like everyone here is a douche about it. Give the dude a break
So, i’m not sure if this is actually going to work for me, but i accidently formatted my ps3 hdd trying to install linux today. Immidiately after realizing what i had done, i turned off my ps3, took out the drive, and plugged it into my pc to see if i could run some data recovery software on it. AS of right now, its 11% done with the disk scan, with 1 more hour to go. So far is HAS actually been identifying files, but until it’s finished i wont know the outcome—ill keep you posted mate.
Hey Roujin Z
Umm you can format your old PS3 hd for use on another computer - I am using vista. Go to Disk Management - The disk comes up as unrecognizable, right click on where it says “Disk #” in my case Disk 8 and select initialize. Select MBR and then you can format it.
SKeE, He’s trying to recover the stuff…not wipe it again, you can do that with the ps3, lol
I read similar article also named ard Drive For Your PS3? Say Good Bye To Your Old One at pwnpatrol - ps3 technology and gaming news, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me
sumone HELP ME!!!!!!!!
i hv recently bought a 40gb PS3 n updated it to 2.39 later on decided to change it to a wopping 250gb WD (western Digital) hard disk. but soon after i install the new 250g into the ps3, it comes up with incorrect hard disk. so aftr reviewin lots of forums. sumone stated dat for me to download the 2.36 update n put in a usb n i hav done it correctly (”usb” folder name PS3 and in dat UPDATE n in dat PSupdate file) but stil it doesnt work. m running out of options.
pls
pls
pls
sumone HELP ME!!!!!!!!
correction guys
firmware is NOT 2.39
its 2.36
sorry
pls pls pls help me
You guys are harsh. I have the same problem except my ps3 died. I took out my 250gb hdd and sent it back to sony w/ the original 60gb. I was unable to use the back up restore feature. When my 60gb comes back my 250gb won’t work in it with out reformatting. This SUCKs. I guess shame on my. In the future I will be backing up weekly to a flash drive.
i took out my hardrive just like the dumbass with the dirty tv and i put it back and nothing came out about formatting my hdd
Well all i can say is you are a retard for not doing it right…you should have copied your date once at a time…copy game saves on thumb drive or memory stick then put it on computer…delete the game saves on the thumb drive, they just take up space bc you already have them on computer….you have to delete your game data bc its too big…copy your music just like you did to the game saves….you were supposed to do it that way…does anyone have ANY common sense anymore?..we all make mistakes, but we hardly think it through when it comes to things like this
I did exactly the same thing BUT it DOES work.
I did exactly the same thing. Took my old 60Gb out (without saving) - put my new 250Gb in and formatted it and then I read this thread and thought Oops!
You’re right that PS3 hard drive won’t plug in via USB/caddy in to a PC or a Mac, but you can put the 60Gb back in and the PS3 will boot from it and your PS3 saves will still be there.
ok so we have established the guy was dumb for not finding and reading instructions first so lest not have anymore posts about the guy being dumb it takes up room and is pointless
any i have had the same problem BUT my playstation was broken and so i was unable gto back it up
fortunately i didnt have any game save that i cared about so im just going to download my psn and go download my warhawk stuff again
@PS3 Pad,
You were successful in putting your old HD in after formatting another drive?? I hope so.
Like one of the other posters, I had my console go down hard… blinking red light. So I am unable to backup my HD before sending it off for repair and I haven’t backed it up since August or so… leaving my 40-50 hours of FO3 possibly gone. Yes, I understand “I’m a dumbass” because I hadn’t backed up my HD in 90 days, but nobody ever thinks this is going to happen to them. I hope that I’m able to do like PS3 Pad was able. I don’t know what other options I have. I was going to see if there were any sony authorized repair locations locally to possibly do the repair and keep my 250g HD with it, and not reformat a factory drive… worth a shot.
Ok all u smart asses calling the guy a moron! Same thing happened to me. only difference is that i wasn’t trying to upgrade any damn hard drive!! My shit ps3 burnt out on me giving me the pussy ass blinking red light. So Sony said send it in. Those DUMBSHITS paperwork said back up hard drives cause Sony repair center will probibly loose your hard drive with all your saves and info on it. Ok here’s the thing you Tards. Problem with the broken ps3 with the blinking read light is that blinking light go on but nothing else works. No disk eject! No controlers being able to boot up the system! NO SHIT SHIT what so ever!!! If one cant boot up their ps3 system to access the back up Utility that’s build into the ps3, GUESS WHAT!!! ASSED OUT. So I get the Idea to send my ps3 in but keep the hard drive. hell i don’t care if they send me a fixed or new ps3 without a hard drive cause i kept my old one. I’ll just put my old one back in the new Ps3 they send me. Helll it’s the exact same model type i sent in. Right??? So guess what happened when i tried putting my old hard drive with all my shit in the new ps3. Yup. same as the first guy that started this whole damn post that have idiot answers and remarks form dumb shits that have never even experianced first hand what me and the other guy did. lot’s of you all are just talking out your second mouths, wannabe know it alls! making fun of a poor guy just cause you thought u had all the computer knowlage answers comming right out your asses!! haha so hate me for putting the wannabe know-it-alls on Front street!! Oh and if i misspelled any words here, Ciss My Hary Ass!
I think windows 98 uses fat32, you could see if that works.
This is crap. If your PS3 crashes you can’t put your HD in the new PS3 like you can on the XBox. You lose… Sony needs to fix this.
I had to remove my 320GB HDD from my PS3 when it died on me, and I had no backup. Sony would only replace the PS3 with the original HDD inside. Sony support told me that if I put my 320GB HDD into the new unit before I turn it on that it won’t cause a problem.
If it does, I’ll have lost 60GB of photos, 100GB of music, 60GB of videos, and somewhere in the region of 300 game saves (I never overwrite).
Bummer!
I skipped everyone’s comments cause I’m too lazy to read all of them, but I just got a 500gb 2.5″ WD drive for my ps3. I popped the old one out and put the new one in. It told me to format which i did. Then I copy a bunch of movies off of my friends computer onto the new hard drive. When I get home a week later I say to myself, “dummy, you don’t have all your game saves and data.” So I pulled the new one out and put the old one back in. Everything shows up just like it did before and then I run the data backup program. simple. Pop the new one back in and bingo! I’m in business.
So how come this worked for Holy_Batman?
so you can have multiple hard drives on the same ps3 as long as they are formated on that ps3 so the people who cant would of had a different ps3 back from sony or connected the hard drive to there computer and windows has messed it up?
so if i got a new hard drive and put it in the ps3 what would happen if i put the old one back in?
Wow, this thread is brutal…..but very informative.
I just got the YLOD last night playing Uncharted, just started level 22 (the finale)…..EFFF!
Im going out now to buy a new PS3 Slim (totally aware that I canNOT swap in my current drive seamlessly), I currently own a 60gb launch model with a 320gb I put in.
Gibbo - Sony support lied to you or mis-spoke, when you put that 320gb into the unit Sony will send you, it will reformat the 320gb and youll lose your stuff.
AMX - Holy_Batman’s story contradicts the majority of comments on this forum and I do not believe him
First of all, You all little bitches need to back off, you calling him a noob for not backing his shit up first?
What if he got the fu#*ing Yellow light of Death and can’t use his old PS3 at all to back up his files first and then he tries to put his old hd on his new PS3 to back up his files first and then pass them on to his new PS3 HD? Sony putting a lock on the HD’s is fu@*ing bull#&$T because THEY ARE the ones who fu#$ed us up with their Fu#$ing Yellow Light Of Death.
It’s JUST NOT FAIR, F#@K sony!
I agree with the boss. This amounts to nothing more than a mob giving some dude an ass whipping for making a mistake anybody could have made.
Lots of un-called-for negative comments here. I agree with you that this is not expected behaviour from a consumer electronics device.
I think this will eventually be fixable, most likely by changing the UUID of the partition on the disk to match whatever it is that the PS3 is expecting. The problem is that the entire PS3 HDD is encrypted — including the partition table, so what would normally be a relatively simple matter of modifying the partition table, is currently impossible.
I’m sure it won’t be too long before people manage to work around this though, and it is possible you can recover small portions of the data, such as save files…. so I’d recommend first taking a block copy of the (now useless) HDD first, so you have a backup.
To do all this, you’ll need to run Linux. I would recommend Ubuntu — it will give you an easy system to work with, and plenty of tools to do all of this. Above all, it is predictable — If you want to preserve your data, I would avoid Windows like the plague.
In Linux, plug in the drive, find which device node it is using ( /dev/sdX — e.g. /dev/sdb. You can find this by monitoring your system log when you plug it in) and copy all data off it using the ‘dd’ command:
dd if=/dev/sdX of=save_filename
Now you have a backup of the partition in save_filename. Duplicate it and make sure one copy is ‘untouchable’.
Now, for that ‘detective work’ I was talking about… Apparently the key that the PS3 uses to encrypt the disk is the same each time it encrypts any disk — it is unique for each cell processor. If this is the case, then you’re in luck (if instead it generates a new key each time it formats a disk, then you’re boned, but… I’ve read this isn’t the case).
So, do the same as above for your new disk, that works in the PS3. Again, Copy the backup so you have two copies, just in case.
Now, put the new disk back in the PS3, and copy a single, very large, video file (I suggest mpeg2), to the PS3 from an external disk. Again, remove the disk from the PS3 and dump it again. Then you can compare the block copies to see where the new file is — you should be able to find a contiguous block of data. Now, in there, you should be able to replace some of the inner parts of the block with some of your “lost” data from your boned HDD image.
Now, insert the HDD back into the PS3, and hopefully it still thinks the mpeg file exists — copy it off the PS3 onto an external drive.
Now, you — might — have an mpeg with some useful data in it. back it up, and see if you can run some disk recovery/forensic utilities on it (in Ubuntu, look in Synaptic package manager). The actual files will still be encrypted, but data recovery software may be able to identify a filesystem, and soem people have been able to see things like filenames.
After a fair bit of work, there’s a small chance you’ll be able to slice out portions that correspond to save games. Lots of trial and error, but once you figure it out, the actual process is very easy.
I hope this helps.
Hi i have Playstation 3 when i usb Hard Drive that says fat 32 250 gig usb to back up and it wont backup what cause it. I went out bot Sata 2.5 500 gig Hard Drive 5400 RPM for $99.00 bucks with tax $115.00 you can’t beat it the price. If you go with a sata Tara bite Hard drivr $110.00 bucks for 1000 gig.
This is what you do to install a new hard drive in your Playstation 3
1)Put in your usb stick 4 0r 8 gig turn on Playstation 3.
2)Turn on controller load your profile go to save games folder hit triangle and copy your saves to your Usb srick or drive and do the same for music and photos.
3)Turn off PS3 and unplug it and remove cover and the screw plate for hard drive take the side plates off remoove hard drive screw it to the new one
plug it in and screw plate in put cover back on.
4)Plug in PS3 plugs turn it on and ask you to format hit yes when done it will reboot you should see your profile names they will be there.
5)So simple to do and make shure 5400 RPM 1.5 sata drive 7200 RPM will work it heat up faster.
6)I called Sony see what’s the hard drive support 20 gig up to 1000 gig or more long it’s Sata one.
Well, I really think the guy who started this thread has been given a rough ride by a lot of you. Although I agree some sort of backup should have taken place, I’ve found that some ps3 data (including game saves) can not be copied due to the copy protection. I would also agreed that some where along the line windows mashed the original drive. I have two drives for my PS3 and can swop between them no problem.
Following some research I’ve found that the ps3’s own backup utility doesn’t work properly becauses of it own copy protection system. Er doesn’t that stike you as being stupid?
Lastly, it is the general PS3/PC/Mac user population who are to blame here. Who if they weren’t all obssesd with using torrent sites and sharing PS3 games saves etc the industry wouldn’t need to put these stupid protection protocals in place.
In the mean time the few people like my self who want to copy/move data for honest reasons have to suffer.
who cares. game saves aren’t all that important. at least all the online ranks and saves are backed up by sony. they’re the only important ones anyways.
Wow, you guys burned the original poster, this is a game console for consumers, not computer savy people. But you’ve lately written about some “real” solutions.
We got the YLOD, yellow light of death, with the game disk in the unit(I can’t believe that there’s an accepted term for what I see as a Sony issue, dead machine). So the game was trapped in the machine and the hard drive was unusable. Forget about asking how I got the game out…wasn’t done by Sony.
So what do we need, how about a “Linux guy or gal” who can retrieve the saves on the hard drive and tell us how to use it on the new PS3 we bought over the holiday.
Who really knows how to do this? Sounds like a business opportunity.
I did the same thing (thankfully there is only one file lost because my others were previously backed up). All of the name calling is unnecessary. If you are an IT Pro, act like a pro and simply point out the mistake and why we should back data up first. If you are some dateless geek who happens to know everything about IT but can’t score with a beached whale, shut up with the criticism.
Easy to slag someone off, right. So how about trying to be constructive? I’ve had TWO PS3’s brick on me & both 2 weeks after I did a backup! Great…
@danimalmanimal: So you don’t care about game saves, eh? Well I darn well do, when I’ve played Fallout 3 for over a year & reached level 24. So how do you recover THAT when Sony’s baby dies on you. Took them 13 weeks & 6 calls to get my game disk back & 3 hours to restore the backup.
Sony told me that all HDDs are encrpyted to run only on the PS3 that they are installed in. What a stupid, ignorant idea. Of course, they have to protect the copyrighted stuff we d/l from PSN, but you can’t back that up anyway. They could have formatted the HDD as FAT32 (say) to allow easy backup to a PC via your network & just tie the copyright stuff to the PS3.
So whatever you think of the OP, he should, IMHO, expect that the old HDD would still work in its original PS3. After all he can’t copy anything to it & if he’d put it in another PS3 it would have been reformated.
And how difficult would it be to add a network backup option? I have a 2Tb NAS RAID1 on my network, but I have to backup to a USB drive then copy THAT onto the NAS. Huh, & there’s me thinking Sony knew a thing or two about technology.
You might be hearing me rant on here as well, if my backup doesn’t restore to my new PS3 when it arrives later this week.
Try not to feel too bad, guy. I know where you’re coming from. My PS3 died without warning almost a year ago and I’m still holding onto the hard drive. (Hundreds of hours on Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is hard to give up.) I’ve tried a couple of tricks and none have worked. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to try some stuff the people here have named.