New Hard Drive For Your PS3? Say Good Bye To Your Old One

[wraggster]

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!

http://pwnpatrol.com/2008/new-hard-drive-for-your-ps3-say-good-bye-to-your-old-one/

[____anders____]

wow, that's bad sorry to hear that, so you can just buy a new HDD and stick it in? that's cool..
but i don't own a PS3 so i don't know what cool stuff it can do.. yet:)

[Accordion]

the Back up utility is on the PS3 for a reason.

Any demos, games, game data, videos, music, photos can be downloaded again.
All you really need to backup is the save game files.

Im sure reading the instruction manual would have prevented this.

[Triv1um]

I havent upgraded mine yet... Don't intend to in the long run.

I always keep a backup of my saves anyway, to a external HDD, but i didnt know they need to be re-formated when you put them in again.. Stinger.

Sorry to hear about it.

If i lost my oblivion save, i know i would be pissed.. 200 hours of gameplay aint that easy to get back.

[splodger15]

I had to upgrade mine due to my orginal 60gb being corrupted

[goity]

just shove it in a usb 2.5" enclosure. you'll be able to access everything that way.

[DPyro]

Uh, you clearly didn't read what he said...

[goity]

Uh, you clearly didn't read what he said...

Obviously you couldn't if it was corrupted; I meant about the original problem on pwnpatrol.

[jdnation]

Best to transfer all your files etc to an external storage first via USB, then install your new HDD and then put them back on...

[/_[][]_\2.0]

what? i have two sixty gigs one for games and the other for media. they both work fine. after i formatted the new one i put the old one back in with out any problems.

[F9zDark]

Had this person:

-Read the Instruction Manual

And

-Did a search at the Official PS3 Boards

He would have found that his method does not work.

Should have invested in a USB Hard-drive enclosure or USB Hard-drive prior to doing this.

[Shrygue]

I saw a 320GB 2.50 inch sata hard drive not too long ago, I wouldn't mind having that. 60GB is probably not enough if those who would use the console to store and playback/view videos, audio and phohographs, along with game demos/add ons. Just I'll wait untill the price goes down on that one.

Bit of a shame that one you stick in the new one, the old drive requires a reformat to be used again. Best to export all saved infomation on thee old disk to an external one before upgrading

[F9zDark]

[]_\2.0;2148042312']what? i have two sixty gigs one for games and the other for media. they both work fine. after i formatted the new one i put the old one back in with out any problems.

The problem must be with the space, if you format a 60gb HDD to use with the system, the PS3 expects a 60gb to be there; so swapping between 2 60gb HDDs should work.

However, his PS3 expected a 250gb HDD, so when he swapped it with a 60gb the PS3 had a brain fart.

[Triv1um]

Had this person:


This person is actually Wrag.

So swapping 2 60's works?

Because i wouldnt mind doing that.

Also, if you had someone else 60 with loads of psn games on, will you be able to play them? I'm guessing not, but do you know?

[F9zDark]

This person is actually Wrag.

So swapping 2 60's works?

Because i wouldnt mind doing that.

Also, if you had someone else 60 with loads of psn games on, will you be able to play them? I'm guessing not, but do you know?

That is an assumption on my part since a member said it did work without a hitch. If you plan on updating, get an HDD enclosure and use a spare drive you have lying around to "be on the safe side".

It makes sense too if you think about it. Chances are, when the HDD is formatted to be used on the PS3, it stores information on the drive's specs in the flash to make it work consistently (a sort of "driver" for instance). Theoretically, so long as the drive coming out matches the drive going in, the "drivers" won't need to be updated.

Again, its just an assumption on my part. I have got an 8gb memory stick so I can backup my saves to that should I ever get a new drive. But chances are, I'd get an external before I'd get an internal, because I'd be too lazy to have to recopy all that music back to my PS3.

For media like music and movies, External would be the better way to go anyhow; you can then at least move that drive to your computer to copy music and movies to and move it back when its done or take that with you should you want that space on a laptop or on another system.