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PS3 HDD transfer - Few questions

S

Shining Sunshine

Banned
So I took a look at this from an old GAF thread: http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/transferutility.html

Great. Straightforward, but I have a few questions.

My source HDD is bigger than my destination HDD (maybe vice versa if I buy a new HDD). Will any mismatch cause issues aside from obviously running out of space?

Will transferring automatically take all my accounts?

Is it really not possible to switch HDDs and call it done? =(
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
No it's not possible to just switch HDDs, and the only issues you would have going from a large HDD to a smaller one would be not having the space.

When I did this for a phat to slim PS3 it worked like a charm, I would suggest going into the game data folder and deleting all the game installs you might have beforehand though, should save most people playing PS3 games for a few years a ton of space.
 
B

baekshi

Banned
CorrisD said:
No it's not possible to just switch HDDs, and the only issues you would have going from a large HDD to a smaller one would be not having the space.

When I did this for a phat to slim PS3 it worked like a charm, I would suggest going into the game data folder and deleting all the game installs you might have beforehand though, should save most people playing PS3 games for a few years a ton of space.
Click to expand...

Do this, or you might get stuck forever and have transfers fails ;_;
 
A

androvsky

Member
Be a little careful about deleting game installs, since LittleBigPlanet 1 & 2 both use the game data directory for the saves. You can back up the saves to a real save file though. Gran Turismo 5 might also, not sure on that one. Either way, files like that should be pretty small and (hopefully) labeled as being something like profile data.

And yes, the data transfer utility will get all your accounts, iirc it'll even make you deactivate them all before it'll do the transfer.
 
S

Shining Sunshine

Banned
Hmm yeah I could delete all those videos too. Should have enough space... but then I want to use my current HDD since it's bigger...

Would using an external HDD method would be better for me?
 
D

disappeared

Banned
Just remember that your game save files won't carry over unless you first pull them off the system to either a portable device, or to sony's cloud storage.
 
E

endlessflood

Member
I recommend deleting everything that you possibly can first. It was such a shitfight trying to get my fat's data transferred to my slim that in the end I just gave up. I had a lot of game installs, custom XMB themes, and demos; I'm not sure which of those (possibly all?) was the cause of my problems, but every transfer attempt took about 12 hours and then failed. I ended up just copying my save files manually and accepting the loss of the copy-protected save files. At least now you have the option of cloud storage through PS+ so won't have to lose copy-protected saves.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Basically the guidelines are:
1. Disable internet connection under network settings
2. Make sure both consoles have the same firmware version
3. Deactivate the consoles first (though you can do it from the SEN account page)

If I remember right it did take a while before it got past "Please Wait". And it also took me 3 straight days to transfer ~200GB of data to the new console.
 
M

MGR

Member
Shouldn't need cross over cable.

Maybe check both PS3's are set to 'Wired' network in the system/connection settings.
 
M

MGR

Member
Shining Sunshine said:
Alright, gonna attempt the External HDD method...
Click to expand...

Still not clear on what you're trying to do?

I assume:
- you have a new PS3 and want to transfer all the data from the old to the new console?
- the hard drive in your old console is bigger than the new one? (hence why you want to use the existing larger hard drive in the new console)

You cannot backup to an external drive and restore onto a new (different) system.
 
J

Jeramii

Banned
The only way I was able to get the transfer to work was to back up everything to a external, and then transfer it. it only sucked is that I ended up having to redownload all my games. A few things did transfer though, and all saves were fine.

I don't know if anyone mentioned it or if the thread you were reading before mentions it. But if you get an error with the new hard drive not wanting to work in your system, go purchase a jumper for the HDD. I believe it was related to 6.0 vs 3.0 transfer rate, so you need to limit it. Something along those lines. My one PS3 had no problems with a new HDD, I bought the same type of HDD and my other required a jumper.

(i didn't read any posts above, so someone may have answered this next part). but all your accounts are saved to the system, not the HDD. so they should be there when you go back. just none of your saves or data will be there.
 
S

Shining Sunshine

Banned
MGR said:
Still not clear on what you're trying to do?

I assume:
- you have a new PS3 and want to transfer all the data from the old to the new console?
- the hard drive in your old console is bigger than the new one? (hence why you want to use the existing larger hard drive in the new console)

You cannot backup to an external drive and restore onto a new (different) system.
Click to expand...

No wai. 8(

What doesn't get restored? I'd like to have at least my accounts and downloaded games.

Save files are all on PSN+.

Yeah, it turned out that I was still short a few gigs for what I wanted to transfer. I'm just going to swap my bigger HDD into the new PS3, format it, then throw in the data from the External HDD.
 
M

MGR

Member
Shining Sunshine said:
No wai. 8(

What doesn't get restored? I'd like to have at least my accounts and downloaded games.

Save files are all on PSN+.

Yeah, it turned out that I was still short a few gigs for what I wanted to transfer. I'm just going to swap my bigger HDD into the new PS3, format it, then throw in the data from the External HDD.
Click to expand...

The only stuff that gets restored onto the new system (doing an external backup) is data that's not copy protected. Your photos, your video, your musics, unprotected game saves etc. Basically anything that you can copy onto a USB thumb drive normally.

It does not restore games, game data, games demos, copy protected video/audio etc. The data transfer utility CAN copy this content and transfers the licensing to the new console at the same time (and erases the content off the old system).

Given you're on PS+ and you can copy your protected saves to the cloud, you could just transfer the unprotected data using the backup utility and re-download all your games, demos and game data.
 
corrosivefrost

corrosivefrost

Member
I seem to recall transfer working well... except that all the accounts didn't take over their saved passwords. This was a pain in the nuts for me to recover them all.

Ultimately, the best thing to do these days, if you don't have a low bandwidth cap on your home internet, would be to just push all your saves to PS+ and then swap the HDDs. You can pull all your saves back down and just reinstall or redownload your games as you want them. This is the easiest way, most likely.

Also, beware -- I did my HDD swapping process during a FW which was unable to install itself onto a new HDD. This caused a super headache (twice!) where I had to do a byte by byte copy of my old ps3 HDD to the new larger one, then do a backup of all the data, then format, then restore. I still harbor a lot of rage about that process.
 
S

Shining Sunshine

Banned
Start transfer. Go to work.

Come Home. 86%. 1hr41min. Must be stuck. Wait a few more.

89%. 1h23min left. Woo hoo still going!

3 hours later. 89%..... -_-
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Ah, so you're doing the console to console transfer after all?
Never trust the percentage, it's terribly inaccurate. Mine stayed at 3 hours remaining for over a day.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Shining Sunshine said:
Over a day? lol

I'm transferring about 180gigs. What's the approximate?
Click to expand...

Just slightly over 3 days for me to transfer around 200GB. I was worried the whole time that my old console would suddenly conk out again with a YLOD.
But hey, at least everything should look exactly the same as on your old console.
 
B

Bill Rizer

Member
Don't transfer game installs via backup. When restoring data, this will result in fragmented data on the new hdd, causing longer load times and prominent stuttering while playing games, especially those with dynamic loading (e.g. very noticeable in Warhawk). Best way to do things is first erase game installs, then reinstalls them (or redownload) them manually.
 
S

Shining Sunshine

Banned
I'm about to give up and just start fresh on my new ps3...

If I sign in with my existing accounts, it should be good, right?

All my saves are on PS+.
 
Baron

Baron

Member
I'm going to buy a new (first revision) Slim soon to replace my aging (but still running perfectly) 80GB fatty model. The fatty has a 640GB HDD that's 600 GB full, and I was planning on sticking a 750GB or 1TB drive in the new PS3 and just transferring everything over from PS3 to PS3. However, everything I've read here and elsewhere implies that's a huge headache and I should just redownload everything from PSN on my new system. Is that really the way to go? I've got a download list history over 4 years long...it'll take days to just scroll down and select everything to be downloaded again, and that's not even getting into the wait to re-download 500 gigs of games and all.

What's the best way to do this? And also, are there any 1TB drives out there that fit into the first Slim, or is 750GB the max right now?

edit:
I was thinking about this drive: WD 1TB HDD.

Anyone using this one in their slim?
 
E

endlessflood

Member
Baron said:
And also, are there any 1TB drives out there that fit into the first Slim, or is 750GB the max right now?

edit:
I was thinking about this drive: WD 1TB HDD.

Anyone using this one in their slim?
Click to expand...

As long as it's a 2.5" SATA HDD that isn't more than 9.5mm tall you're in business. I'm not sure if the drive you posted meets those criteria but it should be pretty easy for you to check.
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
DonMigs85 said:
Basically the guidelines are:
1. Disable internet connection under network settings
2. Make sure both consoles have the same firmware version
3. Deactivate the consoles first (though you can do it from the SEN account page)

If I remember right it did take a while before it got past "Please Wait". And it also took me 3 straight days to transfer ~200GB of data to the new console.
Click to expand...

It took me about 15 hours to transfer ~220GB of data, and I didn't disable the connection from the settings, just unplugged it from the modem. The "please wait" period took quite long for me as well.
 
Baron

Baron

Member
endlessflood said:
As long as it's a 2.5" SATA HDD that isn't more than 9.5mm tall you're in business. I'm not sure if the drive you posted meets those criteria but it should be pretty easy for you to check.
Click to expand...

Well that drive would meet those specs, and from the reviews there it seems others have used them in PS3s as well.

Any more insight on the transfer process out there?
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
Baron said:
Well that drive would meet those specs, and from the reviews there it seems others have used them in PS3s as well.

Any more insight on the transfer process out there?
Click to expand...

I did a 40GB to 120GB transfer, obviously much smaller, but the biggest suggestion is to delete anything you don't mind not taking with you.

Most importantly, go into Game Data and delete every game install data that is larger than a few 100MB, I've seen it noted that some games mess with transferring and backing up for some unknown reason and can stop it completing.
The less you have to transfer the less time it will take, any games you haven't played in a year? delete them and download them again later if you want to play them. I would also suggest backing up any saves you really really couldn't stand to lose, just incase, data can be redownloaded but save games are time you will have to make back if lost.
 
M

MoonsaultSlayer

Member
Thread bump hijack. I didn't want to create a new thread.

Just ordered a 500gb HDD to replace my factory 120gb but I can't get the backup utility to work with my external HDD. Now, I've done this in the past so I know that it was formatted correctly. Any tips?

I deleted the previous backup and everything else on it. Do I need to reformat it again? What about allocation? Maybe I didn't allow for enough space previously?
 
Baron

Baron

Member
After multiple tries I finally got the transfer started from my 640GB fat PS3 to my new 1TB drive in a new white slim. But the remaining time has been stuck at 6 hours 47 minutes exactly for 3 hours now. Should I be concerned? I deleted all the game installs beforehand, but there are still large game data files in the drive to be transferred. Also, it's like 550 GB of data. I'm wondering if I should just cancel it now and restart it, or if these sort of endless pauses are normal for the transfer.
 
B

Big Papa Husker

Member
I just got my Momentus XT 750GB in the mail so I'm ready to transfer my data from my PS3 Fat to my Slim. In a lot of the step by step stuff it says to deactivate your old PS3. Do I have to do this? I still plan on using my Fat to play PS2 games, watch Netflix and stuff in another room. Also, does the transfer utility wipe the source PS3?
 
A

androvsky

Member
Big Papa Husker said:
I just got my Momentus XT 750GB in the mail so I'm ready to transfer my data from my PS3 Fat to my Slim. In a lot of the step by step stuff it says to deactivate your old PS3. Do I have to do this? I still plan on using my Fat to play PS2 games, watch Netflix and stuff in another room. Also, does the transfer utility wipe the source PS3?
Click to expand...
Iirc, the transfer utility forces you to deactivate every account in the system, but you can just reactivate them later. The utility only deletes content that can be on one system, like PSN Movie store videos or locked saves... or at least that's what I remember when I ran it a few years ago, I doubt it's changed much.
 
GrayFoxPL

GrayFoxPL

Member
MoonsaultSlayer said:
I've done this in the past, its just not working this time. Do I need to redo that process since I deleted everything on it?
Click to expand...

It must be special FAT32. Some letter added I forgot what it was...

Edit:
I think it's "0xb" type in Partition Wizard or else it won't run.
 
B

bozeman

Member
Sorry to bump but didn't want to create a new thread...

I'm putting a larger HD into my PS3. I've only got an 8 gb USB stick to do a backup utility. Is it possible to take out the older HD, put it in an external case that I've already bought for it, put in the new HD and format it, and then plug in the old HD and do a restore?
 
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